Creativity As a Way of Life for Photographers

Photography Tips

Creative portrait photographer Benjamin Von Wong knows how lucky he is to be doing what he loves every day. With a vision, a creative mind and soul, and a lot of determination, he turned his photography hobby into a life, and a pretty cool life at that.

SmugMug went on location in Florida to document Von Wong’s Fallen Angels Shoot with Kelly Zak, artist, film student and special effects make-up artist:

The award-winning photographer, admired for his “epic, surreal, fantasy storytelling,” talks about how he takes a concept and transforms it into reality. He says it’s not just about taking pictures, it’s conceptualizing, designing, and creating.

Von Wong comes up with a base concept, an idea, and he builds it up based on the constraints that are available. Since he specializes in fantasy storytelling, he has to come up with creative ideas to portray the illusion, to make it real. Basically, he has to find solutions to take something that is seemingly impossible and turn it into reality.

I like to think of my photography as something epic, something larger than life. It takes a vision and it exaggerates it so that you can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s fake.

It’s really amazing how passionate Von Wong is about his work–you can’t help but be inspired by this guy!