Whiskey & Absinthe
P H O T O G R A P H Y
Whisky, an amber-gold liquor fermented and distilled from grains and matured in wooden casks, is the most masculine of them all. The toasted and charred wood imparts a smoky flavour not found in others. To me, whisky is best personified by gentlemen in suits with a lightened cigar in their hands.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, absinthe was favoured by Western writers and artists, including Hemingway and van Gogh. A distilled spirit of alcohol and water, it contains herbs such as absinthe flowers. The strong drink with up to 70% alcohol content is the muse for those toeing the fine line between sober and drunk. Thanks to its green colour, absinthe is also known as La Fée Verte (the green fairy).
I paired three smoky whiskies with Waiyin@Zpecial (drummer), Ming Lai (actor) and Wilfred Wong (model), and two flowery absinthes with Sukie Chung (singer) and Birdy Wong (actress). What was meant as a love story between whisky and absinthe turns out to be just a scene of ruin and decadence. I wrote a script, the poem at the beginning of this chapter, the night before the shoot. It appears to be a simple and straightforward story at first glance with five characters entangled in a drunken encounter. Things got chaotic and it hardly mattered anymore who made the first move.
I have loved whisky since my university days. I kept a bottle on the bookshelf of my dormitory room and took a sip or two every night. Everything looked distorted through the bottle even before I got drunk. The view of objects being ripped apart reminds me of the British painter Francis Bacon. His works are flooded with a sense of repression and violence. The painting Study after Study after Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953) left a lasting impression as if the canvas and paint had been scoured by each brush stroke. For this shoot, I placed in front of the lens glass bottles and slabs of different shapes and sizes, as well as machine-cut and hand-shattered glass, in order to change the angle of refraction and rip light rays apart.
I also utilised a darkroom technique known as the Sebattier Effect. Re-exposure to light part way through the development process leads to a partial reversal of the image. Dark areas appear light or light areas appear dark. The result is unexpected but far from unintended, allowing more imagination space for interpreting the chaotic relationships. In this deranged and agitated scene, every drop of whisky is a potent poison and every sip of absinthe is a world wrecker.
Exhibition View
Year
2023
Publication
Where The Firework Dies 煙花之地, 2023, HK
[ISBN:978-988-76921-0-2]
Position
Photographer
Art Director