Christine Chang Photography

The thought of entering someone’s home wasn’t a very thrilling concept a few months ago. In the past if I wanted to photograph a person in their home it took alot of asking, waiting, and prepping. But then my editor would tell me that the assignment is due tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, and then I realized, fear is a powerful thing. Fear made me think of everything but the positive: what if I get hurt, what if someone locks the door behind me and I never get out of there, what if they say no, and what if I knock on every door and no one lets me in.

The first time I had to do this type of assignment (I call it Home Entry assignments), I had to photograph people who live in low-income housing, and it was the most difficult thing, because with many homes I was talking to immigrants. I came from an immigrant family, so for the most part I know how many immigrants react to the media (usually with fear and distrust). So with my own background baggage I was knocking at every door, and people said what I expected: They took a look at my camera and my little girl smile and they said No. Absolutely not. You cannot come in.

But…I still needed to complete the assignment. So I went there a second time later on and I heard the same things. There was a bit of light at the end of the tunnel though, as one family let me in….to photograph their interior. None of them would get into the picture. Not exactly failure, but it still didn’t fulfill the assignment.

The third time I went there I went with the reporter, who was a big help to me. He had reported on many stories where he has had to go from door to door with his notepad in order to write the article. And lo and behold, an immigrant family warmly invited me into their home, with one thing in their living room: a couch with a bedsheet over it. By then I was so tired I didn’t really even care about artistic angles or lighting. I just asked them to sit on the couch and let me take that family photo.

That was a few months ago. I’ve done many home entry assignments since then, and I can’t say that more people have let me into their homes and it’s a piece of cake right now, but being rejected is alot easier on me now. I just thank them for their time and move on. I’m also a bit better at the door-to-door salesman thing. I try to sell them the idea that I am trying to portray the truth about a story and I need their help, because I do. I even did an extensive photo shoot with one woman and she called me later not wanting any pictures to be published. Fine, I can deal.

On the positive side, as usual with my photo endeavors, I met alot of interesting people. The lady above had been a journalist all of her life and we got to really connect in our passion for telling a story, and it was great listening to her travel experiences. I also met Sylvester Stallone’s stunt double (I guessed it when he said he was a stunt double), and he told me about how he was asked to but didn’t stunt double for the movie 300 because he wasn’t sure back then whether it was going to be a big film or not…little details like that really make my day.