Photographer Benjamin Von Wong likes to push the boundaries of what he does, and lately that pushing has involved playing with fire … literally. It seems he’s taken a liking to working with pyrotechnicians and creating out of this world long exposures doing it, so after a speaking engagement in November of last year, Von Wong put together an open photo shoot with pyrotechnician Andrey DAS and fashion designer Virginie Marcerou.
Anyone and everyone was invited, and in all they were able to get a group of about 50 people to show up as they lit up the freezing night with everything from smoke grenades, to sparklers, to ropes of fire. Read more…
Check out this album cover portrait photo of the Belgian indie pop band SX, shot by photographer Benjamin Von Wong. While it looks appears to show the band standing in the ocean with the sun rising (or setting) in the background, it was actually shot in a much more controlled environment: a swimming pool. Read more…
Photographer Benjamin Von Wong shot the portrait above a couple of days ago using a Nikon D4, a $9,000 Nikon 400mm f/2.8G lens, and a few iPhones for lighting. The extremely shallow depth-of-field was achieved using 36 separate exposures and the Brenizer Method. Read more…
Benjamin Von Wong is a photographer based in Montreal, Canada. Visit his website here.
PetaPixel: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?
Benjamin Von Wong: Hah, where to begin. I’m a 25-year-old Chinese Canadian who’s been to thirteen different schools in three different countries, in three different languages. I grew up in a loving family that believed that experiencing the world was a must, had the opportunity to try all sorts of things, from playing violin for 10 years, to getting a black belt in taekwondo, to graduating from Mining Engineering in 2008. I pick up hobbies sporadically, from parkour to bartending, painting to paintball. Photography is one of the more recent hobbies that I picked up that happened to stick just a little longer! Read more…
Photographer Benjamin Von Wong recently traveled to the city of Bratislava (the capital and largest city of Slovakia) to photograph ballet dancer Ana Beschia and a number of dancers from National Slovak Theater. Using mostly natural ambient light, Von Wong captured the dancers leaping, dancing, and posing in various locations around town. Read more…
It’s unlikely you’ll ever need to protect your digital photos from extreme elements (and if you have a 7D you know your camera will make it) but as the saying goes, it’s better to be safe than sorry — and apparently hard drives don’t get much safer than the Slilicon Power A80. In a video that’s equal parts fun and demonstration, photographer Benjamin Von Wong put the hard drive through a series of unrealistically harsh tests, making sure it still worked after each one. Read more…
Capturing photos of our Olympic and Paralympic athletes is an important job that no photographer takes lightly — after all, we’ve all seen the kind of firestorm that can result from not doing it well. So when Benjamin Von Wong had the opportunity to photograph Olympic Para Dressage Rider Natasha Baker, he made sure to do it right.
This behind the scenes video shows how he went about planning, lighting and executing the three shots that he was after. Fortunately, all the work seems to have paid off: the final three images capture three unique (and uniquely great) sides to Natasha Baker and the sport she competes in at the world class level.
Photographer Benjamin “Von Wong” has pulled of a flashy feat with fire: a multiple exposure shoot of a pyrotechnician at work — all photographed and produced in his Nikon D800. That’s right — all in-camera, no stacking in Photoshop. Read more…
You may remember photographer Benjamin Von Wong from last week’s behind-the-scenes video of his photo shoot with the band The Agonist. In that video he showed you how he put together a very creative, cinematic composite shot that really stood out from other band photos. In this video, Benjamin runs you through the lighting challenges unique to black and white photography, and how he chose to overcome them.
Want to capture some wind-blown hair in a portrait photograph but don’t have access to an electric fan or wind machine? Photographer Benjamin Von Wong has a quick tip just for you: use your collapsible light reflector to create the needed wind. Simply have someone off camera fan the reflector at your subject in the direction and intensity that you want, and voila! instant wind machine!
