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Enoch Ku (US),
Ordinary Sacramento
(1) Please introduce yourself: What is your name, where are you from, what do you do?
Yooo my name is Enoch Ku and I’m an actor and photographer from Sacramento, CA.
(2) What is your relationship with photography and how did you get into it?
I got my first DSLR camera, a Nikon d40, in my last year in university and after graduating I ended up taking a photography class at a local community college to learn more about photography. Eventually I got a job as a product photographer for a local business and from there I began to shoot weddings and engagements. All the while this was happening I was really trying to find my own voice as a photographer. Photography really began as a hobby and then a job, but now with Ordinary Sacramento I’ve been experiencing photography as an art form and I love it.
(3) What do you think triggers you to photograph in a certain moment? Is it planned or solely driven by intuition?
Aside from choosing an area to walk through and explore, my Ordinary Sacramento project is never planned. The ethos behind my project is the belief that there are beautiful ordinary moments happening all around us, waiting to be found. The question I end up trying to ask myself is will I be slow enough to notice them? For me capturing an ordinary moment can be anything, a shadow or an interesting shape. It’s whatever captures my eye and makes me stop to look closer.
(4) What is the story you want your pictures to tell?
I know I have a story to tell with my photography but it’s not something I want to impose upon a person looking at my photos. For me rather than a story, my aim is to invite the viewer to share in a moment of ordinary life with me and to feel something, whether that be a moment of peace or the enjoyment of a humorous moment.
(5) Which city would you like to visit the most, and why?
To be honest I have no clue. I’m still so enthralled by the simple moments of my city that I haven’t thought about traveling anywhere else… but if we’re talking about food, I want to visit Seoul.
(6) What is your personal relationship to cities and how do you perceive them as places in general?
Something I’ve learned from working on my book My Neighborhood Rosemont, CA is that no matter how well or beautifully a neighborhood/city is designed and built, it is really the people that call that space home that bring the place to life. They bring the character and color to the area, they are the ones responsible for bringing life. Beautiful people make a neighborhood beautiful.
(7) What is the driving force behind creation?
I don’t know if I can answer such a broad question but for me I think the driving force behind my creation is the outward expression of my inner life and the full spectrum of my experiences.
(8) Which project did you never finish?
I’ve been slowly working on two projects that are interrelated: a book about my dad and our relationship and more broadly the relationship between Asian American males and their dad. It’s been hard to work on because it's very personal to me. Like other father-son relationships there are many layers, stories, hurts, and highs and I believe in order to have a meaningful story to tell I need to work through these things in my own life.
(9) What is that «one thing» you have never managed to photograph and is now gone for good?
Although I don’t recall a specific moment where I have felt that way, I do feel a sense of disappointment in missing a moment but nothing that has stuck with me well after. I think it helps to trust that ordinary moments are always occurring and that there will always be the next one. I never want to be bogged down by the idea that I’ll never come across a more beautiful or memorable moment again.
(10) If you could travel back / forth in time, what advice would you give your younger / older self?
«Hurry is the greatest enemy to spiritual life. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.» I think I could have avoided a lot of pain and hardship if I had chosen to slow down and not rush through my life, but then again I am who I am now because of the lessons learned through them.
(11) What do you prefer saying: To «take a photograph» or to «make a photograph», and why?
I think I feel more comfortable with «take a photograph» because as a photographer I view myself as an observer of the environment around me. I come across moments in life, I never create them.
(12) What is the most interesting experience you have had while photographing?
As someone who wanders into spaces that don’t often get visitors with a camera, I have been confronted by people who view me as suspicious or a threat. I used to try and explain the aim of my project but that led to a lot of over explaining which made them even more hostile. I’ve learned that a simple explanation that I’m a student of photography on assignment often softens the person and diffuses the situation entirely.
(13) If it wasn’t for photography, what would you be interested in doing instead?
If it wasn’t for photography I would probably be a better actor! But in all honesty I can’t see myself pursuing anything else, both provide space and opportunity for reflection and personal discovery that I don’t experience anywhere else.
(14) How would you describe one of your pictures to a visually impaired person?
This is such a great question! I think an ordinary moment is not confined to only the visual experience but it also engages the other senses. A nice breeze on the skin during spring, the smell of fresh baked bread as you walk past a bakery, the feeling of sun light on your face during the summer, the sound of a wind chime, the taste of a cold watermelon on a hot day; all these moments are ordinary but simple and beautiful to enjoy. I would describe my photography as a conscious awareness to the mundane moments of life.
(15) What are you currently working on, and—if there is—what is your next project or journey?
Currently I’m working on the release of my first photography book My Neighborhood Rosemont, CA. After the project wraps up I have a lot of different ideas that combine personal interests alongside the Ordinary Sacramento project. Also I think I’ll be moving back to my project about father-son relationships. It’s a vulnerable project that scares me a little, but I’ve learned that if I feel scared then I know that there is something there worth pursuing.
Thank you, Enoch.
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Images
1–32 Enoch Ku, Ordinary Sacramento, 2020–2021.
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