World of One: Lost and Found

05/12/2020

Lost and Found 2018GicléeImage size (HxW): 24” x 40” | Paper Size (HxW): 30″ x 6″ | Edn 5 While it’s a bit late, today I’m happy to unveil my first World of One entry for 2020 – Lost and Found. This was originally shot in November 2018, but I didn’t finish the composite till just last week. As for the reason why, it’s really quite simple. I’m an idiot. I somehow managed to misplace the files for half the rolls I took. Seeing as how I only took two rolls, I couldn’t see how I’d finish the image when …

Seeing the Same but Different

03/30/2020

I was hanging out with a couple art friends one night last October, and I mentioned (as an aside to our conversation) that “I know a lot of doctors because you know, I’m Asian.” To which one of them replied “You’re talking to a couple Jews here Johnny.” It’s amazing how our perception of things changes with time. We can look at the exact same picture, and see and feel something completely different depending on our circumstances. When I initially finished Diligentia, I hated it. I felt like it lacked all the technical hallmarks that made a successful World of …

Solitarius

03/19/2020

Solitarius – This seems like an appropriate share for today. Shot in April 2017 featuring the beautiful Nadia, who you might recognize from some of my other photos. This image plays on the same themes as the Stranger (my first Cherry Blossom portrait) such as the line between loneliness and solitude. Around this time every year, I start to get really anxious when the Cherry Blossoms start to bloom. Because every year, I know I have a narrow window to shoot a piece that includes them. These portraits are always challenging, because I essentially have to balance two to three …

World of One: Death of Narcissus

10/08/2019

Death of Narcissus is a homage to Hippolyte Bayard’s Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man, one of my favorite early photographs (and one of the world’s first selfies!). While the technical setup for this image has been floating around in my head for years. It wasn’t until I saw this Vox video reminding me of Bayard’s picture, that the inspiration for the narrative came to me. Hippolyte Bayard is a pioneer and inventor of photography in who lived in 19th century France. But he was was overlooked by the French Academy of Sciences in favor of his rival Louis Daguerre, who …

A group of Asian men in white walking under a bridge, towards an Asian man in a black suit.

World of One: Tao

12/19/2018

Tao 2018GicléeImage size (HxW): 24” x 46 5/16” | Paper Size (HxW): 30″ x 52 5/16″ | Edn 5 Tao in Chinese (or sometimes spelled Dao) is a word often used to “asian-ify” things. In the west, the word connotes images of oriental themed nightclubs, or chinese takeouts and sake bombs. But in Chinese it simply means “the way.” The way it’s used however, I think it should be translated to “the way things should be.” I’ve been going through a number of personal changes in my life, and these last three months have been filled with new experiences. These …

Feeling Numb - A shirtless man standing in a snow storm surrounded by a group of men in black freezing their asses off.

World of One: Feeling Numb

05/15/2018

Feeling Numb 2018 Giclée Image size (HxW): 24” x 49 1/8” | Paper Size (HxW): 30” x 49 1/8” | Edn 5 I shot Feeling Numb on a suggestion from my old friend Lisa Diep. “I want one side that’s feeling! And the other side, that’s numbness!!!” She told me. Lisa’s and I have known each other since high school, so she occasionally likes to pretend she’s my art director. At first I thought this was another throw away idea. But the more I thought about it, the more appealing it seemed to me. The problem I told her, wasn’t …

Chasing Magritte - A man in white tossing a bowler hat into the air, a group of men in black jumping to grab the hat

World of One: Chasing Magritte

05/09/2018

Chasing Magritte 2018 Giclée Image size (HxW): 24″ x 47 5/8” | Paper Size (HxW): 30” x 53 5/8” | Edn 5 Chasing Magritte is about wanting to emulate your heroes, as well as my homage to the turn of the century Surrealist painter Rene Magritte. It’s probably no secret by now, but in case you didn’t know, that I’m a huge Magritte fan. Dali might be the poster boy for Surrealism, but there’s something about Magritte’s work that I’ve always been more drawn to. I don’t know if it’s his wit, or just because he’s more subtle. But there’s …

the Offering - a man in white seated at a park bench with an out stretched hand, a crowd of men in black walking by him refusing his hand.

World of One: the Offering

05/02/2018

the Offering 2018 Giclée Image size (HxW): 24” x 41 9/16” | Paper Size (HxW): 30” x 47 9/16” | Edn 5 The Offering is inspired and titled after a 2013 piece, by the Taiwanese American artist James Jean. Jean is one of the few Taiwanese American artists, visibly successful, working in the fine arts today. So he’s basically like my art hero, and his work just blows me away. I’ve often taken inspiration from his style of composition, use of color, and also the otherworldly themes present in his work. TheOffering is my homage to the man and his …

Asian man in black standing on a stump in the middle of a pond, men in white reflected within the pond looking at him.

World of One: Narcissus II

10/24/2017

Narcissus II 2017 Giclée Image size (HxW): 24″ x 48 1/8” | Paper Size (HxW): 30″ x 54 1/8” | Edition of 5 I’ve just completed a beautiful new addition to my World of One series, welcome to the world Narcissus II!!! The picture in my Beautiful Failures post and Narcissus II were shot on the same day. In fact, Narcissus II is much closer to the shot that I had originally planned for the day, and was actually shot first!!! But it was while we were shooting this angle, that I realized the Beautiful Failures angle would be more …

guy in a dark suit standing on a stump in the middle of a big puddle.

Beautiful Failures

09/27/2017

This picture is a little painful for me to look at. It is just so close to being a fantastic new iteration in my WO1 series but it’s not. Instead I’m adding it to my pile of beautiful failures, images that almost succeed but stop just short of the finish line. I’ve been trying to do more WO1 images involving reflections (similar to what I did for Narcissus back in the day), and in particular, I’ve been trying to do a version of Narcissus that uses the reflections from puddles. So far however, I haven’t been lucky enough with things …

Fine Art Photographs by Johnny Tang