August 2007 Featured Artist of the Month: Wellington Kuswanto

Interview

Wellington about his work,
his city and the Internet

Why did you move to Singapore, and how do you compare it to Indonesia?

Singapore offers many job opportunities and salaries a few times higher than Indonesia, so I was being realistic about my career… But I also did it for the experience - I think it's great to try living in a community that's different from your own, different language, culture, food, place, and the way of thinking.

It wasn’t easy, especially at first, because I have left all my friends and family in my home country and I was starting all alone. Only after a while did I manage to make friends here.

The pace of living and working is so much faster in Singapore! However, I feel that I can do more things here, and I am more independent than I was at home. As for photography, I cannot really compare the two countries, as I only started here in Singapore and I haven’t really had a chance to take a lot of photos in Indonesia. I do think that Indonesia will have more photographic opportunities though, it’s a very beautiful country and we have so many nice landscapes and nature views!

4. You are involved in so many related disciplines: photography, architecture, 3D modeling, interior design... Do you find many similarities between them?

Actually, I see mainly contrasts between architecture / 3D modeling / design and photography...

The former three are all about creating something that doesn’t exist yet, while photography is capturing something that's already there (although sometimes also we create something as well...). I like the process of creating things.

The best thing about photography is that it can capture emotion, mood, and can record the things that we "created".

As for the similarities, I think the basic composition and the creative process are almost the same.

How would you describe your photography? What are you focusing on?

I think there are two sides to my photography. Firstly, I like to capture reality; this is mostly found in the urban / cityscape / landscape images. This is how I started photographing; I was traveling a lot and when I was leaving I always felt pity not to have any images of the urban scenes and city views.

Secondly, I “create” something more surreal, usually by infrared photography.

Tell us about infrared photography...

I don’t really understand the science behind it :) I can only say, the process involves using an IR filter to block visible light and catch infrared light. The result is that objects that emit more infrared light will appear brighter – for example, leaves are very bright in the infrared spectrum, so they stand out on the pictures.

IR photography can be done with any camera with an IR filter, but it takes long shutter times depending on how sensitive your digital camera’s sensor is.

As for me, I got an old Canon D30 that I got modded for infrared use only by an Indonesian IR photography expert Mr. Harlim (he’s a really cool guy! ^^). What he did is he took off the hot mirror in front of the sensor of the camera and replaced it with an infrared filter. This way I can do IR photography with normal shutter speed.

This kind of photography creates a very surreal effect, it's like you take the photo in a familiar place but in the picture it looks like in Mars or somewhere... This also means more photographic opportunities in the same place, the results can be very different from pictures others make.

Your equipment?

Other than the modified Canon D30 that I mentioned, I’m still using the same old Canon 350D that I bought more than 2 years ago. Plus some lenses, my favorite one is the EF-S 10-22 f/3.5-4.5, plus a 50 f/1.8, 15 f/2.8 fisheye and a 135 f/2.0.

What kind of computer software do you use?

At work I'm using Autocad for doing the 2D works (layouting, plan, elevation, structure / working drawing) and 3DsMax/Viz for making the 3D models. Sometimes i use V-ray rendering engine and Photoshop for touch-up of the 3D scenes. Right now i'm using Google Sketch-Up! a lot..

For my photographs I mainly use Photoshop for doing the post-processing, and Canon DPP for my RAW-Files. Usually i only use RAW format for IR photos.

You have learned a lot from Internet forums. Can you tell us about your involvement in online communities?

I can say my photographic life can't be separated from online communities. I basically learned everything from scratch from people there, especially from www.fotografer.net - it's the biggest and most active Indonesian photographic community. It has more than 50.000 members and the gallery has millions of photos (really!). We can learn from other users’ feedback about our photos. However, I learn most from the forums and of course Yahoo Messenger Conference sessions with some members ^^

I am also member of www.clubsnap.com, a Singapore online photography community, and of course www.deviantart.com - which I think has all the nicest photos from all over the world. Plus I like to browse some of my favorite photographers’ galleries, to get ideas and just to be amazed ^^

What are your plans for the future?

I'm planning to work in Singapore for maybe another 2-3 years, then go back to Indonesia to start my own business. I'm also thinking of doing photography as a job later... I don't know, nothing is confirmed yet, I'm not a type of person that likes to plan for long-term...!

My dream (I just call it dream, it's so hard to achieve haha) is to travel around the world, and take photos everywhere I can, then do an exhibition after that... ^___^

Good luck, we are sure you can achieve it! Thank you very much for the interview!

Interview by Pawel Pohl