Life in a hutong

Tan Siok Siok's black-and-white photos reveal a touching and lively side of daily lives in Beijing's hutong area.

For her, taking photos is a way to ease pressure from work.

She is good at capturing people's expressions without them noticing her, a skill she gained from her years as a documentary filmmaker.

Before arriving in Beijing in 2010, Tan worked for the Discovery TV channel on many documentary films in Singapore.

Tan likes to focus on people stories, she says. That's why her hutong project was on them.

Bao Jihong, a longtime friend of Tan, says: "Tan's photos show us a Beijing that we are familiar with but largely ignore."

Tan's next project is to shoot a series of photos on Chinese women from different generations, with which she hopes to tell the story of how they view a rapidly changing society.