Michelle Watt is a Hong Kong-born photographer / director based between New York and San Francisco. She specializes in staging conceptual narratives with a whimsical flair, often addressing themes of freedom and restriction within cultural identity. Her portrait and fashion work engender stories about the female minority experience, with the aim of giving life to unique standards of beauty and culture, including ones informed by her Chinese American background. She finds joy in assembling tiny discrete pieces to create vast meaningful worlds, embedding hidden ‘Easter eggs’ as varying social commentary throughout her work. Her photographs have been published in TIME, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Vogue Arabia and Blanc Magazine. Her commercial clients include American Express, Adidas, Meta, Netflix, Nike, Sony, Square and Rémy Martin.