“There is just something very romantic about film with its imperfections of grain and Light leaks. It adds a fragmented and effortless feeling to images, they kind of feel nostalgic too.”

Naomi Wong is a photographer, 18 years old and currently studying film in London. Her work is a mix of moments and situations she has encountered and things she has created by herself.

How did photography come into your life?

I took really bad photos on cheap disposable cameras when I was 15 and it wasn’t till I started my photography course at college that I really fell in love with it. My first year was so mediocre but in my second year I wanted to take it more seriously and from then on, it really developed into something more than just an interest. It became something I really love to do, its just really fun and unexpecting.

How would you describe your work?

Ah, I don’t really know. I would say its kind of dreamy and quite indistinct. There’s a lot of portraiture going on and I’ll really like to expand from that. But portraiture is one of my favorite subjects, I love photographing people – they’re always so interesting and different.

What inspires you?

Mainly films but also people, old paintings and the work of other photographers – I love looking at their work, I feel like you can learn a lot from what they shoot. Sometimes I’m inspired by the moments I regret not having captured, those moments always linger in my mind but they also teach me to shoot whatever I want without hesitation.

What are your working tools?

I have a few cameras but I mainly use my Pentax Me Super. Sometimes I use my Fuji Mini Instax and my Olympus Trip 35. I recently bought myself a Olympus Mju ii which I’m going to start shooting on very soon. Its a point and shoot with a built in flash, so the photos will be very different from my usual naturally lit images.

Why analog?

There is just something very romantic about film with its imperfections of grain and light leaks. It adds a fragmented and effortless feeling to images, they kind of feel nostalgic too. Digital just doesn’t have these qualities, its too precise and immediate. Yeah its nice to be able to see what the image you just took looks like but there’s no sense of surprise or effortless there.

You moved to London recently. How is the experience so far?

I moved to London for university and its such a change from living in a small suburban town. Its great being in the city, literally everywhere I want to go is just 20 minutes away and you can never run out of things to do and places to go in London. I’ve been here for a few months now and it still takes a while to get used to, I love it here but I miss people from home. Its an interesting experience, I feel quite grown up but at the same time completely lost.

You are the founder of Les Filles Zine. Tell us about this project.

Les Filles, meaning the girls in French is a project I created to showcase the work of female photographers. I noticed on tumblr and the internet, there were a large majority of collectives who only published the work of male photographers – usually photos of boys skateboarding, graffiting on walls and sometimes naked girls with no faces. Sure, they featured a handful of ladies but it just wasn’t enough and I felt that female photographers were being under looked and under appreciated so I created Les Filles in order to try and showcase them. There are great female artist collectives out there but some of them only show the work of already well recognized, cream of the crop internet girls and I don’t think thats fair either. So far the first printed of issue of Les Filles was released earlier this year and hopefully a second issue will soon follow on. Though Les Filles hasn’t been updated regularly due to my studies, I am slowly bringing it back with lots of interviews and features.

With whom would you like to do a collaboration? Why?

I haven’t really thought about that, I would just love other photographers or illustrators, writers and artists to message me and say they want to collaborate and then see what happens.

Next year you want …

To be published in print, to travel around Europe and Asia over the summer and to keep shooting. I don’t really know what else I want next year but I only want nice and interesting things to happen.

Future projects?

I really want to create a zine of my work but I feel like I don’t have a lot to choose from yet so I’m gonna wait till I have more images to show. Hopefully put out a second issue of Les Filles and maybe make a stop motion short film with a new series of photos.