LANTERN 2018 ✦ digital photos, CG, Wacom ✦ illustrated-photography (digital)    This artwork draws inspiration from Nagasaki's famous and long-running Lantern Festival. My six years living in Nagasaki fundamentally changed me - in some obvious ways (that's where I met my wife!) and others more subtle. No matter where I go, I feel that the experiences I had living in Japan have made me look at the world differently and helped me to better shed some of my own cultural baggage and biases. Many aspects of Japanese culture etched themselves deep into me, while some reminded me how foreign I was. The distance I had from my home country made me more critical of its faults, but also more appreciative of its good points. Living abroad helped me to feel stateless - in a good way - and it made me a more internationally-minded person. My previous illustrated-photography piece, Tatemae, dealt with the "masks" that we all wear when interfacing with the world. This deals with some of what's behind my mask, and one of the things that will forever be a part of me is Nagasaki Japan. MODEL: me   LOCATION: Nagasaki JP   MORE INFO: blog post       ✦  details, original concept sketch  ✦ &  Site contents and design © Evan Hayden