Mu-Shen Yen is a Taiwan-based photographer whose documentary practice focuses on contemporary theatre production and performance in Taiwan.

His work focuses on liveness and the working structures across rehearsals, backstage, and performance.

His visual style is defined by high-contrast black-and-white and a restrained viewpoint, emphasizing the condensation and tension of light, space, and human relationships.

In selected series and exhibition prints, he employs silver gelatin film and darkroom printing as a core language for black-and-white tonality and process.

Since 2021, he has served as the resident photographer of 阮劇團 (Our Theatre) in Chiayi (2021–).

The spatial sensibility and black-and-white tonality in his theatre work can be traced to his architectural training and street photography experience.

Born in Kaohsiung in 1976, he holds an MArch in Architectural Design from The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. After leaving an architectural practice in 2008, inspired by Weegee (Arthur Fellig) and Daido Moriyama, he began a street photography series; in 2009, he studied silver gelatin darkroom practice at Kuangyin Lab in Taipei.