Tung Walsh’s impressive archive includes A-list portraiture and landscapes …
My stepdad David Corio is a photographer, so from the age of ten I was always around images. I would sit in his darkroom and he would sometimes take me to shoots – he mainly photographed musicians. My mother Lai Ngan Walsh studied writing and directing, so she’s involved in documentary films. She was recently included in the Tate Britain exhibition Women in Revolt for her documentary on immigration, Stop Strip Searching. So, I’ve always been around visual artists.
I studied art, but dropped out of college. Formative experiences included working in a picture library that sold photographs to papers and magazines. Sometimes, I’d get the chance to cover a concert for them, so I’d go and shoot live musicians then hope to sell the images the next day. My first camera was a Nikon FM2.
I then worked in a few darkrooms and as a photo technician at London College of Printing (now London College of Communication). I won a national photography competition for a photo of all the delivery people who came to the pub I worked in at the time. The judges were Martin Parr, Elaine Constantine and Dennis Morris.
I was lucky enough to end up assisting Juergen Teller for five years before going out on my own. Working with Juergen was intense; it was a huge amount of work and pretty nonstop, working on adverts, exhibitions and books. It was a great experience and he was very nice, but I always seemed to be on a plane going somewhere. It’s not a “normal job” – you have to do it until it’s done, whatever it takes, so there are lots of late nights and overtime!
The photographs in Oil, Gas + Cars at The Horse Gallery in Dublin are pictures I’ve taken in the background on jobs. They span just over 20 years of travelling to far-flung places, from Azerbaijan to Harlem, Morocco to Cuba, Cairo and beyond. The images were made on assignment, captured during paid travel for editorial and commercial clients. I feel like they are curated as a reflection of the news we hear on a daily basis. One of my favourite images is a Lada car in Cuba, but it has been pimped up to look like a Ferrari.
I wouldn’t like to pigeonhole myself, but maybe cheeky photos define my photographic style. What I enjoy most about what my job is that you get to be nosey, be in places you would never normally visit and meet lots of different people.
My portrait subjects have included Taylor Swift, Andrew Scott, Emma Corrin, Tim Burton, Gisele Bündchen, Suki Waterhouse, Manolo Blahnik and Stella Tennant, among many others.
The person who impressed me most was probably Tim Burton. I grew up watching his movies which made me a bit starstruck, but he was very laidback and just wanted me to turn up with a camera, no fuss at all. He put his jukebox on and we had a little dance.
I use a Contax, Mamiya, Fuji for film cameras, but also shoot digital on a Nikon. This exhibition is all shot on film and printed on photographic paper. For an amateur, I recommend a fully manual camera as I think you learn more about what’s happening and the process. Right now, I’ve been fully focused on this exhibition, but maybe I’ll start thinking about a book down the line.
Need to know: Tung Walsh’s exhibition Oil, Gas + Cars is on now at The Horse Gallery, Dublin 1. @thehorsedublin
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