Copes spring15 sp by Randy Dunbar

Food, Travel, Adventure... The Waterworld of Von Wong

e follow our heat•We free ourselves of labels•We lose control willingly•We trade a role for reality•We love the unfamiliar•We trust strangers•We own only what we can carry•We search for better questions, not answers•We truly graduate•We, sometimes, choose never to come back

PURA VIDA is about art, travel, design, and photography. We capture the inspiring moments that send chills to the soul.

S T AY C O N N E C T E D www.PuraVida-mag.com

June 2015

CONTENTS 7

Outlash

Epicuria, The 5th Floor, Sojourn

14 get in gear

Supplies needed on a travel trip picked by the best team

cover story: shipwrecked A story written and photographed by Von Wong

32 richard avedon

A Portrait of an Artist

EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Melissa Copes CREATIVE DIRECTOR Matthew Schaumberg EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Kim Tieu DIR. OF PHOTOGRAPHY Cherise Macdougall DEPUTY EDITOR Zack Feldstein SENIOR EDITORS Hyek Im Julie Brossman Whitney Nicole ART DIRECTOR Raz Miyara PHOTO ASSISTANT Raji Faria CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Tanicia Riveria Ben Copes Becca Culver Dan Copes Erica Mitchell COPY EDITORS Saminia Zakar PROOF READER Randy Dunbar EDITORIAL INTERN Jen Corgi MARKETING & CREATIVE SERVICES INTEGRATED MARKETING DIRECTORS Davonna Dean SPONSORED CONTENT EDITOR Molly Falnnery INTEGRATED MARKETING MANAGER Chloe Clark GRAPHIC DESIGNER Melissa Copes DIGITAL AD OPERATIONS Matt Sebastion SALES & MARKETING COORDINATOR Sarah Parsons SUBSCRIPTIONS INQUIRIES PuraVida-mag.com/services 619-235-2049 (toll free) From outside the United States, call 415-675-5200 EDITORIAL CORPORATE OFFICES 919 S Grand Avenue, fifth floor Los Angeles, CA 90015 800-624-1200 editorial@puravida-mag.com SALES & MARKETING OFFICES 350 Tenth Avenue, 3rd Floor San Diego CA, 92101 949-851-6200 Pura Vida ID Statement (ISSN 200-159-387), volume 1, Number 1, is publsihed bimonthly, except monthly in May and October by Pura Vida media, LLC. All rights are reserved to Pura Vida’s publishers.

Letter From The Editor T

he world has much to offer and to travel among the magnificent people of this Earth and experience the culture of other is a true blessing. In my profession I decided to work with what I love to feel inspired by showing the world not only through my eyes but by the point of view by many artists. Surely there are many obstacles and challenges to overcome everyday, however I’m sure that here you will find a different point of view of the world around you and my goal is to search for better questions not answers. In Pura Vida, we believe in enjoying life as it is and taking the time to see the world and tasting the fullness of life. Here you can spend an afternoon sitting and drinking wine along the Mediterranean Sea. Walk the cobbled streets of Paris. Climb the Hallelujah Mountains. Swim through the Great Barrier Reefs. Experience the prayers of the Wailing Wall. See the Great Wall of China. Jump off a cliff at Blue Lagoon in Bali.

Stop E

g n i v i L t r a t S & g n i t s xi

Pura Vida is the expression of eternal optimism despite circumstances that continue to surround you. It’s an emotion, it’s an attitude, it’s happiness, and it’s a way of life. Once you’ve visited, you will understand the true meaning of Pura Vida. Traveling will change you like nothing else in this world can. It will allow you to grow and care for issues that are bigger than you. You will begin to understand that the world is both very large and small. Get cultured. Living well is the best revenge..... so what are you waiting for?

EPICURIAN

5TH FLOOR

SOJOURN

Guilty Pleasures The best cocktail around BY Michelle Obama

n the beginning there was water—abundant, refreshing, providing everything the body needs to replenish the fluids it loses. Humans relied on it as their only beverage for millions of years. Milk came next, with the advent of agriculture and the domestication of animals. Then beer and wine and coffee and tea, all drunk for taste and pleasure as much as for the fluids they provide. The newcomers—soft drinks, sports and energy drinks, and the like—offer hydration but with a hefty dose of unnecessary calories that the body may have a hard time regulating. With so many choices, all with different, sometimes unexpected effects on health, it’s easy to be confused about the “best” beverages for health. The evidence on beverages and health and ranked categories of beverages into six levels, based on calories delivered, contribution to intake of energy and essential nutrients, and evidence for positive and negative effects on health. The winner? Water. But that doesn’t mean that water is the only beverage that’s good for your health, or that everyone needs to drink eight glasses of water a day.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY MEL COPES

EPICURIAN 5TH FLOOR SOJOURN

The Chemistry of Our Times The windows for the spring have chemicals. Photographed by PJ

“M

adder and more original than most of her contemporaries, Mme Schiaparelli is the one to whom the word ‘genius’ is applied most often,” Time magazine wrote of its cover subject in 1934\ Coco Chanel once dismissed her rival as “that Italian artist who makes clothes.” (To Schiaparelli, Chanel was simply “that milliner.”)  Indeed, Schiaparelli—“Schiap” to friends—stood out among her peers as a true nonconformist, using clothing as a medium to express her unique ideas. In the thirties, her peak creative period, her salon overflowed with the wild, the whimsical, and even the ridiculous. Many of her madcap designs could be pulled off only by a woman of great substance and style: Gold ruffles sprouted from the fingers of chameleon-green suede gloves; a pale-blue satin evening gown—modeled by Madame Crespi in Vogue— had a stiff overskirt of Rhodophane (a transparent, glasslike modern material); a smart black suit jacket had red lips for pockets. Handbags, in the form of music boxes, tinkled tunes like “Rose Marie, I Love You”; others fastened with padlocks. Monkey fur and zippers (newfangled in the thirties) were everywhere. love of trompe l’oeil can be traced to the faux-bow sweater that kick-started Schiaparelli’s career and brought her quirky style to the masses. “Dare to be different,” is the advice she offered to women. Pacesetters and rule-breakers waved that flag through the sixties, the seventies, and beyond.

Fifth Floor FIDM Facts

“Madder and more original than most of her contemporaries, Mme Schiaparelli is the one to whom the word ‘genius’ is applied most often,” Time magazine wrote of its cover subject in 1934\ Coco Chanel once dismissed her rival as “that Italian artist who makes clothes.” (To Schiaparelli, Chanel was simply “that milliner.”)  Indeed, Schiaparelli—“Schiap” to friends— stood out among her peers as a true nonconformist, using clothing as a medium to express her unique ideas. In the thirties, her peak creative period, her salon overflowed with the wild, the whimsical, and even the ridiculous. Many of her madcap designs could be pulled off only by a woman of great substance and style: Gold ruffles sprouted from the fingers of

Students who study art are 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement and 3 times more likely to be awarded for school attendance.

Arts and music education programs are mandatory in countries that rank consistently among the highest for math and science test scores, like Japan, Hungary, and the Netherlands.

Music programs are constantly in danger of being cut from shrinking school budgets even though they’re proven to improve academics. Show educators how important arts are in your community.

4 5

The No Child Left Behind Act clearly mandates The Arts (music, art, foreign language, etc.) as a core academic subject.

Federal funding for the arts and humanities rolls in around $250 million a year, while the National Science Foundation is funded around the $5 billion mark.

7 8

Researchers find that sustained learning in music and theater correlates strongly with higher achievement in both math and reading.

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Multiple studies have concluded that curricular and extracurricular art studies and activities help keep high-risk dropout students stay in school.

Research suggests that studying a second language is essential to the learning process, creative inquiry and critical thinking. Foreign language studies have proven to increase problem-solving skills and overall cognitive development.

chameleon-green suede gloves; a pale-blue satin evening gown—modeled by Madame Crespi in Vogue—had a stiff overskirt of Rhodophane (a transparent, glasslike modern material); a smart black suit jacket had red lips for pockets. Handbags, in the form of music boxes, tinkled tunes like “Rose Marie, I Love You”; others fastened with padlocks. Monkey fur and zippers (newfangled in the thirties) were everywhere. love of trompe l’oeil can be traced to the fauxbow sweater that kick-started Schiaparelli’s career and brought her quirky style to the masses. “Dare to be different,” is the advice she offered to women. Pace-setters and rule-

One study group showed that 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students who were taught a foreign language every day in school outperformed the students who were not exposed to a foreign language on their Basic Skills Test.

In a study of a high-poverty schools in Chicago, the schools that were participating in the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) made huge strides in closing the gap between high- and low-income students’ academic achievement.

New brain research shows that not only does music improve skills in math and reading, but it promotes creativity, social development, personality adjustment, and self-worth.

breakers waved that flag through the sixties, the seventies, and beyond. “Madder and more original than most of her contemporaries, Mme Schiaparelli is the one to whom the word ‘genius’ is applied most often,” Time magazine wrote of its cover subject in 1934\ Coco Chanel once dismissed her rival as “that Italian artist who makes clothes.” (To Schiaparelli, Chanel was simply “that milliner.”)  masses. “Dare to be different,” is the advice she offered to women. Pace-setters and rule-breakers waved that flag through the sixties, the seventies, and beyond. “Dare to be different,” is the advice she offered to women. Pace-setters and rule-breakers waved that flag through the sixties, the seventies, and beyond.

EPICURIAN 5TH FLOOR SOJOURN

Road to Rediscovery a birthright trip to Israel BY MICHAEL STEINHARDT

e believe that the experience of a trip to Israel is a building block of Jewish identity, and that by providing that gift to young Jews, we can strengthen bonds with the land and people of Israel and solidarity with Jewish communities worldwide. The idea of providing the gift of a trip to Israel was initially endorsed by the philanthropists Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt, who shared the belief that it was the birthright of all young Jews to be able to visit their ancestral homeland. Since its inception in December 1999, TaglitBirthright Israel has sent over 400,000 Jewish young adults to Israel. They come from 66 countries, all 50 U.S. States and Canadian provinces, and from nearly

1,000 North American colleges and universities. The gift of a Taglit-Birthright Israel trip is made possible thanks to the generous support from many sources, including parents of trip participants, alumni of the program, the program’s founders and other philanthropists, the State of Israel, the Jewish Federation system and Keren Hayesod, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and thousands of individuals donors from around the world who believe in our mission. “Taglit” means “discovery” in Hebrew. And that, in a word, is the goal of the trip – a discovery of Israel and its people, discovery of one’s own personal connection to Jewish values and tradition, and discovery of the ways in which one can be a part of the larger Jewish community.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY MEL COPES

Get in Gear

Top picks from our staff

Travel Bag, Tuscany leather, $325 A metropolitan leather travel set with duffle bag lisabon and bag monte is the best way to travel!

Sunglasses, RayBan, $155 As if having these stunner shades for looks isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t enough these fold for compact ease and conveience!

3 4

Backpack, Camelbak, $109 Travel in style with this fine dime. Made with durability, streangth and 3 liter reservoir great for traveling the world.

Comfortable footware, Birkenstock, $100 Birkenstocks are making a huge comeback this season. Not only is it the latest fad, but comfort takes a huge role in its success.

Neck Pillow, Target, $15 Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll thank us on an airplane when you remmeber to bringone of these bad boys. 12 hour flights dont look so bad after all now do they?

Hats, Nike Woman’s Hat, $14.99 On a hot day traveling in the sun, you’ll love that you remembered a lightweight hat to block the sun from you eyes.

Camera, Câmera Canon T5i/700D Kit 18-135mm,$599 This stunner will help you in any great photoshoot along your travels.

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Solar charge BackPack, Birksun, $129 BirkSun Elevate Solar Battery Charger Backpack with Hydration Bladder

Adapt, Samsonite Luggage Converter/Adapter Kit, $34.99 When changing countries don’t forget there are different outlets that we must adapt to.

Sunscreen, Cola, $34 We’re big fans of nature and we like ingredients that we can actually pronouce.

11 Record, GoPro HERO3 Black and Silver edition cameras,$399 Capture all the best moments on your trip.

JUNE 2015

Models Dive 25 Meters Underwater for a Literally Breathtaking Photoshoot in Bali A Story by Von Wong

ontreal-based photographer Benjamin Von Wong went for an extraordinary adventure when he decided to hold one of the most epic photo-shoots the world of photography has seen in recent years. His highly ambitious underwater photo session involved 2 models, 7 safety divers and one 50-year-old sunken shipwreck in the waters of Bali. Just in case you have any doubts, Photoshop was only used in post-production editing – these photos are real. The preparation for the photo-shoot was a lot more difficult and complex than it seems in these breathtaking photographs. Due to the challenging and dangerous conditions that come with photographing underwater, the assisting divers had to ensure the models’ safety and help the photographer with his work. The gorgeous gowns that the models are seen in were donated by designers willing to part with their dresses for good, as they would be irreparably damaged by the sea water. And lastly, the photo gear was extremely limited, and so was the lightning – Wong had to rely exclusively on camera strobes and natural light. Michael David Adams is based out of New York City. His work can be seen inside and on the covers of U.S. and international editions of

magazines worldwide such as ELLE, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Gotham, Qvest, Soma, Muse, Cosmopolitan, Vision, and many others. When not working in New York, you can find Michael in different parts of the world scouting incredible locations for his next shoot or perhaps you’ll find him submerged under the waters surface for his next underwater series… Photography and image making found Michael very early on in life.. Looking through photos he took as a child on his first camera, a Kodak Instamatic X-15F, one can see a natural gift for composition and telling a story through his images. He has worked with many different mediums for his visual story telling, but photography has always been his main passion, from the days of darkrooms and dark-slides, until now.. Photographing either fashion or beauty, Michael loves the entire process from concept to print. Photography is so much more than taking a picture, it’s inspiration, it’s decisions, it’s spontaneity, it’s emotion, it’s art…. it’s life Together in Shipwrecked we explore the differerent styles of truely breathtaking underwater photography by Benjamin Von Wong and David Michael Adams.

Teamwork

word that truly begins to mean something when you’re shooting 25 meters underwater and your model tied to a 50 year old shipwreck in the middle of Bali where the slightest miscalculation could spell disaster. My job as the photographer is to make sure that regardless of the conditions and challenges, I have to be able to capture and create an amazing series of images and the only way that is possible in a shoot like this one is to be surrounded by people that I can trust so that I can do my job. Assembling a competent team is critical to the

success or failure of most shoots and this time was no exception.

so the search began as always on facebook, reaching out to my fans and seeing if someone How the project came together knew somebody that could help. Ever since my first shoot Turns out the head of the Asian underwater, I’ve been dreaming Dive Expo, Cassandra Ann of taking shoots out of a swimming Dragon was tuned into my pool into a shipwreck so when adventures and enthusiastically my parents told me to take some recommend underwater time off and go on a vacation in photographer and dive instructor Bali I leaped at the opportunity Chris Simanjuntak to me. to put together this shoot. I sat down with him on my first Up to this point, I didn’t yet day in Bali while my parents have my dive certification but went touring and we began since I was a strong swimmer to line up the elements that with underwater photography we would need to bring our experience, I felt confident that I shoot to life – Free Divers, could pull things together if I had Dresses, Makeup, Location, the right team around me. And Time, Constraints, Gear…

Scuba facts ✴Scuba stands for “Self contained underwater breathing appartus”. ✴Sharks kill 8 to 12 people each year world wide. Humans kill over 30 million sharks each year. ✴Once you get below 10 metres depth, you can’t see red or yellow! If you cut yourself your blood looks blue. ✴Sound travels five times faster underwater than in air, which makes it almost imipossible to establish where sound is coming from, as we rely on the time difference between our ears to do so. ✴Oxygen becomes toxic when under pressure, so at depths greater than 42 metres, special gases with low oxygen are used. ✴Jacques Cousteau invented Scuba gear in 1943, calling his cylinder the aqualung. ✴Nitrogen narcosis affects all divers - it’s the effect of Nitrogen beaing breathed at depths of more than 25 metres. It’s a little like being slightly drunk. ✴Children can learn to dive as young as 8 the limitng factor is that they must be able to manage the weight of the equipment. ✴The Great barrier reef is the largest living organism on the planet, with a surface area greater than England. ✴The Gray Whale migrates more than 10,000 miles every year. ✴The diving equivalent of the mile high club is called the 20 metre club.

Lighting

knew from past experience shooting in a swimming pool that lighting in the ocean was going to be no easy task. Thankfully, through conversations with Chris who also happened to be a pretty awesome photographer in his own right, I learned that I would be able to shoot at ISO 400, f4.0 and a minimum shutter speed of 1/50th across most of the shipwreck with nothing but ambient light alone, even at 30 meters depth. In regular English? Images that wouldn’t be blurry or excessively grainy despite the 5-year-old Nikon D90 that I was using. “But I saw you use some lights underwater in the video!” And you’re absolutely right! Mike Veitch had brought a set of strobes that I could use and I couldn’t help but try them out. Not only did they make my kit exponentially heavier and swimming more complicated, it would also give the images a “deer in the headlight” feeling where the foreground objects would be oddly brighter and properly coloured as opposed to the background objects.

Challenges

verything is more complicated underwater. To name a few:

we had available: on camera strobes or natural light. The Team: •Normal models wouldn’t work unless they had Chris Simanjuntak was instrumental in helping us extensive dive training and even then, they build over half the team that made this shoot wouldn’t have the ability to hold their breaths for possible. With his local connections and dive very long, especially at depth so Free Divers were school, he had access to divers and equipment going to be required. to provide the foundation for bringing this shoot •Normal clothes couldn’t be rented since the to life. Three safety divers from his school were seawater would wreck them, so we had to find hired to ensure that a close eye would be kept on a designer willing to part with the clothing they’d the models. His friend, BBC wildlife photographer lend us. of the year Mike Veitch graciously loaned me •Normal assistants wouldn’t work; specially trained a Nikon D90 with a 12-24mm f4 in an Aquatica safety divers were going to be necessary to ensure housing after my own camera took a dive the day a smooth photo-shoot. before. •Scouting would be complicated – local divers Local free-diving clubs were contacted to source would be necessary for us to navigate around the models and Nora Li, Jakarta free-diving record wreck and deal with unpredictable changes in holder capable of holding her breath for 3 minutes the weather and tide. and descending to 36 meters in depth jumped Lighting and gear would be limited – shooting to the opportunity to be a part of the project. On underwater meant that we had to work with what my end, I reached out to a couple free-diving

Post-Production: One of the challenges shooting underwater is that the deeper you get, the more desaturated everything gets. Thankfully, with a couple layers of color balancing (Color Balance, Curves, Selective Color), dodging and burning, and some careful masking, I was able to paint back color and tones into my image

friends of my own and Camilla Argent, an English free-diver based out of Dubai capable of holding her breath for 4min 40sec and descending to a depth of 20 meters decided to fly herself over to be a part of the adventure. Yenny Gunawan, a Bali based hair and makeup artist and childhood friend of Nora’s also decided to hop on board for the adventure and suddenly the only thing that we were truly missing was a designer. For the last piece of the puzzle, Chris’s wife Listy, an underwater model herself, reached out to Ali Charisma, a high end international fashion designer based out of Bali known for his whimsical designs graciously provided us with some of his older runway designs for us to use. The final icing on the cake was having both assistant Sam Tsang and Singapore based cinematographer Siva Shanker rent an underwater housing and fly themselves over to make a couple amazing Behind the Scene videos so that I could share the adventure with all of you. Concept, lighting and postproduction secrets Conceptualizing On the first day that I arrived in Bali and sat down with Chris to discuss logistics, I immediately realized that I was going to have to present him with something tangible to explain to him what was going on in my mind. Unfortunately, as someone who didn’t yet have his diving license yet, there was no possibility of scouting the location ahead of time, which meant that I was

going to need to find some other way. Though I began by launching a very typical Google search of the “Tulambun Shipwreck“. A couple minutes in, I soon realized that I wasn’t getting the variety of angles I was hoping for, nor was I really getting a sense of scale. I turned to YouTube, and stumbled upon this gem of a video by underwater videographer Nick Hope documenting his dive of the shipwreck from a variety of different angles. I took these ideas and presented them to Chris and I was already presented with my first challenge: The first rule in scuba is that you do not touch the coral reefs. Any contact would have to be implied, not actual. Right. Of course. We’d just have to make sure that we had foreground objects to imply any type of contact to help tell the story. Not a problem. In Conclusion: Nothing is impossible, everything just takes time to get through one piece at a time. Break any project down into bite size pieces and everything can be easily tackled. Be safe. Dream big. It’s kind of fun to do the impossible. – Walt Disney Every image that I create consists of a series of challenges to overcome. Shooting in an underwater shipwreck was no different; it just happened to have a couple more that had to be worked through.

RICHARD AVEDON A Portrait Of An Artist Fahey Klein presents a major retrospective of the photographers work. By Kely Smith

Cloe Mag 34

hat do Jean Genet, Jimmy Durante, Brigitte Bardot, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jacques Cousteau, Andy Warhol, and Lena Horne have in common? They were a few of the many personalities caught on film by photographer Richard Avedon. For more than fifty years, Richard Avedon’s portraits have filled the pages of the country’s finest magazines. His stark imagery and brilliant insight into his subjects’ characters has made him one of the premier American portrait photographers. Born in New York in 1923, Richard Avedon dropped out of high school and joined the Merchant Marine’s photographic section. Upon his return in 1944, he found a job as a photographer in a department store. Within two years he had been “found” by an art director at Harper’s Bazaar and was producing work for them as well as Vogue, Look, and a number of other magazines. During the early years, Avedon made his living primarily through work in advertising. His real passion, however, was the portrait and its ability to express the essence of its subject. As Avedon’s notoriety grew, so did the opportunities to meet and photograph celebrities from a broad range of disciplines. Avedon’s ability to present personal views of public figures, who were otherwise distant and inaccessible, was immediately recognized by the public and the celebrities themselves. Many sought out Avedon for their most public images. His artistic style brought a sense of sophistication and authority to the portraits. More than anything, it is Avedon’s ability to set his subjects at ease that helps him create true, intimate, and lasting photographs. Throughout his career Avedon has maintained a unique style all his own. Famous for their minimalism, Avedon portraits are often well lit and in front of white backdrops. When printed, the images regularly contain the dark outline of the film in which the image was framed. Within the minimalism of his empty studio, Avedon’s subjects move freely, and it is this movement which brings a sense of spontaneity to the images. Often containing only a portion of the person being photographed, the images seem intimate in their imperfection. While many photographers are interested in either catching a moment in time or preparing a formal image, Avedon has found a way to do both.

Jacqueline De Ribes

Diana Vreeland

Isabella Rossellini

Jean Shimpton

“All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”  40

Paul McCartney Beyond his work in the magazine industry, Avedon has collaborated on a number of books of portraits. In 1959 he worked with Truman Capote on a book that documented some of the most famous and important people of the century. Observations included images of Buster Keaton, Gloria Vanderbilt, Pablo Picasso, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Mae West. Around this same time he began a series of images of patients in mental hospitals. Replacing the controlled environment of the studio with that of the hospital he was able to recreate the genius of his other portraits with non-celebrities. The brutal reality of the lives of the insane was a bold contrast to his other work. Years later he would again drift from his celebrity portraits with a series of studio images of drifters, carnival workers, and working class Americans.

for Harperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bazaar and in 1974 he collaborated with James Baldwin on the book Nothing Personal. Having met in New York in 1943, Baldwin and Avedon were friends and collaborators for more than thirty years. For all of the 1970s and 1980s Avedon continued working for Vogue magazine, where he would take some of the most famous portraits of the decades. In 1992 he became the first staff photographer for The New Yorker, and two years later the Whitney Museum brought together fifty years of his work in the retrospective, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Richard Avedon: Evidenceâ&#x20AC;?. He was voted one of the ten greatest photographers in the world by Popular Photography magazine, and in 1989 received an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London. Today, his pictures continue to bring us a closer, more intimate view of the great and the famous.

Throughout the 1960s Avedon continued to work

Avedon died on October 1st, 2004.

Dream the impossible Motivated by the desire to be creatively challenged and overcome impossibilities, Benjamin Von Wong has become notorious for his epic photography. His hyper-realistic art style captures viewers in a fusion of special effects and innovative concepts. Benjaminâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s background in engineering gives him a unique edge for creative problem solving, where technical challenges become friendly competition. Fueled by his passion to connect people, Benjamin has an affinity for finding unique talent to bring his complex stories to life. He is also highly engaged in the photographic society by sharing his experiences and techniques through blogs, social media, workshops and videos.

Motivated by the desire to be creatively challenged and overcome impossibilities, Benjamin Von Wong has become notorious for his epic photography. His hyper-realistic art style captures viewers in a fusion of special effects and innovative concepts. Benjaminâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s background in engineering gives him a unique edge for creative problem solving, where technical challenges become friendly competition. Fueled by his passion to 46

connect people, Benjamin has an affinity for finding unique talent to bring his complex stories to life. He is also highly engaged in the photographic society by sharing his experiences and techniques through blogs, social media, workshops and videos.

AT LAST

capture the moments