Capturing Life in Its Fundamental Form

Xing Lei is a black and white photographer known for his distinctive style, blending elements of reality and dreams. In recent months, he has been photographing natural scenes with the Q3 Monochrom and working alongside a film crew in the Yangtze River Delta. He later travelled to Indonesia, where he found the perfect environment to capture intense sunlight and dramatic cloudy skies, thanks to its equatorial proximity. He particularly enjoyed photographing at night and found the entire trip deeply liberating.

For over sixteen years, Xing Lei has worked almost exclusively in black and white. Nostalgia plays a central role in his work, shaping a visual language rooted in memory and early experiences, including growing up with a black-and-white television. To him, black and white offers a more fundamental way of seeing, focused on light, contrast and form rather than colour. 

He found the Q3 Monochrom performed better than much of his 35mm film work. The grey scale was remarkably smooth with distinct separation that other cameras often lose. One of his favourite shots was taken at midnight on Malioboro Street in Indonesia. The street turned busy and bustling by performers and fruit sellers who only appeared at night.

Thanks to the camera’s exceptional high ISO performance, he could shoot in complete freedom. With his aperture set at f/2 or f/1.7 and shutter speed never dropped below 1/125s, the Q3 Monochrom gave him plenty of room to create in low light conditions.