Pictures In Motion

Tell us about yourself!
Hi, I’m Emman and I like videography and photography. I’m going to LASALLE College of the Arts next year to study creative direction in fashion, where I’ll learn about styling and publishing fashion magazines. That’s something I’d like to do in the future—I want to create my own fashion magazine, or anything really, like music or art!

How did this interest start?
I came across this YouTube channel where they used to interview every single creative in New York, and I watched an interview of Trevor Gorgi, the owner of FUGAZI®. I like the way the interview was very casual because it makes the interviewees more excited, and helps the viewers get more engaged, which inspired me.

Can you tell us more about your interest in photography?
I like to use old cameras to shoot both motion and stills. I’m trying to get into film photography too, but I can’t afford the cameras I want just yet.

One camera I have my eye on is the Mamiya RZ67, a medium format, electronic manual camera. It’s been my favourite camera for three years, but all the ones I’ve found that are for sale are almost $2K! Another dream camera is the Canon EOS R7 for digital photography, because that’s what a lot of my favourite photographers use. It’s also really sharp, but at the same time it costs $4K. One day, one day…

What’s a project you’d want to work on in the future?
I want to try and make one or two short films because I’m inspired by Wong Kar Wai. It’s kind of basic, I know, but back when I was studying film in the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), we weren’t given the creative freedom to explore that. It was mostly interviews and documentaries, and the boring ones to boot, but I don’t blame them, they probably had to teach us the corporate way of doing things. This is why I’m still open to doing film, but not studying it.

Other than photography, what else do you like to do in your free time?
I like to go to Rookies, a vintage clothing store at Peninsula Shopping Centre, because it’s like my second home.

Back when I was younger, I used to stay home and play games all the time, so much so that my parents asked me to go outside and make friends. So I’d go out and try to find one place that made me feel comfortable, sort of like another home. Then, I found Rookies, started working here, and found that everyone is always so supportive and so nice—I met Andy here and he’s become my big brother.

Other than that, I like to go to gigs. I started getting into it recently with my friends. The last one we went to was Slumber Party. It was a slumber-party themed kind of thing where they had pillow fights. But it wasn’t just normal pillow fights, they were hitting hard, honestly. But I had a good experience overall, even though I got hit in the face multiple times (laughs).