A Quote by Ren Ng

I am a very keen photographer. I have enjoyed taking pictures since I was a kid with my family, but I became more serious about it at university. — © Ren Ng
I am a very keen photographer. I have enjoyed taking pictures since I was a kid with my family, but I became more serious about it at university.
For me N.M.E. was a very big thing. When I first came to the United Kingdom I started taking pictures for them and I became their main photographer for five years, and that's really been the basis of everything I've been doing since.
Over the years, my work became both my vocation and avocation. Since I enjoyed it so much, I never felt a great need to go outside for relaxation. Nevertheless, I became an avid photographer and traveler. Possibly my love for travel stems from the early years when my family seldom went away on vacation.
Since I switched to an iPhone, I did start taking pictures of people I like. Until then, I strangely never took pictures. I think the iPhone became this space that was different enough from a "photograph," so I find myself taking pictures of daily things. If someone I dated asked me to take their picture, I would most likely find it disturbing. Perhaps nude pictures would be fun. But that would have to be on an iPhone.
I used to live in a hostel with Bihari roommates. They used to be very excited about getting their pictures clicked, and since there weren't any mobile phones back then, they used to have a photographer accompany them everywhere. Thus, my character's personality and the photographer were incorporated into 'Dabangg.'
I'm not a serious photographer like many of my contemporaries. That is to say, I am serious about not being serious.
Light inspires me. I'm drawn to architecture, often graves, statues, trees - things usually that are quite still. I've been taking pictures continuously since 1995 until the end of Polaroid film. I'm taking very few pictures nowadays because I have very little film left, most of it expired.
I became a photographer in order to be a war photographer, and a photographer involved in what I thought were critical social issues. From the very beginning this was my goal.
It would be so easy to lose the plot now. It's not about achieving something for its own sake, and taking pictures for their own sake. But to make conscious decisions and choices, and it includes this constant questioning - Why am I taking pictures? Because really, the world is... it has pictures enough. I mean, there are enough pictures out there.
When you work fast, what you put in your pictures is what your brought with yoiu - your own ideas and concepts. When you spend more time on a project, you learn to understand your subjects. There comes a time when it is not you who is taking the pictures. Something special happens between the photographer and the people he is photographing. He realizes that they are giving the pictures to him.
I think that it's workshops, honestly, that have kept me keen about photography, and about my photography. My career as a workshop photographer came while I was at the Geographic in the late 70's, and has continued consistently since then.
I didn't want to be a photographer. I wanted to play music and be a rock star. I didn't have a mentor telling me to take pictures and encouraging me. But when the music thing didn't work out, I became a photographer's assistant. And then I caught the bug.
I like to look at pictures, all kinds. And all those things you absorb come out subconsciously one way or another. You'll be taking photographs and suddenly know that you have resources from having looked at a lot of them before. There is no way you can avoid this. But this kind of subconscious influence is good, and it certainly can work for one. In fact, the more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.
While I was in university, my father became very ill and my father was unable to work. We needed to pay the bills, so in my 20s I became the sole income earner in my family.
I am the kind of guy who has never taken myself too seriously. I mean, I am very serious about what I do; I'm very serious about the creative process and everything, but at the end of the day, I am just another lucky geek who got to live out a dream, you know?
I grew up in the South where they are very, very passionate about sports, and I was the artsy kid who didn't know much about it. I found I kind of enjoyed the social aspect, and I enjoyed the tailgating. I went for the free food and the experience. But to this day, I'm still learning. You're not going to see me watching it by myself, but if there are nachos involved, I'm there.
I've been taking pictures since I was probably 16. I'm 54, and I can't believe how excited I am.
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