Warren du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones

I’d always been a fan of this duo’s work and every season their ongoing collaborations with couture designer iris van herpen were always something to look forward to.

when I was still a fine art student in Chelsea college, there was an event one night in the V&A with many famous photographers talking about their work. The talks were occurring simultaneously so you could only pick one photographer’s talk. Paolo Roversi, Tim Walker or Warren and Nick. Tough choice, ay? I can respect Tim Walker and he’s obviously a legend in the industry but I was never a huge fan of his whimsical, fey style, despite owning a couple of his books.

It was a tough choice – roversi or du preez and thornton jones. in the end I took the road less travelled by, went to listen to the illustrious duo and that made all the difference.

Although rather secretive about their technical technique they were very forthcoming about their creative path and how they approach working and what their goals were. I really found listening to them incredibly inspiring and I dreamt of creating work like theirs one day.

by Hugh O'Malley, Beauty Photographer and Videographer based in Shanghai

ephemera

That’s what I’m calling my project.

I used to be really interested in light painting. I still am but I haven’t pursued it in a long time. I actually hate that term light painting and if you search that term you get a lot of aesthetically unpleasant images that are nothing like what I want to create. I haven’t come up with a better term yet so I’m just calling my project ‘ephemera’.

Recently I’m researching to start shooting again. I’ve been trying to figure out tools – torches, fiber optics, colors and some sort of system to put it all together. I’m not really a boy scout when it comes to assembling or making things so it will have to be a really simple system.

I’ll post some of my experiments in my next post.

by Hugh O'Malley, Beauty Photographer and Videographer based in Shanghai