Ke's quest to produce one-of-a-kind selfies has taken her to many different places in the world. [Photo/China Daily]

Awkward feeling

That inspired Ke to come up with her own series of images, and she first attempted to do so with a camera and a tripod. She initially thought that all she had to do was perform a jump just before the camera's shutters closed, but she soon realized that she could not get a satisfactory image even after a hundred leaps.

"Everything, from how high I jump to how I position my legs to how I flip my hair, needs to be taken into consideration. I usually don't wear dark colored pants as they tend to make the lower part of my body invisible in the picture. I also like going barefoot as it better evokes this feeling of lightness," said Ke, who is a mother to a 15-year-old boy.

The hardest part of the project, however, was overcoming the awkward feeling of knowing that someone was watching her perform her stunts.

"I was once doing a shoot in an old residential community and I heard constant laughter coming from a house. I felt like I was being mocked but I later discovered that the laughter came from people who were playing mahjong," Ke said.

Some of the locations that Ke frequently practices at include secluded spots around the city such as garages, neighborhoods that are awaiting demolition and small parks. And no matter how hard it is to capture the perfect shot, Ke always declines for her portraits to be taken by others, saying that she needs her photos to be shot in the way she wants.

"Every person perceives the light and color presented in the frame in a different way," she explained.