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Gold 2021 Architecture / Interiors

The Parlor of Tilley House

  • Photographer
    Ting Ting Chen
  • Prize
    Gold in Architecture / Interiors

My best friend 73-year-old Robert Tilley is in the parlor of Tilley House, his old family house which was built in 1858 by his great-great-grandfather. The picture on the wall is Queen Victoria, the great-grandmother of Queen Elizabeth. She died in 1901 so you can imagine how old the picture is. The organ and the stool are the same old or even older. Time seems to freeze here. The afternoon sunshine is shining through the window, right on this old organ. Somebody used to play music on it. But now the organ has been silent for six decades since the last resident of Tilley House moved out.

I left my home in Asia and came to Newfoundland Canada three years ago as an international student. During the past three years, I have not only found my new home in Newfoundland, but also my muse. Newfoundland is the inspiration for my photography. Robert Tilley, a -73-year-old true and born Newfoundlander, is the first friend I made when I come to Newfoundland, and now he has become my best friend. Robert and I have traveled most parts of Newfoundland, and he appears in many of my photos as a model.