SM4701 FYP Blog / CHOW WING TUNG
Momentum
Motive
As a city-born person who is surrounded by all kinds of artificial technologies and constructions, the concept of Individualism clandestinely immersed my mind, the mindset of “human taking control over nature”. We seem to lose the ability to even think about it while our everyday life is struggling with a business-oriented material world. However, during my 5-months stay in north Finland—Lapland. I intensively felt that we are just a part of the environment, the power of human becomes relatively small in front of extreme weather. Such a huge difference between Hong Kong and Finland encouraged me to make a comparison between these places. They are just like an upside-down world or a parallel universe to each other: cold and hot, darkness and light, nature and city, empty and crowded, slow and fast but they also have some similarities in my eyes: the impression of dying environment, depression of nature and people.
In my view, the environment In Finland mostly means nature: mountain, tree, and lake; but in Hong Kong, our environment mainly stands for society: people, building and transportation. As I city person, it is unbelievable to imagine such a spectacular ice-age nature and the epic phenomenon of a northern light parade in front of my bare eyes. By digging into nature by hiking, trying Finnish traditions (such as sauna), snow sculpting and learning the religion of Sami people (the one and only ethnic minority in Finland), I found the connection between me and nature intensely which encourage me to make a self-reflection on my life through photographs. By adopting the lifestyle in Finland, my mindset had been shifted slightly from Individualism to animalism.
Nature seems powerless toward human harmful behavior; they cannot stop us cutting tree; while I feel powerless toward the future in HK. The atmosphere created by snow mountain, the forest, moisty and cold weather in Finland echoes with my feeling of lost in the future. As a final year student, all uncertainties after graduation make me confused. Moreover, the political situation in HK due to different kind of unreasonable behaviors of the government triggered a series of conflicts among citizen. Therefore, the portraits in both sets represented different parts of myself.
Creative Concept
My work mainly focuses on photography: the use of different films such as Infrared film, the object of photography which is a mixture of nature, nude and landscape and the way to capture it. Two sets of photographs are conducted in Finland (Fin) and Hong Kong (HK) respectively: The Fin set is conducted during exchange study, and the HK set is done from the inspiration of the Fin set.
They are like my personal photographic diary while the content is chiefly based on my emotional changes. Along my journey, few stages are found along time: the time I just arrived Finland, the time I adapted the life there, the time when I went back HK.
The photographs are merged on a wood board individually and hang on the wooden stand by rope. A big white fabric is hanged behind the photos. To express the idea of depressed and tripped feeling, I put a twisted acrylic board on the top on a picture to create an underwater effect. It also a response to an environmental issue – the rise of sea level due to global warming.
Vieno Tuuli -- Finland series
This series is called Vieno Tuuli, my Finnish name which means “mild wind”. By using the name as the title, it implies the strong relationship between photography, myself and Finland, more importantly, it is to show another side of myself via nature photography and how my mind has changed due to the place.
This is mainly black-and-white nature and human nude in the forest. Nature photographs are taken by Black-and-White 135 and 120 old infrared (IR) film: Ilford SFX 200, Rollei infrared 120 and 135 films.
Since IR film only reacts with a certain dynamic range of light (light wavelength 700nm to 1mm), which is not visible to human eyes. It gives a viewer a sense of mysterious and dark looks in the image, which fit my purpose of showing another side of nature.
Beautiful nature can be full of colors and make people feel warm, but through my lens there, it presents a kind of pity, sadness, and anger. These feelings are my accusation to society as well as the denounce from nature to human
The nude represents human essence and genuineness, they are taken by 4 x 5 Black and White film. My experiences of understanding nature and adapting Finnish mindset: “human is a part of nature” via the photography, are hoped to display in the photography. Without a time indicator -- clothing, one of the purposes of taking nude photography is to emphasize the action there is timeless.
Hullu Tuuli—Hong Kong series
In response to the Fin series, this series is called Hullu Tuuli, which mean “crazy wind”. This is to state the fast-food lifestyle in Hong Kong, while Vieno Tuuli (mind wind) represents the slow living pace in Finland. By the inspiration from the Fin series, I started photographing HK from the place I live and used to live: Sheung Shui, Sha Tau Kok, and Kowloon Tong. After half year escape from Hk -- the environment I experienced for 20 years, I became more sensitive to the environment than before that my way of seeing has been changed slightly when I went back.
In the portrait, the life of a top nude man who live in rooftop is showed in a abstract way in the response to nowadays society and political situation. In the nature photography, I intentionally increased the exposure and contrast in order to create a big contrast with the Fin series, which is dark in exposure. By taking photos on moisty days in spring, the images can echo with the photos I took on the mountain in Finland. More and more coincidences have been found along with my exploration: the feeling of depression and lost in the future of people in Hk; dark, empty and quiet nature in Finland.
In an environmental aspect, I transformed from a “polluter” -- HK as a big contributor to air pollution and energy consumption, to a victim to experience dramatic temperature change in Finland. Therefore, landscape photography in the excess color of both Finland and Hong Kong enables me to express the poisonous atmosphere of the environment.