2014 · Film Photography · Banqiao, New Taipei City, Taiwan
2014 marked a quiet turning point in our lives.
That year, Pat stepped into his fiftieth year.
Fifty sounds like a simple number when you say it out loud, but when you live inside it, it feels heavier — like a milestone that quietly asks questions you can’t avoid.
About the body.
About time.
About love.
About what still fits, and what no longer does.
It wasn’t a dramatic year.
No big events.
No sudden changes.
Just small, invisible challenges that slowly surfaced between us.
The kind that doesn’t shout, but lingers.
Differences in pace.
Fatigue.
Misunderstandings.
The quiet friction of two people trying to share one life for a long time.
We both felt it.
So instead of pushing harder, we did something simpler.
We slowed down.
We started riding bicycles together.
No goals.
No training.
No destination.
Just riding.
Through side streets.
Along rivers.
Past old neighborhoods we rarely noticed before.
The rhythm of pedaling felt gentle and repetitive, almost meditative.
Turn.
Turn.
Turn.
Like breathing.
Like time itself.
Around the same time, I picked up my old Nikon FM2 again.
It had been sitting quietly in a box for years.
I don’t even remember why I stopped shooting film.
Maybe life got busy.
Maybe digital felt easier.
Maybe I forgot how much I loved the slowness of it.
Holding it again felt strangely familiar — like meeting an old friend who never blamed you for disappearing.
That day, we rode near Daguan Road in Banqiao.
There was an abandoned veterans’ village nearby.
Half-empty houses.
Cracked cement.
Faded walls.
Wild plants growing through the gaps.
Time seemed to pool there instead of moving forward.
It was quiet in a way the city rarely is.
Pat stopped his bike for a moment.
The afternoon sun was sharp, almost harsh, cutting strong shadows across the ground.
I looked down and saw it.
Just his front wheel.
Resting lightly against the uneven pavement.
The shadow stretched long and dark, overlapping the cracks in the concrete like a drawing.
A circle above.
A broken surface below.
Movement and stillness at the same time.
Something about that contrast hit me unexpectedly.
The wheel looked like time itself — always turning, whether we’re ready or not.
The cracked ground looked like reality — imperfect, worn, carrying every step we’ve taken.
And there he was.
Still riding.
Still moving forward.
Still beside me.
After all these years.
I didn’t think much.
I just lifted the camera and pressed the shutter.
Click.
A small, ordinary moment.
But sometimes ordinary is exactly where the truth lives.
As we kept riding, I realized something.
Companionship isn’t always grand gestures or romantic scenes.
Sometimes it’s just this:
Two people.
Two bicycles.
Sharing the same speed.
Waiting when the other slows down.
Not rushing ahead.
Not falling too far behind.
Just turning the wheels together.
Over and over again.
Film photography Taiwan, for me, isn’t only about documenting places.
It’s about holding onto these quiet in-between moments — the ones that might disappear if I don’t pause and look carefully.
This photograph isn’t really about a bicycle.
It’s about time.
About aging.
About choosing to stay.
About learning that love doesn’t always mean running forward.
Sometimes it simply means:
slowing down,
matching each other’s rhythm,
and continuing to turn —
together.