Sun-swamped photos of Vancouver’s prettiest boys

The year is 2022, and the residents of Vancouver are experiencing an unseasonably warm summer – the sixth-hottest ever, to be precise. Jeremy Jude Lee, a photographer who lives in the Canadian city, remembers the time fondly. “The skies were a rich blue, like a gradient that falls all the way to the ground,” he recalls. The rainy season was late last summer too, which meant that “the trees were lush in every tone of green”, their full branches hanging into roads and “making tunnels out of the side streets”. As he made his way through the balmy city, Lee would make a note of the beautiful scenes that he came across, noting down the places that he recognised from growing up in the city.

These locations then became the basis of Lee’s newest work, Pretty Boys. Shot during that beautiful Vancouver summer, it’s the latest chapter in an ongoing series that, according to Lee, “explores ideas of Asian-Canadian belonging through the lens of nostalgia”. Made in collaboration with the art director Megan Kwan, the project sets out to tell a story of their shared memories of Vancouver and their experiences growing up Chinese-Canadian. Although shot in the modern day, the photographs evoke a bygone era, like those captured in the nostalgia-tinged films of Richard Linklater. In Lee’s photographs, a bright and cloudless day steadily transmutes into a balmy summer’s evening, as four friends – James, Xin, Jason, and LongXi – make their way through a town lit by longing and warmth. As Lee puts it himself, Pretty Boys presents a “story of Asian masculinity in the most ordinary, authentic, yet romantic way we could”.

In the conversation below, Lee speaks on the inspiration behind Pretty Boys, the casting process for the shoot, and how he built a level of trust with the subjects at the heart of the series.

To begin, can you tell me about the inspiration that led you to create Pretty Boys?

Jeremy Jude Lee: Up until the summer of 2022, I was working on my first photography book, a culmination of images I had captured over the past five years. After reviewing my photo archive, I realised that I only had a handful of images that focused on Asian men as my subject matter, and I was forced to ask myself why that was. Growing up in Canada, I was always searching for a sense of belonging, and, to be honest, I think I pushed aside a lot of my Asianness because of it. All I wanted was for people to see that I wasn’t “different” from anyone else.

Whenever I thought of photographing a fellow Asian man, the idea felt a bit vulnerable. It was like a self-portrait. I wasn’t ready to reveal so much about myself, or tell such a personal story. After reflecting on where I have been and where I wanted to go with my photography, I knew I wouldn’t be able to find a way forward without looking in the mirror, and finding something honest to say.

How did you cast the pretty boys?

Jeremy Jude Lee: The casting was actually done by our producer Esther Joh. I’ve been a big fan of her unique perspective and take on beauty. We wanted to find people that might remind you of someone that you may have known or grown up with in Vancouver, presenting them as characters that felt intimate and familiar. It was also important to have people who have experienced the duality of living in Asian and Western worlds.

“One of the most important aspects I aspire to in my own photography is the concept of timelessness. What can I omit from the frame to avoid obvious signifiers of a time period?” –Jeremy Jude Lee

In what ways did you build a relationship with the boys when shooting?

Jeremy Jude Lee: Since this story was focused on the concept of shared memories, once we had decided on our team, we all got together at Megan’s house to spend some time getting to know each other better. 

Over dinner, we traded stories of our past summers so that we could capture those moments on the day of. All these conversations and memories brought new ideas and by the time it came to shoot, we were like kindred spirits through the common understanding of the story we were telling together. It was a tonne of fun and the photos wouldn’t have felt the same without those bonds and connections.

The photographs have an almost vintage feel, but also like they could be from any time period from the 80s until now.

Jeremy Jude Lee: One of the most important aspects I aspire to in my own photography is the concept of timelessness. What can I omit from the frame to avoid obvious signifiers of a time period? What can we include in the frame that will always hold true? It’s part of the reason we chose to shoot on 35mm film, since the technology has been the same for so many years. We really wanted the images to feel like something from a memory, so transcending time through the imagery was important to us.

How did you go about styling the boys for the shoot?

Jeremy Jude Lee: The clothing was actually styled by my long-time collaborator Jacky Huang. The very first project I had ever done based on cinematic nostalgia was styled by Jacky, and they remain some of my favourite images to this day.

The summer of the Pretty Boys shoot, I had just re-watched Happy Together by Wong Kar Wai and I was enamoured by the romantic and nostalgic depictions of Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung in the cinematography and costume design. The story was filmed in Buenos Aires, but the settings and costumes made it feel like their world was still in Hong Kong.

We wanted to have the same feeling for Pretty Boys. Though our characters are set in Vancouver, we wanted the style to have subtle touches that were a nod to the cross-cultural influences of the Asian-Canadian community here. The clothing was a mix of items from the boy’s personal belongings, Jacky’s pieces, and some finishing touches that Megan thought would be the cherry on top.

What was the process of choosing locations?

Jeremy Jude Lee: We wanted to capture everything like it was one summer day from the afternoon through to the evening. After a couple of location scouts, Megan and I presented some ideas to the entire team during our team brainstorm, and we all decided on locations together. It was important that we all identified with each location based on our core memories.

The images serve as a nostalgic homage to a past that we may have experienced in one way or another, growing up in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. We took a trip back in time, revisiting familiar places, and documenting a narrative of romanticised memories. I hope that it gives off a feeling that anyone who grew up here could recognize.

“I really love the photo of Xin and Jason lying down in the grass just laughing together… Xin is actually wearing a kitchen towel from my mother-in-law’s house” –Jeremy Jude Lee

What’s your favourite image from the series?

Jeremy Jude Lee: I really love the photo of Xin and Jason lying down in the grass just laughing together. Funny enough, Xin is actually wearing a kitchen towel from my mother-in-law’s house and an apron from Megan’s family kitchen. I don’t even remember what we were laughing about, but it just reminded me of something so familiar and so human.

If anything, what would you say that people could misunderstand about the project?

Jeremy Jude Lee: I know this project might seem like it’s only a story for Asian people, but that’s really the last thing that I want people to take away from this. Even though this story is told through my personal lens, my dream would be for anyone to see this and see parts of themselves in the images. Our collective team wanted to show a story of what belonging looks like from our own memories and experiences, so that regardless of what our faces look like, perhaps you could see that we really aren’t all that different from one another at all.

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