A big congratulations to Iris Hu on becoming our latest Unraveled Expert Artist. We are so proud to welcome her as a leader in the community. Her documentary approach to family photography is something we admire greatly. Her framing, compositions and tones stand out and give her work a unique and authentic feel.

Iris is a family and wedding photographer behind Light By Iris Photography. She's based out of Portland Oregon, and having sessions all over the states. She's an extreme introvert, married to a musician and has two incredible kids. Photography is her outlet of creating art. She tells stories in a photojournalistic and artistic style. She believes Wabi-sabi, and this philosophy influences greatly on the way she creates. Her passion is to capture feeling rather than taking beautiful pictures. She hopes her photos can bring poeplein that time in that place, where she was, feel what she feels that time when she took photos.

For more Inspiration from Iris:

Instagram | Website | Facebook

Here is Iris, Unraveled…

What inspires your art? 

Light, locations, movies with good cinematography and soundtrack, and any little things that gives me feelings.

What do you shoot with? Camera body and favorite lens? 

I keep my gears very minimal:
R6
RF50mm 1.2 + EF 35mm 1.4

For wedding photography, I also use R5 and EF85mm 1.2.

What other ways do you express your creativity?

Painting and Illustration.
When I was very young, my dream job is an illustrator.

How do you de-stress at the end of the day? 

curl up on my couch, reading or playing Nintendo switch games.

What kind of music do you listen to while editing? 

Lately songs from the Strokes and Finneas.
But really I love ALL kinds of music and listen to ALL kinds of music while editing except for country music and R&B.

What is your favorite book? 

I love all Douglas Adams books, and favorite is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
and all books by Haruki Murakami.

Name one movie that inspires you. 

Many many to choose. But first a couple come to my mind:
Call me by your name
Blade Runner (2019)
Love letter by Shunji Iwai

How do you handle self-doubt or creative slumps? 

Honestly, I'm the person not having much self-doubt moment often. Not at all coz I'm confident. It's simply coz I don't think too much generally, so I don't think much about if I'm good or not. I don't compare to others and usually just do what I feel like to do. I noticed some photographers have self-doubt when theirs works not getting many likes on social media. These things just don't bother me, maybe coz I'm an outlier my whole life, so I'm very used to not getting many likes and attention. I don't get bothered by what other people think about me.
When comes to creative slumps, I just try to shoot different things in different ways. I get bored if shoot at same locations, same light and same looks. Not popular opinion, I let my clients to pick locations, and I don't do location scouting, so that I go to a new location without have a set mind what/how to shoot before going. That's also the reason I love shoot in-home sessions, because every house is different and offers different space and light condition to create. I also shoot at anytime of the day, and let clients to pick their own outfits. By doing these, every session is very different -- unexpected light, new area to explore, just like to have adventure with each family, every single session is not replicable. I think this kind of unpredictable keeps me not burnt out, and carry on my passion to create.

What has been the most difficult part of your creative journey?

My husband and I often joked about we are struggled artists. We moved a lot. For past 10 years, we moved 8 times. And not mentioning cross country from Michigan to Austin, Austin to Nasvhille, and then Nasvhille to Oregon. And as immigrants, we don't have any friends and families when we moved to a new city. It's hard for me as a business owner to starting over my business at a place we knew no one again and again. It's not just for creativity journey per say, but when I have to start over again, I need to put so much efforts on building up business in a saturated market, than just purely enjoying the creative part of this work.

What is your favorite pizza topping?

pineapple and bacon

What is your most favorite kind of light and why?

I have sessions anytime of the day, and love shoot both indoor and outdoor, so it's hard to say the one favorite kind of light. I will say though I love to shoot when light changes a lot, so my least kind of light situation is the cloudy/overcasting day. I love dim indoor ambient light, so I can create a feeling that most speaks to my heart. I also love the golden hour light particularly on the beach, because within one hour it changes dramatically from harsh to gold and to blue hour.

Who is one of your favorite photographers? 

Daidō Moriyama