FilmNeverDie Shooters - An Interview with Shao Wen

Hi Shao! Wanna tell us a bit about yourself?

I came to Australia 3 years ago for my tertiary education in Monash University, I originated from a small town in Malaysia called Ipoh. I’m a third year mechanical engineering full time student, part time amateur film geek ;)

How young are you? When did you start shooting film?

I just turned 21 in June. I was given my first film camera 3 years ago, it was a Yashica Electro 35 GT and I absolutely love it! Before that, I used to shoot only digital and didn’t know that film still existed. Now my poor DSLR just sits in the cupboard collecting dust. Film really helps me appreciate the core and essence of photography, I like how film images are created by the lights bouncing off the subject and permanently stain the negative, it is a physical piece of memory.

What format do you use to shoot?

I only shoot with 35mm film, with my current set up with trusty Nikon FE2, Canonet Ql17 G-iii and MJU-2. One of each system, I also own an Instax Neo 90 which I actively shoot with. I like the 35mm format because the cameras are small, I can take many shots with one roll compared to polaroid and medium format cameras, and it is more forgiving on my dodgy sunny 16 ‘guesstimation’. The instax film is good because it is available to me, however, the price isn’t exactly appealing to me.

Where do you see the future of analog photography?

Within the last 3 years of my journey in analog photography, I’ve noticed a good chunk of people have been introduced into this, film cameras prices going up and film stock prices going down, which is amazing, I’m very confident that this industry is growing, ektarchrome’s return in 2017 being the biggest sign.

What is your dream project?

My dream project would be having a client asking me to take a series of portrait my way. I've always liked taking portraits but I never got the chance to shoot with different models. Small dream but I'm working on it!

Where can we find more about your work?

I don't do photography commercially so I don’t own a website or Flickr, but I do have an Instagram account dedicated to my favourite shots and a Facebook album that has more photos compared to my Instagram one.

here are the links:

http://instagram.com/film_bananas/