First Issue

Tim Gallo

Interview by Francesco Gallarotti
Photographies by Tim Gallo

When I discovered Tim Gallo’s photographs, one of the most recent images on his Flickr photo stream was the one on this page. For me, it was an immediate connection to Kar Wai Wong’s movie “Duo Luo Tian Shi” (1995), better known in the western world as “Fallen Angels”.

This is one of the movies that possibly better represents the moody photography style typical of the most recent Hong Kong cinematography, taking the viewers in the darkest alleys of the city’s soul.

“Many people say that my photography looks like stills from a movie. I think this is because I usually create a story before I shoot anything.”

Ironically neither Christopher Doyle, the award-winning photography director of “Fallen Angels”, nor Tim Gallo, the author of the photographs in these pages, are from Hong Kong. Doyle, Australian by birth, has directed the photography of several dozen of asian movies and has become famous for his extreme angles and for the overly saturated bold colors. Gallo, Russian by birth, in the past few years has lived in Tokyo, Japan. “I believe my passion towards photography starts from my passion towards Tokyo. Sometimes I feel like it’s this city that decides in which direction I should work” he answered when we asked whether the place where he lives influenced the images that he produced and his personal style. “I believe – added Tim – that Tokyo is the only city where Life and Death, Eros and Thanatos are so close to each others that you can almost physically feel them.”

Tim’s describes his photographies as movie stills. “Many people say that my photography looks like stills from a movie. I think this is because I usually create a story before I shoot anything.”

Ten years after “Fallen Angels”, director Kar Wai Wong worked again with Christopher Doyle creating anoother masterpiece of Asian cinematography. “2046” is the title of the movie and the photographer who took the still images on the set was Wing Shya. So, when we asked Tim about his main inspirations, it came with no surprise when Tim said that his strongest inspiration so far has been the work of Wing Shya and Nobuyoshi Araki. “I hope to be able to combine the plastic and moody feeling of Shya with the passion and sincerity of Araki’s work in my photography.”

A PDF file with the pages of the article as it will be published in the first issue of the Green Tea Gallery Magazine is available for free here: timgallo_greenteagallery_spring_20081.pdf.
Please notice that all the photographies in this article are owned and copyrighted by Tim Gallo.

© 2008 green tea gallery magazine.