The images of Djulian Chng are beautiful. Often times bereft of people or objects. His images tend to explore our vernacular or the familiar, places that we have all been or seen somewhere before. At a glance, his images seem to suggest that something is out of place, yet the sense of oddity juxtaposed with the familiar urges the viewer to fill up these empty spaces with their own experience or memory of how they had encountered or seen those places.

This month’s landing page comes from Djulian. Commonpeople had the opportunity to interview Djulian as he shares with us what makes him tick.

What is your background and what are you currently doing?
I graduated from Temasek Polytechnic School of Design with a diploma in Visual Communications. Currently, I am serving my time assisting at a commercial photography studio.  In my free time, I work on my own projects, ranging from fashion to experimental processes.

How did you get into photography?
I found photography as I spent time with my father at his job in a prominent photographic film company during my formative years. It just seemed like a natural progression. My dad just kept bringing home the film, and I just keep shooting. Processing the film wasn’t much of a problem either, since I have an aunt in the film processing business.

Were you part of a particular community that inspired your desire to choose the medium of photography? Or provided a meaningful context to move into photography?
Yeah. I started shooting the local indie music scene when I was about 16. A friend of mine suggested to give music photography a try, and got me my first real gig shoot during Baybeats at The Esplanade. That was when I started taking photography seriously.

What is it about photography that interests you?
Being able to capture memories of places I’ve been to, people I’ve met, feelings I’ve felt, and being able to share these memories or events in my life with others.

What are the kinds of photos you take?
I’d like to think that I don’t belong to a particular kind, but I am drawn to landscapes, and cityscapes.

How do you usually conceive a particular idea? What is the creative process behind the conception of each piece or series of works? How do you come up with an idea?
Ideas usually come to me at the oddest of time and places, most of the time it’s about something that happened to me … the mood that I’m in. How do develop your idea? I sleep on it, or while taking breaks from actually thinking about the idea. Going out, the mood I might be in, the environment has a big effect on anyone. How you execute your ideas? I guess you can say that I have a very fluid or spontaneous “process”.

How has your perception of photography and your expression in general changed since when you started?
I don’t think the way I would approach something has changed much, and neither has my perception of photography. I like the jovial and juvenile honesty to my pictures.

What are some of the noteworthy photos or series that you have done? Care to briefly talk about them?
I’m particularly proud of my final year work I did on HDB void decks. It’s on my website, and it’s titled In Between. But it is never meant to be viewed online. The book that I printed is how you are supposed to view the series of work. It’s eighty images of void decks and corridors of randon HDB blocks. The idea of the book is that, as you flip thought the pages, it’s like walking from the void deck to your gate, but along the way you stop at a picture and say “wow, that’s nice” … or admire it for a moment, then you continue  …. but by the end of the book, you would have forgotten where you’ve stopped, and what that picture you said was nice, looked like. Just like how we don’t notice the subtle beauty of our closest environment. Something like that …. =)

What are you working on right now?
Testshoots and helping a friend out with some pictures for a fashion label.  Also I’m working on a photography project with Jovian with a ‘HOBBYIST’ point of view.

What do you see yourself doing in the next 5 years?
Hopefully running my own studio, and having a show at least once a year …

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