Winston Zhou Photography (2024)

31/10/2024

happy halloween this year my costume is "food poisoning victim" LMFAO i woke up at like 5am to the feeling of my stomach churning with the force of an Amish mom making butter for dinner Tonight. but we're still alive, so there's that.

Some new work I got to create with that was featured on / .

Exploring our beloved chili crisp on opposing scales with simple still life studies. i wanted something simple, but quirky to show off the custom design work by .
and on a smaller scale, the ingredient that brings all chili crisps together: the oil. what kind of oil is being used? how much oil is there compared to the solid crunchies?

also a bonus sparkles frame because i am a stage 4 terminal sparkle fan

in more EXCITING news: a few weeks ago I celebrated my birthday and while I forwent the route of a party with friends, the gift i recieved was arguably better than any party that could've been thrown. the original plan was to get some pho and go to a thrift store, find a tacky shirt, and call it a day. INSTEAD, i ended up going home with a frickin 10 CUP ZOJIRUSHI FUZZY LOGIC RICE COOKER. that girl is like $300 and i bought it for $10!!!!!! alexa play Bad Bitch Academy by Paris Hilton.
ya girl loves a deal, and this was a STEAL of a lifetime!!!! haven't had the chance to make any rice cooker meals in it yet but like if anyone has any recommendations i am multiple ear holes open for them.

shot on: sonyalpha
processed: /
2 light setup:
photo by:
design by:

23/10/2024

My good friends at recently took 2nd place as 's "Best Independent Coffee Shop" in the entire US of A! The whole country! That's so incredible ! I'm not sure how many coffee shops there are in the country but there are at least 3, for sure. My first time here was just a short 2 years ago on a crazy first date, and quickly became an absolute cornerstone of my schedule in the logistical, digestive, AND emotional sense.
Like i don't know about y'all but I've never seen another shop with a giant taxidermied Moose named Bruce who I would certainly love to take out on a date if he's ever available on a Thursday night and would be interested in going to get Chinese takeout and squat on a curb in the parking lot as we eat our walnut shrimp, fried eggplant, crab rangoon, spicy green beans, and one pork egg roll as we watch local pigeons strut down the street like they're walking in the Iris Van Herpen SS24 show. i've just never seen that anywhere else. idk about you tho. anyways my favorite order is the iced matcha latte with whatever kind of milk the staff feels good about, and a scone.

anyways I shot these images for them a while back. aren't they cute? go getcha some coffee and show some love. go birds or whatever

shot on: sonyalpha A7iii
processed: and
photo by:

15/10/2024

this was a wonderful afternoon with a wonderful friend. spent like 2 hours gabbing, taking some photos, and gushing over flowers but somehow i remember nothing we spoke about (but also everything, in my internal delusion). perfect day; no notes. more flower photos to come.

in frame:
shot on A7iii
processed: and

long caption yapping for Mx. Algo --
i literally kid you not when i say that i sat in front of my computer for a solid 15 minutes trying to figure out a caption for this post before deleting everything i had written and just resigning myself to writing a complain caption LOL. writing captions was never something that was super difficult for me -- it's literally just a space to blab about things that should otherwise go onto a personal blog. but there's so much stuff that's happened since the last post and this one......it'd be easier to just ease myself back into posting rather than beat myself up about never mustering up the gumption to post some jpgs online. stressing? over social media? preposterous.

21/08/2024

something something something dont talk to me in the morning until i've had my cup of room temp water, pepto bismol, ibuprofen, lexapro, chobani greek yogurt, soy milk with just a little honey, soft boiled egg, 1 shortbread cookie, hairline reconstruction surgery, 25 minute nap, morning bathroom deposit, daily fiber supplements, blueberry scone, 1/8th glass of leftover beer from last night, a quick cry, another cookie, slice of cake, and cup of hojicha.

shot on griii
processed

01/08/2024

okay i totally meant to post this like a week ago but i accidentally agreed to more than one social activity/week and was contractually forced to take a leave of absence (in the form of lying supine on my couch trying to remind myself what the hell has happened on The Boys in preparation for this newest season).

thank you 10Q thank you to everyone who came to hang out at the first WKND BLEND popup!!!!! such a good good time hanging with .donuts and :>

i do have a few prints that are still available for porchase, so i'll be posting those in batches. this first round will be 11x14s.

in frame: .donuts
shot on ricoh griii
processed: and

18/07/2024

hi hi hej hello

this saturday 07.20.24 i will be at along with .donuts and slingin goodies from 8:30-11:30am!

i no longer sell prints through my online shop but there will be a limited edition run of some of my favorite photos available for yoinking! the earliest birds will get a fun little worm from me for free.99 too 🙂

in unrelated news, i started watching a kdrama again after 10+ years and the way that it has me HOOKED? if you watched Marry My Husband and loved/hated it, i would love to gab about it with you!
(in hindsight, it's not really something i'd rewatch BUT the experience of watching a drama while sipping on some free airplane wine and eating a chunky cookie is unmatched)

30/05/2024

this is very very not too smart of me but recently I did figure out that if I wanted a vietnamese iced coffee in the morning, i didn't have to pour the mix into a cup of hot water from the office keurig and then freeze the cup....i could just pour in a few oz of hot water so that it properly dissolved and then just fill the cup with ice? ???? like OBVIOUSLY?
clearly I am not the brightest fork in the shed. nor am I a real coffee drinker. this has dramatically changed my office life for the better, and simultaneously made my skin much worse because of the insane injection of sugar and caffeine. you win some, you lose some.

Anyways these are some frames from a test shoot with last year. As seen on my 2023 Year-end Review. The Zelda to see the blog post is in my chemistry.

Setup:
Photo by
Shot on A7III, Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro
Processed in:
Backdrop: Primary Red
2 light setup:
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22/05/2024

a few weeks ago a buncha friends and i made a pilgrimage to LA to celebrate a friends graduation! in the time leading up to the trip, there wasn't a week where i wasn't blowing up the groupchat at some odd hour of the night wondering what kind of camera(s) i should bring on the trip.

like yeah there's something to be said about turning your brain fully off a la jellied toast fall on the floor jelly side down. but also there's part of me that always feels like i should be taking every opportunity i have to make photos, yknow?

in the end i decided to bring my ricoh and my DS and to put 0 effort into taking photos outside of random group selfies. the photos are absolute dog but i don't regret a thing. it was good to have some time off.

instagram auntie algo seems to like when i run my mouth in the caption. here are some frames from some work i did with featuring the wonderful .shop

Setup:
Photo by
Shot on A7III, Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro
Processed in:
Backdrop: Bone
Props:
2 light setup:
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14/05/2024

two frames from a recent session with .handmade . possibly still available for sale at and if you're a lucky dog.

Setup:
Photo and styling by
Shot on A7III, Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro
Processed in:
Props sourced from
2 light setup:

30/04/2024

many many things happening all of the time! i'm just trying to get a little caught up on sharing work. at some point the full series will be posted on the blogarama but for now, a couple of my favorite frames from the 2023 review will do.

something i've been trying to grow in the past few months/year is figuring out how to best arrange and show my photos. there's an aspect to art direction that plays a large role in the success of an image, but the presentation of it plays an equally important role. you can only grill a cheese so many ways when posting on instagram, but head on over to the actual blog post to see them in their full context :)

unrelated to anything, but my favorite breakfast the past few weeks has been a cuppa soy milk (not the pre-sweetened kind....it's good but it's way too much sugar), and greek yogurt with apple butter and peanut butter. i get into these greek yogurt phases where i just wanna eat it with everything? roasted veg? herby yogurt dip. granola? plain yogurt with a lil honey. federal taxes? yogurt with a side of 4 beers.

test shoot centered around ramen.
1-3. JIN Ramen
4.
5. JIN - Shot on RICOH

Setup:
Photo by
Shot on A7III, Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro
Processed in:
2 light setup:

17/04/2024

we got that new new on the blogalogoaloga! this time we've got dear dear friend and the wonderful contestants from our favorite Baltimore holiday: BLOOM BATTLE !

last night for dinner i had something that i'm quite confident should have sent my spirit to the shadow realm but as we all know: youth is wasted on the young. so here i am. it was air fried potatoes, mozzy, hummus, kimchi, sour cream+chili sauce, a few wood ear mushrooms, and some korean dried squid. my fridge was extremely empty. it was fine. i just need a damn salad.

also if you havent signed up for Ellen's email list yet, get ON it!! i havent read anything on a weekly basis with as much fervor since I was in college and ingesting 98 pages of the assigned reading for a test happening in 45 seconds. a good student, i was not. a fan of the wonderful flower information she drops in every installation, i am.

29/02/2024

something i really put a lot more effort into for this second year-in-review was the color stories between images, and how images fit into a larger gallery as opposed to being a collection of individual pieces.

this was a set of images shot on the ricoh griii. swipe to the end to see how they play together in the actual post. zelda in chemistry (link in bio) to see the full set of my favorite images from 2023.

unrelated to any of that, but i was buying some crafty for a production the other day and was thinking "it's 5 people.....we'll have water but do we need 1 or 2 cases of seltzer?" the correct answer on a physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual level was 2 cases. especially since I touched my water bottle a grand total of one (1) time, and had 7 cans of that delicious sparkling grapefruit/lime essence.

23/02/2024

this past year or so has been a huge period of change in my life. i started eating naan and hummus for dinner a lot more, got a buncha new plants to take care of in lieu of having human children, and started to really dive into food and still life photography having finally gotten access to studio space!

as i mentioned in my year-end review: this year you get not one, not three, but TWO(!) annual reviews! the last one was funky personal work for gregorian new years. this one i'm sharing now for lunar new year is what i'm aiming for in a more professional capacity!
i'm so so so so so grateful to have been able to work with so many incredible, fantastic, juicy, delicious people this past year. let's keep it going for 2024! please check it out on the blogorama!

winstonzhou[dot]com/blog

ever since I took my last self portrait in like....2020 I'd been MEANING to get something updated but somehow things just never quite connected. Until NOW! last weekend and i got together to gab and swap headshots for each other! so so so happy with how it turned out. it was high time for me to get an updated photo -- especially since i've lost 20 inches of hair between 2020 and now.

as seen in this post:
1. egg head photographer available for hire
3. .handmade knives shot at Prop Up Shop
4. 농심 (Nongshim)
5. Object History
6. Ekiben
7. Jinji Chocolate
8. Local Color Flowers

tl;dr -- your local kiwi head shaped photographer has a new post on the blog with his favorite images from 2023. he also has a sultry new headshot. check out the lunar review on the blog.

thanks for a delicious 2023. happy lunar new year.

05/01/2024

hej hi hello! a few years ago i bought this locking cabinet when i was moving to this weird apartment. the landlord was weirdly using our den/guest bedroom as his office and bringing his friends over to party during peak covid times? anyways i didn't trust him at all but also realized that the cabinet was too big to assemble in our space so it literally sat unassembled for 7 months, and even after i moved to a new apartment it remained that way for another year LMAO. anyways a few months ago i finally mustered up the gusto to assemble it!!! woohoo! if i fits, i sits.

but for something that i didn't have to try very hard to muster up the energy for is my annual year-in-review post! every single year I try to do something newfor the post to keep things fresh, and this year is no different. the twist this time around is that im doing it in TWO parts. The first part is up on the blog now! It contains the best of the photos that were shot for personal purposes, or otherwise might not fit into my food/still-life portfolio.

also, as a fun little game for ya: these photos were shot on six (6!!!!!!) different cameras included in this collection. can you tell which ones are which?

the cameras I used:
- Nikon Coolpix S230
- Sony A7iii
- Ricoh GRIII
- Nintendo 3DS
- Fujifilm X-M1
- Fujifilm Quicksnap Flash 400

compared to last year, things were a bit of a whirlwind this time around. and I'm just that much more thankful for every single person who's worked with me, commented on my intelligible posts, given me feedback, shared a meal with me, adjusted my bidet water pressure with me, or supported me in any way. if you'd like to make something awesome together in 2024, please send me a message. my 2024 year in review (part one) is on the blog via my linktree.

i'm gooped, gagged, and grateful.
truly, thank you.

- winston

20/12/2023

hej hi hello no time to write a whole post like normal but look at this BEAUTIFUL cake by !!!!! i was fortunate enough to pick up a slice when she did a pop-up at a few weeks ago! I grabbed the cake, ran home and took like 2 photos before HORFING it down with my dinner. fantastic.

side news: I'm taking my print shop down at the end of the year to shift to a more limited release format. I don't have the capacity to be updating it as much as I'd like, and it's started to feel like more of a hassle than a boon. but THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who has purchased anything! I literally keep screenshots of you posting them in a folder for when im sad so like y'all are the reason I haven't parkoured off the planet yet 🥺 but i'll be bringing them back at some point :) don't you worry.

alright be safe, drink some water. peace out.

Setup:
Photo by
Shot on A7III, Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro
Processed in:
1 Light setup from

28/11/2023

it's almost december! anyone that's been following me for a while knows i do this, but every year I try to take some time to do a deep dive into all of the photos i've created that year as part of my annual review process. this is a chance to slow down and sort out the best photos from the year, and take a look at how i've grown since the previous year. like YEAH i guess it's some more work when the vibes are strictly for bing chilling but at the same time this is something i think is really beneficial for anyone in the creative field! videographers, illustrators, designers, photographers, stylists, woodworkers (not you "content creators" lmao), all the works. anyways back in the day i'd put a strict timeline on myself for getting this thing done but now i feel like it's really not that serious to get done within a certain time period (the lesson here is that none of this is that serious to begin with tbh).

if you're a professional creative and are interested in doing an annual review of your work but don't know where to start, holler at me!

here are some quick test frames from a new neighborhood favorite, ! in frame is the hibiscus white chocolate....that has a GORGEOUS fuschia!
also light testing with the hoya vs tiffen filters for the soft discopop vs subtle glimmer effect in the last 2 images :)

Setup:
Photo by
Sony A7iii, Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro
Processed in:
1 Light setup from

13/11/2023

a little testing with donuts from

unsure about the results. i think we need more donuts.....for science.

24/10/2023

ring ring ring goes the telephone. no long story this time around. just some beautiful rings from the one and only . thanks for the bling

Photo by
Sony A7III, Sony FE 90mm F/2.8 Macro
Processed in: /
4 Light setup with

03/10/2023

first ever unboxing video yesterday and it was sooooo fun! thank you mother nature for sending me such a thoughtful care package of one (1) dead wasp!!!!

last week i was working at home when i heard a furious buzzing at my window. i thought it was a housefly so i got my flyswatter and prepared for murder. when i got closer, i realized it was a fu**in WASP. so the natural next step was to put it in a box and wait for it to die -- i'm not allergic to bee stings but we're not playing with wasps, mama. anyways it was put into the box and kept there until i was CERTAIN it wouldn't come out and sting me to death. so that's that.

Anyways here are some flowers from the one and only ! Dhalias, celosia, eucalyptus, and an incredible rose from

Shot by
Lit with 2 lights and some very soft gels.
Processed in:

12/09/2023

at the start of the year i had an inkling of a thought that this year i'd want to buy a new camera again...but like a semi serious one as opposed to a $20 point and shoot off facebook marketplace. NOT that those cheap cameras are bad! i love em. but i knew that i wanted something pocket sized, with the ability to create files that i could actually print, and no fidgeting with diff lenses and whatnot. So after researching for the better part of 7 months, then procrastinating for another month, and then finally switching directions entirely in the final weeks: i've gone and purchased a GRIII! Can't wait to start playing with it.

here's a frame from a little test shoot. no fancy bottle setup, no whitebox kit. just some good, simple light.

shot by
Sony A7III, Sony FE 90mm F/2.8 Macro
processed in:
1 light setup from

07/09/2023

a few weeks ago in a moment of absolute clarity that i was not going to be able to eat all of the fruit in my fridge (read: 2 mangos and a small package of cherries). i decided to cut them up and infuse them in a bottle of sake i bought a while back. let the fruit sit in the sake for a few days, and then took them out and froze them. the experiment for more interesting tasting sake was only a partial success....but maybe sometime before the summer ends the boozy woozy fruit can become a little blended treat for papa?

here's another frame from a shoot with the one and only,

shot by
Sony A7III, Sony FE 90mm F/2.8 Macro
2 light setup with
Processed in: one pro /

23/08/2023

something else that i've only recently come to appreciate is FLOWERS! when i was younger, i remembered my sister would take the roses she'd get from high school theater shows and hang them upside down to dry. i would do the same....but you don't get too many when you're hunched over in the pit orchestra cave pit, haha. And then for years and years I thought nothing of florals beyond occasional wedding purposes. UNTIL semi recently! It's cliche, but I really do enjoy the romance of enjoying them fresh, but also when they've dried out.

Anyways here are some dhalias from the one and only ! They're some of my favorite flowers and I've been patiently waiting for them all year. swipe to the end to see a version with/out the juicy little water spray.

Shot by
Lit with 2 lights and some very soft gels.
Processed in:

16/08/2023

oh man oh man oh man a lot to talk about today. first things first: I changed my handle to !

Over the last like, month or two I've been pestering my friends about potential alternative usernames i could switch to, and the pros/cons of those names. but ultimately i realized that the answer is quite literally right under my nose. it sorta feels like when you've been trying to cook something with a recipe you didn't know was botched...and eventually decide to cook it the poc way and that's exactly what gets you the result you want. or something like that. i never cook with a recipe, for better or for worse.

this reminded me of a moment when i was back in college. i had flown out to louisville to meet a photographer, and we were chilling in their house after a shoot one day. we were talking about branding, and the different methods of presentation that people use for themselves online vs in real life. he made an off-hand comment about how it'd probably make sense for me to brand myself with my name because it's just fairly unique. if i knew back then what i know now, i would've instantly Jumped on that train but alas...i was a stupid 19 year old kid haha! for so long, i'd shirked away from using my name for so long because i always felt it was too extra. but in some ways, i guess i've sort of grown into it as well?

and now for the MORE exciting stuff: here's the first of a few frames I was able to make when graciously allowed me to bumble my way through prop styling in their studio! thank you for helping guide me through this process!

in frame is a beautiful knife from the one and only .handmade . thanks for letting me fiddle around with that good good.

Photo/Retouching/Styling:
Assist:
Knife: .handmade
Studio/Props:
Sony A7III, Sony FE 90mm F/2.8 Macro
Processed in: /
2 light setup by

10/08/2023

many many moons ago i had the pleasure of photographing as part of an ongoing project about makers.

if you need some stellar fabrication work done, then Lawrence is your MAN. wood, steel, fantasies. he does it.

if you or someone you know makes cool stuff, lemme know! i'd love to photograph them and their process.

01/08/2023

I think my plants heard me talkin smack about being a half decent plant parent. They were doing so well!! The key word here being "WERE". I was headed out of town for a few days last week and when I came back, they were all dead??? Well. Not fully dead, at least...
My elephant ear lost one of its new leaves, and my swiss cheese started withering a little. Somehow a ficus in my bedroom got a little fungus growing too? Against all odds, my baby deliciosa seems to be thriving. So not really dying, but a mysterious small plague seems to have swept through my apartment and I don'f know why.

Anyways I still don't know anything about plants but it does feel fun to be slowly watching something grow! Admittedly, changes to the babies go completely unnoticed until something dramatic like leaf growth/death happens LMAO

anyways here is a frame from a test I did with a cabbage flower petal from ! I took a bouquet, tied it up and hung it upside down for 5 weeks with the hopes of keeping it as a long term piece in my space. a few cabbage flower leaves fell, and that's what got us to where we are here :) the rest of the bouquet is still in my living room too!

shot by
Sony A7III, Sony FE 90mm F/2.8 Macro
processed in: /
3 light setup by

Winston Zhou Photography