Stephanie Teng wants to build a more empathetic world through photography that challenges conventional beauty standards and finds strength in vulnerability
As a psychology major at university, Stephanie Teng took a photography class on a whim and found herself transported by the dark room. “Not feeling any sense of time or space was really magical to me, along with the act of printing and developing your own photographs—watching your perspective of the world come to life in a water bath,” she says.
Teng’s perspective as a professional photographer reflects her ongoing fascination with psychology. Her fine art projects tend to double as therapy and empowerment sessions with her subjects, delving into questions of self-worth and belonging. Meanwhile, working on commercial and editorial fashion shoots has given Teng an appreciation of the ongoing pressure to meet unrealistic beauty standards; women often see their images and ask her to make them look thinner.
“I’ll tell them, ‘But you look great, I wish you could see yourself the way I see you or how other people see you,’” says Teng, a native Hongkonger. “I still struggle with that myself… hopefully telling more of these stories and talking about my own vulnerabilities and insecurities can really help other people too.”
Below Teng reveals the stories and struggles behind her favourite photographs.
You're reading Through Her Lens, our series showcasing the female visual viewpoint—and launched in partnership with The Women's Foundation, which strives to challenge gender stereotypes, empower women in poverty, and increase the number of women in leadership roles
A Body of Work
This series was born out of my own struggles with self-worth and body image. I was coming out of a bad relationship and went to London in August 2018 for a course with Magnum Photos and London College of Communications. It’s a very serendipitous story because I met seven strangers who are now some of the closest people that I know because I know the history of their relationship with their bodies from childhood.