In one image taken for Vogue, Song captures a women slicing through a watermelon in mid-air with a sword. For him, watermelon represents home. It’s the main export of FuLi, a tiny village in the HeiLongJiang province of northern China where he’s from. For as long as he can remember, his mom has worked in the watermelon market, dispatching the fruit across the country. At first, FuLi sounds idyllic; his childhood was spent playing MaJiang and jumping rope with the girls in his neighborhood. However, Song was bullied at school while simultaneously grappling with his queerness in a traditional environment. It wasn’t easy, but music TV became his escape. He spent hours entranced by Jolin Tsai, A-mei Chang, Karen Mok, Elva Hsiao and Ranie Yang, who all found liberation through their empowered feminine worlds.

Song didn’t have a conventional path into photography; his first encounter with the medium was during his advertising degree. He bought a camera, started making photographs of his friends, and has never looked back.