56 http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk
Liam Wong was born in
Scotland and is a game
designer, photographer,
art director and
lmmaker. He was listed
by Forbes magazine as
one of the most
in uential 30 people
under 30. He is
currently working on
photography, lm and
video game projects.
http://www.liamwong.com.LI A M WONG
He reveals, ‘The weirdest part
is I had a big following by the
time I even approached people but
no one asked me, “Hey, do you want
to make a book?” I’d had
publications [covering my work] but
publishing is very difficult – not a lot
of people buy art books, they’ll buy
novels and stuff. I’m a big art book
collector and that’s kind of what
made me want to do it.’
Wong admits, ‘The hardest part
was actually making a physical thing
and as soon as you’ve finished that I
can’t [change it]. Most of my life I’d
worked on things on screen but to
have something physical and to
have a cut-off date that you can’t put
anything more in it was like, “oh
shit”. Your best work is going to be
the stuff that follows but I think
having made that it made me reflect
on not doing X, Y, Z any more –
I needed to get good at this and it
gave me something to focus on.’Cameras, lenses and ash
Wong now works with an EOS 5D
Mark IV DSLR and a full-frame Sony
A7R III, which he plans to upgrade
to an A7R IV. He says, ‘I kind of
alternate between them and I don’t
really have a preference. The Sony’s
definitely a smaller, more compact
camera. I always get asked, “Which
camera should I get?”, but I always
think that the bulkier the camera
the less likely you are to take it
anywhere, especially when you start
to add lenses and all of that.’
Wong continues, ‘Lenses matter
more to me. I have a 35mm f/1.4, a
50mm f/1.2 and a 14mm f1/8. I’m
going hardcore low light because Iwant that clarity in the shots. In the
last year the getting clarity in the
shots is something I worked a lot
harder to improve because low-light
photography is very difficult. It’s
about getting that right exposure,
and a lens will definitely take your
camera further. I pretty much
specialise in low-light lenses now.’
He also sometimes deploys flash
for some of his photographs. ‘The
biggest thing I look at in a scene is
the architecture, so I’ll use
interesting signs or a cool building to
frame a shot. I start to think, “How
can I light level that up?”, so I have a
Cactus remote flash trigger that goes
on the hotshoe and then you put
the flash on it. I’ll have my little
Gorillapod and put my other flash
on that so I can just light up a flash
on a street. That could be [on] just‘Technicolor’
/23:52:00