First Touch
第一次触球My son is two and a half. This series starts the first time he put a foot on a ball; since then I photograph once a month, with no end date.
In football, the first touch is the simplest of things and the hardest: the ball arrives, and you bring it to rest at your feet. A child does it in a second; professionals spend careers correcting it. Nothing is more ordinary — everything on the pitch begins with this one act. Nothing is less ordinary — the first touch sets the direction of all that follows.
The first touch: simple, but not easy — the principle takes one sentence, the practice takes a lifetime. And this project runs on the same discipline: don't chase every ball — wait for the one that is truly his; photograph once a month, never hurry; no end date, like a holding one never intends to sell. Leave ordinary days alone long enough and they pay their own interest.
My studio is called Xunchang — “the ordinary” — and it means the same thing: ordinary moments deserve no ordinary attention. As for him, I am in no hurry for him to become practised. May the ball stay new to him — may every touch be the first touch of his life.
Home video
Two years and one month old, in our living room. Shot on a phone, and not presented as work — it is here because this is the kind of moment the project grew out of.