"I never chose my career," says Wing Shya. "It came to me."
After graduating with a degree in graphic design, the Hong Kong native found himself, camera in hand, on a film set with Wong Kar-Wai. Shya had no real photography experience—he’d been summoned by a friend to document the production of a low-budget film that Wong was producing.
“It was a dream. He was my idol, but I didn’t know what I was doing,” Shya recalls decades later. “I just put [the camera] on automatic.” Whatever he did worked: When the movie wrapped, the legendary filmmaker invited Shya to Buenos Aires to shoot stills for 1997’s Happy Together, the tumultuous drama that won Wong a Best Director award at Cannes.
Things flowed from there: Shya, who also worked with Wong on In the Mood for Love, became a frequent collaborator and confidante, earning rare access to the enigmatic auteur’s inner world. The experience was like a second education: “At first, I copied Wong. I stole his movie style, his lighting, and transferred it to stills,” Shya says.
Images from the photographer’s archive, an exclusive selection of which are reproduced here, are included in a book out this week from Session Press. Solace, Shya’s first U.S. monograph, unearths private moments plucked from delirious, days-long shoots, each as charged and color-soaked as Wong’s films themselves.
Despite their decades-long collaboration, the pair’s connection remains largely unspoken. “I still don’t know if Wong loves the work,” says Shya, laughing. “He’s always pushed me—made me question myself. This was how he taught me.”
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