Paper Wing, Iron Wing

Photographer

Han Jiang

Category

Black & White Photography - Photojournalism

Company

Sofia University

Submission Group

Student

Year

2025

Country / Region:

United States

“Paper Wings, Iron Wings” examines how innocence quietly brushes against the machinery of power. At the Miramar Airshow in SD, where noise becomes spectacle, I watched families tilt their faces toward the sky and children lifting toy planes toward the thunder of real ones. The gesture was tender, yet faintly unsettling, like a small rehearsal for something history knows too well. I chose monochrome to silence the spectacle. Without color, the scene becomes a study of echoes: play mirroring conflict, awe reflecting vulnerability, and celebration holding the faint outline of memory. In photographing the airshow, I wasn’t drawn to the jets themselves, but to the way people learned to look at them - the thin, trembling line where wonder begins to resemble something inherited from the past.

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