Isabella Zhou

( 2026.07.15 )

Still, After the Move

Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai · 6:05 – 7:52 PM

Back in Shanghai after half a year away, an hour and forty-seven minutes at the Museum of Art Pudong, familiar and strange at once. What held still stayed sharp, and everything else kept moving.

Fujifilm X-E5 · 23mm · thirteen frames · Shanghai

01 / 13

6:05 pm

Under the Whale

A whale overhead, and the whole hall lay down to watch it. One second open, only the resting stayed sharp.

Museum of Art Pudong · 23mm · ƒ/4.5 · 1s · ISO 250

Visitors lying on round stools beneath the whale overhead, walkers blurred to ghosts

02 / 13

6:25 pm

Two at the Rail

Two girls leaned into the rail, phones raised, the day letting go over the towers.

the rooftop terrace
23mm · ƒ/5.6 · 1/480 · ISO 250

Two girls in white and blue dresses at the terrace rail, the Bund skyline in evening light
The Huangpu River curving away, banks of towers dimming under a rose-grey sky

03 / 13

6:25 pm

The Varnished River

The Huangpu took the evening like varnish, every barge a brushstroke that wouldn't dry.

the rooftop terrace · 23mm · ƒ/5.6 · 1/350 · ISO 250

04 / 13

6:28 pm

Before the Storm

A storm hung over the far bank and never fell. The terrace photographed it anyway.

the rooftop terrace · 23mm · ƒ/4.5 · 1/500 · ISO 250

Dark storm clouds over the towers, people on the terrace raising their phones

05 / 13

6:30 pm

The Bund's Last Coat

The old towers took one last coat of sun before the river carried it downstream.

the rooftop terrace
23mm · ƒ/5.6 · 1/220 · ISO 250

The Bund skyline at dusk, a spired tower catching sun, a long barge crossing the river

06 / 13

7:20 pm

Bottles Unbothered

Downstairs to Morandi. His bottles have not moved since Bologna, and the visitors never stop.

Morandi, Museum of Art Pudong · 23mm · ƒ/2.8 · 1/13 · ISO 100

A Morandi still life of bottles in a gold frame, a visitor walking past in a blur

07 / 13

7:22 pm

Under the Lit Ceiling

Full rooms and nobody hurrying, gold frames glowing under the lit ceiling.

Morandi
23mm · ƒ/2.8 · 1/10 · ISO 100

Visitors before gold-framed Morandi works under a glowing ceiling grid

08 / 13

7:27 pm

Still and Moving

One small painting, two visitors: one blurred mid-stride, one planted still before it.

Morandi · 23mm · ƒ/2.8 · 1/15 · ISO 100

A small Morandi lit on a wide wall, one visitor walking in a blur, another standing still

09 / 13

7:28 pm

Spotlit

A second later she was gone through the doorway, and the painting kept its pool of light.

Morandi
23mm · ƒ/2.8 · 1/12 · ISO 100

A single spotlit Morandi on a wide wall, a visitor blurring out of the room

10 / 13

7:29 pm

Copying Morandi

A watercolour of quiet vessels, and at my shoulder a phone rose to copy it.

Morandi · 23mm · ƒ/2.8 · 1/14 · ISO 100

A Morandi watercolour of bottles in a burled frame, a blurred hand raising a phone

11 / 13

7:47 pm

Gardin in Silver

Next door the walls went black for Gardin's silver prints of Morandi's studio.

Gianni Berengo Gardin
23mm · ƒ/4.5 · 1s · ISO 80

White-matted silver prints on black walls under a huge drum lamp
The dark Gardin gallery, rows of white-matted prints, visitors softened by a long exposure

12 / 13

7:48 pm

A Second and a Half

A second and a half open, and the room answered: prints held their edges, people became breath.

Gianni Berengo Gardin · 23mm · ƒ/4.5 · 1.5s · ISO 80

13 / 13

7:52 pm

Half Turned

My mother stepped in front of the lens, half turned. The stillest thing I kept all evening.

Gianni Berengo Gardin
23mm · ƒ/4.5 · 1s · ISO 80

My mother mid-turn before Gardin's photographs on the dark wall

( about )

I’m Isabella Zhou. Photography lends me wings toward a dreamland I haven’t found yet, and these journals are what I carry back from the flights. This one is proof that a slow shutter tells the truth: what stays, stays sharp. Kept on a Fujifilm X-E5 with one 23mm lens.

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isabellayifan.zhou@gmail.com

© 2026 Isabella Zhou — all photographs shot on Fujifilm X-E5