Finding his niche in photography | Wei Jun Wong
Wei Jun Wong
Wei Jun Wong

AS your average teenager trying to navigate through high school, Wei Jun spent some time trying to find that one thing that he could fit into and be good at. Years later, in retrospect, he would have never imagined that his niche would be in photography

“After I got into high school, I had wanted to find an interest I can be passionate about and would be able to stick to it for a long time,” a now 20-year-old Wong said. But this proved to be a tad bit more difficult than you would think.

First, he tried out with lawn tennis, table tennis and even some cricket, but soon realised that sports were probably not his forte. Then, he gave music a try and attempted to play the guitar and the steelpan. He got through with the basics but discovered that he wasn’t musically inclined either.

While he was actively searching for something he would enjoy and also be very good at, his ‘A-HA!’ moment finally came.

“One day while casually browsing YouTube, a video from digitalrev, a Hong Kong-based photography store came up. I watched on and I was riveted by camera reviews and photography tutorials,” Wei Jun said.

And that was where it all started. He became, quite literally, obsessed with photography.

He began watching videos of some YouTube famous photographers such as Chase Jarvis, Kai Man Wong, Peter McKinnon and many more and tried to learn about the art of photography. He also discovered the local photographer community and found the Facebook group ‘Guyana Photographers’. In this group, he was able to admire the work of local photographers and draw inspiration from them.

“I finally came to the decision to buy my first camera,” he recounted, but that decision would bear fruition after he saved some money for about two years and got a little extra help from his family.

And after those two years, it was a done deal- he got his hands on his first camera. “The day came. I was extremely excited I was able to unbox my camera. I took it out the next day to start shooting and never regretted it.”

That day was four years ago, and since then, his camera has never left his side. It was like when you heard the name Wei Jun, you would immediately look for the camera or when there was a photography event, you’d look for him.

His love for the field has grown over the years, just as he has been able to refine some of his skills. And naturally, you would find him with his white camera pointing at objects and ‘shooting’– that’s him in his natural habitat. Candid photos, in fact, are his favourite.

Right now, he’s pursuing his first degree in Chemistry. He hopes to land a stable job soon enough as well, you know, because camera gear is pretty expensive and with new technologies being developed every so often, no photographer wants to be left out of the fun.

As a young photographer, he would like to see schools of all levels put more effort into their creative subjects or have museums and university art courses to have more workshops to cater for more learning. Or, he would love to see more frequent competitions for artists to be recognised and encourage more to join the creative arts. His reason for calling for these is because he believes that there are so many people like himself who are waiting for that little push to find out that photography is their niche as well

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