From the very beginning, I realized the official tour was theater. They drove us along perfect routes, showed us happy people and well-fed children. But my 300mm lens saw what wasn’t supposed to be in the frame.
I sat in the back seat of the bus, pressed against the glass like a spy. While other tourists listened to stories about Party achievements, I was “hunting” for the truth. My targets weren’t monuments, but ordinary people, their daily lives, and their fatigue.
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Every time we stopped, the “minders” would approach me. They scrolled through my gallery, demanding I erase photos of poor houses or people in dirty clothes. “This spoils the image of our country,” they said in rehearsed phrases.
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But they didn’t know about data recovery software. They didn’t know that every “deleted” photo was actually staying with me. I was assembling this puzzle piece by piece to show the world what lay behind the glossy facade of propaganda.