It started as a passing thought — one of those background flickers you almost don’t notice. I was standing in Shanghai’s M50 Art Zone, waiting for someone, sipping the perfect coffee, staring at cracked tiles and old air conditioning units when I realised I was being photographed.
Not once. Not twice. But constantly.
Every thirty seconds or so, someone would stop, raise a phone or a camera, and take my picture. Sometimes subtly, sometimes not. They didn’t smile or nod, didn’t ask or linger. Just a quick capture and gone. Like street photography with no pretense of art. Like documenting a building.
At first I felt flattered. Then curious. Then slightly hunted. But eventually, I stopped reacting. Because that’s the thing — in China, you can photograph anyone, anywhere. No one raises an eyebrow. And everywhere is a potential shoot.
There’s something beautifully surreal about it. The city is in a constant state of self-documentation. Every faded wall, every rusted pipe, every person with a vaguely interesting silhouette is repurposed as content. Reality as raw material for performance.
This image came from that moment — or more accurately, from what the moment felt like. The woman in the pink blouse was real, she was focused, absorbed, dressed to be seen. But not separate from the scene, part of the fabric of the place.
She’s watching something. Maybe me. Maybe someone else. Maybe nothing. But she holds the frame. Like they all did.
I wasn’t in a city. I was in a film set that never called “cut.”
I was a prop. And I liked it.
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