My name is Sue Harker. I am a 27 year old South African female. I have no formal training in photography, but it has become a passion of mine over the last 2 years. I spent 3 years in Taiwan from November 2004 to October 2007. I taught English in Taiwan until I became ill in November of 2006. I underwent brain surgery on February 12 2007. It will take me 2 years to recover, so I am currently halfway to a ‘clean bill of health’.
All the photos in this collection were taken in Taipei, Taiwan.
New Eyes
After my surgery I employed a Phillipino woman, Dina (who can be seen in photograph no. 9) to look after me while I recovered. In April of 2007 I was strong enough to attempt short walks around my neighbourhood, accompanied by Dina. I soon began to take my camera along on these daily walks because what I saw amazed me. I had been housebound for 5 months and the neighbourhood that I had lived in for 2 years suddenly looked completely different. I was actually looking at the world around me instead of running through it. I was seeing everything with new eyes, a fresh mind. People fail to see the fascinating detail in the ordinary, the everyday as they are always too busy running somewhere else.
Taipei is a chaotic city; full of dirty nooks and crannies, ugly buildings awash with grime, grey cement and green foliage, tiny alleys piled with garbage. It is a city alive with texture and form. This collection is an attempt to portray the beauty and the strangeness inherent in the ordinary with the use of close-up shots taken from different angles to challenge the eye. It is also an attempt to document the oxymoronic tableaux of Taipei, the combination of city and nature with a hint of the absurd. The intrusive wires, human clutter and skew angles of the photographs are shown on purpose in an attempt to truly portray this gritty, lopsided city. None of the photos were staged I just shot what I saw. I didn’t want to create ‘studio perfect’ images I wanted to portray reality in all its ugliness. I wish to confront the audience with inexplicable images that need to be closely studied and sometimes cannot be fully explained. This is how it feels to be a foreigner in Taiwan, some things are just bizarre and you learn to accept that sometimes you don’t know or understand what is going on.
Life is not perfect. Reality is messy. Cities (especially Taipei) are ugly. Humans are slovenly. But if you look with new eyes, the chaotic and the ordinary become breathtaking.
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Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty One
Twenty Two
Twenty Three
Twenty Four 
Twenty five
Twenty six
