The Story of a Photographer

I am Cecilia Wang.

I was born and raised in China, and at the age of 23, I immigrated to the United States.

For the first thirty years of my life, I followed the path my parents had planned for me: attend business school, earn a graduate degree, work a 9-to-5 corporate job, get married by thirty, and have children.

Photography was never part of the plan. Neither was art.

Despite my unquenchable love for photography, I was never encouraged to pursue it as a career. In my parents’ eyes, it wasn’t a “real job,” and pursuing something outside the path I had been given would mean wasting the degree I had worked so hard to earn.

Then the pandemic happened.

It changed the world in countless ways, but for me, it also changed the way I looked at my own life. The things I once thought were important no longer felt as important. I began asking myself a different question:

When I am on my deathbed, what will I regret not doing?

Why not chase the dream?

Even if I failed, I would at least know that I had tried. I wanted to know what it felt like to be a photographer.

So, in April 2022, after sending both of my sons to preschool, I finally gave myself permission to pursue the dream I had carried quietly for so many years.

I started from scratch.

I taught myself Photoshop and Lightroom. I asked almost everyone I could find to model for me so I could practice—my neighbors, random people I ran into at the mailbox, my children’s drum teacher, my friends, my guests ... When I visited friends in Washington, D.C., I brought my backdrops and studio lights with me on the airplane, simply because I wanted to photograph them.

Photography brought me an unexpected kind of joy.

The heavy equipment. Running through the hills. Chasing golden light. Coming home exhausted and spending hours editing.

None of it felt like work.

If I was doing something related to photography, I simply wasn’t tired.

The Human Face

I am a portrait photographer.

Honestly, I don't quite know how to take a photograph unless there is a person in it.

To me, it is the human being who gives a photograph its soul.

I am fascinated by human faces—the endless emotions and expressions, the texture of skin, the eyes, the bone structure, the subtle transition of shadow and light across a cheekbone or jawline.

I find these details extraordinarily beautiful.

To me, the human face is one of the most delicate and magnificent masterpieces of art. Almost divine.

After all, we were created in the image of God.

I have always been an old soul and a lover of the fine arts. I am drawn to the richness and opulence of oil paintings, particularly the work of Rembrandt and the masters of the past.

I have also always been a silent observer.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved watching people—the way they move, the way they look at one another, the expressions that appear on their faces when they think no one is watching.

But I was always afraid of being caught staring.

So I found the safest place to observe from:

behind the camera.

And perhaps that is why photography feels so natural to me.

My Purpose

Being a photographer, I believe, is ultimately about showing people something they may not always see in themselves.

A masterpiece.

My job is not simply to make someone look beautiful. It is to reveal something that was already there—the quiet confidence, the tenderness, the strength, the vulnerability, the character, the soul.

Auguste Rodin once said, “My pleasure is my only guide.”

I couldn't agree more.

For me, photographing people is truly a pleasure.

I could do this all day.