http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk 53
Above:
‘Blade Runner
Origins’/00:17:59Left:
‘Taxi Driver’
/00:00:50to do it on the street is just a bit
more of an interesting mix.’
Cityscapes at night
After initially concentrating on
shooting architecture he quickly
became drawn to shooting street
scenes at night. Wong reveals, ‘I take
it back to one shot – a taxi driver
shot I put on my Facebook. I had no
followers, just friends and family. My
Instagram was private and I had no
social platform. I had a Twitter
account with about 600 followers
just from video games [work]. It was
when I posted one picture in
particular and people were like,
“yeah, that’s a cool shot”. I thought,
“Wow! Shit”. I was still in Japan at
the time, so I was thinking, “I’m
gonna go out and take more pictures
just like that”.’
He continues, ‘From the very first
press coverage there were only about
ten images and about six of them
were all taken on the same rainy
night. That’s luck, but inspiration
also came from when I found Syd
Mead’s book that same night – it was
this 25-year-old book that had a laser
disc and was in perfect condition. I
was just inspired to go and find
shots like that. It’s not that it had
never been done before. It has been
done before – Tokyo is probably the
most photographed city [in the
world], but how do you do
something with that?’
At the time Wong was halfway
through a month-long trip to Tokyo
as game designers often get a few
months off after completing intense
projects. He explains, ‘I would go out
every night after midnight and I’d
just have my 5D Mark III and a
24-105mm f/4 kit lens. But it was agreat being in the deep end at that
point and just capturing stuff. I just
started to think, “well, I want more
shots in that theme”. During
daytime I wasn’t so inspired. Tokyo
with all of that signage was really
inspiring; all the colours and how
you could play with that.’
The rapid interest in Wong’s work
from the media and online fans also
helped to map out his photographic
path. He reveals, ‘You have all of
these eyes on your work and that’s a
door that’s open... I didn’t know
how long it was going to be open for
and where it could go. I didn’t want
to be a photographer. I actually
wanted to do video stuff and make
travel vignettes, little snippets, no
narrative, just shots that had a nice
feeling to them. That was my goal
but then the stills stuff took off
and it’s been five years now.’