Commercial photography's rising star | Photographer Inteviews, Portrait, Commercial, Editorial Photogrpahy and Photographic Art

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Since picking up photography 2 years ago, 20 year old Singaporean fashion photographer Zhang Jingna (aka zemotion) has already managed to turn professional, with a portfolio that includes companies like
Ogilvy & Mather Advertising (Taiwan), Mercedes Benz Taiwan, Architecture International and Wacom, and organisations like The Arts House and Lasalle College of the Arts. She has also produced fashion
editorial work for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar, Beauty Black Book, Men’s Folio and Project:Smitten.

In 2007, she became the youngest ever recipient of Associateship in the Masters Photographers Association, and also was awarded the Singapore Master Photographer award that same year. She has received recognition for her work online, being one of the most popular artists at deviantArt, a community art site, with over 7 million views of her work and a loyal fan base.

Jingna’s accomplishments did not come without sacrifice as she had to make the bold move to leave her studies at the highly regarded Raffles Girl’s School, and later, a degree in fashion design at the Lasalle
College of the Arts. She was part of the Singapore Air Rifle team for 5 years, having to relinquish her spot in the team to pursue her passion for the arts.

CM: Who or what influenced you to start taking photographs?
ZJ: The hope to express myself in a different medium compared to my friends who are mostly illustrators.

CM: What equipment do you most regularly use in your photographs?
ZJ: I use the Canon 1Ds Mark-III, Profoto and hotlights most frequently.

CM: Your photos have a distinct look to them especially your portraits, you really do a good job in capturing the emotion. How do you capture the look, do you wait till the moment when the model is showing a specific emotion or do you help the model achieve the specific look that you have in mind, how do you go about this process?
ZJ: It really depends, generally I direct them.

CM: We have heard that you are in the process of putting together a photo book, how did that idea first originate and how is it coming along and what is the project all about and what sort of work will be displayed in it?
ZJ: The photo book has been a frequent suggestion brought up by my supporters on deviantArt for the past year and it is near completion. The photo book is a collection of my progress and growth in my journey thus far in photography. Personal works that have been created over the past two years will be featured inside. Readers can follow up on the process on my blog (http://zemotion.blogspot.com). Updates on purchasing and pre-order information will be posted on my facebook and deviantArt account. The hardcover limited edition will be launched together with my exhibition and information can be found on http://beautiful.zemotion.net .

CM: Who has been your biggest influence in your photography work and where do you look for inspiration for your work?
ZJ: I’m inspired mostly by illustrators, such Yoshitaka Amano and Kuang Hong. Inspiration also comes from different channels such as Japanese rock, comics, fashion magazines, books and travelling.

CM: What is your preferred post processing method? and how do you organise your photographic work flow from shooting to final production? As at times many photographers suffer from a poor workflow which ends up costing them a lot of time and other resources.
ZJ: I load images into Lightroom for the first batch of colour process first, followed by retouching in Photoshop, but essentially each image or set’s needs vary so the time spent from shooting to final production is usually different.

CM: Where do you want to go from here, any future projects lined up?
ZJ: When I have enough funds and time, I have a few large-scale personal shoots I’d always wanted to do. But that is for the future, probably some time away so I cannot say much for now. For the near future, I will see where my exhibition takes me, this in itself and the book is taking up most of my energy for now, if all goes smooth I then hope to travel around and shoot in a few different cities after this.