The Jury for 2022 Urban Photo Awards consists of over 27 people involved with the photography scene. The overall prize for this year's contest is over € 23,000 (and counting). And the 1st plce winner of the Single Pictures section will be selected by the president of the jury among the best four contestants of each section (Street / People / Spaces / Creative) during the prize-giving ceremony, Saturday, October 29, 2022, at Trieste Photo Days.

With that being said, Bored Panda reached out to Jason Au, a photographer from Hong Kong. He is one of the finalists of the Urban Photo Awards 2022, and his single image titled “Social Distancing” was selected in the competition.

First, we wanted to know how the photographer felt about being selected as one of the finalists. “The URBAN Photo Awards is one of the most prestigious competitions in the street photography world, so I feel honoured and grateful for becoming a finalist! It’s a massive recognition of the effort I’ve put into developing my work over the past years. This will encourage me to continue growing and polishing my own body of work, perhaps to explore doing more different photo series.”

The photographer began his journey way back in 2017, “I started street photography in 2017 after discovering the works of Fan Ho - the master Hong Kong street photographer who produced beautiful and poetic images of Hong Kong street scenes during the 1950s-60s. His evocative black-and-white photos profoundly inspire me. When I first started, I was only doing snap-shot kind of street photography. It was not until 2020 that I started taking pictures with strong geometric contexts and developed my photography style. Then suddenly,my photo series, ‘Hong Kong Lines and Patterns’, and the well-received image ‘Social Distancing’ emerged.

Regarding seeking inspiration from other art forms, I always enjoy looking at paintings by old masters. I like paintings by masters like Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. They taught me about the chiaroscuro effect and how to use and edit lights and shadows in my photos effectively.”

We also asked Jason to name some of the influences who might’ve helped him develop his photography style. “Fan Ho (1931-2016), a Hong Kong master photographer dubbed the ‘Henri Cartier-Bresson of the East’, has always been my major influence. His mesmerizing works introduced me to street photography back in 2017. Until now, I’m still profoundly inspired by his striking images, which are full of geometry, lights, and shadows. I’d say Fan Ho heavily influences my photography style, but I’ve been working on developing my own ‘visual signature’.”

When it comes to editing his images, Jason says he takes his time with them. “The time I took to fully edit an image varies. It depends on how many ‘layers’ there are in that image. I usually start by editing the image's background using global adjustment tools. Then I continue to refine the main subjects (usually the human subjects) using local adjustment tools (e.g. brush tool, radial gradient), revealing their details and making them pop out. As a general reference, for a minimalist image with two to three layers, it will take me around 20 minutes to edit one fully. However, if I’m working with a chaotic street scene with lots of layers and elements, it can take me a whole night to complete only one image. Also, I’ll revisit the edited images a couple of days later to see if any tweaks have to be made.”

We asked the photographer if he has a type of images that he especially likes to take. “I'm visually drawn to subjects and environments that can create geometric contexts in my works. I love images that exploit geometric lines, lights and shadows. I’m also fond of a visual effect called ‘chiaroscuro’, which means the use of strong contrasts between lights and shadows to give that punchy look and impactful impression to the viewer’s eyes. Moreover, the composition of an image is equally important as it concerns how effective you deliver your visual narrative to the viewers. Lastly, I’m always captivated by images that can seize extraordinary moments from the mundane.”

Just like any artistic person, Jason sometimes feels burned out by doing creative work. “Yes, that burned-out feeling occasionally happens when I cannot get a good single shot after photographing for a full day or even weeks. Sometimes it also happens when I’m editing my photos for too long sessions, I’ll be lost and have no idea what I’m doing with my editing because I lost track of my intention for that photo. The dodging and burning will eventually go wrong if I edit an image for too long hours. When this kind of irritated feeling happens, I’ll stay away from what I’m doing, take a short break or walk without my camera, and then I’ll be good to go again.”

We were also curious to find out how people react to the photographer’s work overall, and here’s what he said, “People and critics usually find my work quite striking and geometric, and I believe this is how ablack and white photo should look. Also, my work contains a sense of alienation, isolation and confinement as the human forms depicted in my images are often diminutive, with hulking buildings and architecture in the background, where urban structure encloses people into tiny boxes with no way out. Perhaps this aesthetic is suggestive of the melancholic romance of modern city life – how we succumb to the glory of the urban landscape, which is also a product of our creation.”

When it comes to the creative process, Jason shared which part is his favorite, “Out of all the creative processes, I always enjoy going out and photographing with my camera the most, especially heading out to new places I had never been to. Another thing I like is revisiting my old images, reworking the edits, image sequencing, or adding new recent images to my existing photo series. A new photo series could emerge from nowhere because of these kinds of revisiting from time to time.”

Although currently the photographer currently doesn’t have any themed projects, he is looking into trying a different genre of photography altogether. “In the upcoming, I’m looking forward to exploring new genres of photography, as I’ve only been doing street photography over the last five years. I’m currently working on some architectural photography projects based in Hong Kong, and I’d be very interested in trying out studio photography like still life or portrait shooting. I like that studio photography requires the photographer to set up the lights and everything else out of nothing; it’s the complete opposite of working on street photography, which is about controlling the chaos on the streets.”

Lastly, we were curious to find out about what motivates Jason as a photographer, and here’s what he said, “Speaking of my source of motivation, I keep on photographing as I'm always intrigued by the mundane beauty and extraordinary moments happening around me, which in fact, can be foundeverywhere in our day-to-day. I will be tremendously satisfied when I can seize a transcending moment on the streets. This kind of satisfaction, along with others’ recognition of my work, has driven me to continue creating new bodies of work.”