KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) - Expensive gear unneeded, an enterprising amateur photographer needs just the will to venture afoot and capture the cosmos above, according to Felix Wong, whose multimedia exhibit featuring the area’s moonlit skies opened recently in Ketchikan.
During the week before the opening, Wong worked into the night transforming the Main Street Gallery into a jet-black planetarium of sorts. His “Moonshine” exhibit of night skies will continue through Nov. 23 at the gallery, according to the Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council.
“So he wanted to paint the walls black to not only get the feeling of darkness or nighttime, but also to help the images pop against the black walls,” KAAHC Program Director Marni Rickelmann said. “I think we all just get used to the clouds in the sky, and we never look up. He has captured it in a really beautiful way.”
A play on words, the exhibit sets starry nights as a backdrop to area landmarks like Totem Bight State Historical Park or the peak of Deer Mountain and the adjacent snowcapped ridgeline, reported the Ketchikan Daily News (https://bit.ly/2ftaYLH).
“Most of the scenes are moonlit, and it’s nighttime scenes of Ketchikan, which has a rich history of moonshine in the Prohibition era - and my being Kentucky-born has nothing to do with it,” Wong, a marine electrician by trade who serves also as a Ketchikan Gateway Borough assemblyman, joked of the southern state’s own checkered past with homemade liquor.
The 30-year-old was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but raised in Singapore, having lived in Ketchikan for the past roughly three years.
A first for the hobbyist photographer, the exhibit will feature a collection of 5-by-2-foot stills, with a 10-foot-wide centerpiece standing more than 5 feet tall. A projection screen mounted overhead will present a one-minute time-lapse of the night from dusk until dawn.
“So it will be looping a time-lapse video of a collection of scenes featuring the Aurora Borealis and the Milky Way setting into the horizon,” Wong explained.
But the exhibit holds a deeper meaning. Wong wants to use it hopefully to capture the interest of others to venture into the night and wonder at the skies.
Perhaps, he said, the exhibit will even propel curious minds into a new era of space exploration and the logistics that make it possible, considering not only NASA’s ongoing journey to Mars and the overarching goal to send humans to the Red Planet by the 2030s, but also the more recent thrust of private industry into space.
“My hope is to inspire people into at least thinking about what’s out there, maybe get a new generation of kids wanting to be astronauts again,” he said.
And while space exploration might seem daunting, the everyday someone can easily frame the surrounding star-lit space with a camera.
As part of Wong’s exhibit, on Nov. 17, he will host a meet-the-artist workshop with lessons on camera gear and settings, techniques for capturing awe-inspiring stills and video, and digital editing.
Wong has also compiled a checklist for nighttime photo shoots, as well as a list of easy-to-locate coordinates for a variety of shots.
“It doesn’t have to be a trade or family secret or anything like that,” he said. “Most everyone who has a camera already has that ability. They just need to have the incentive to know what the camera can already do. Maybe (’Moonshine’) will be a good incentive.”
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Information from: Ketchikan (Alaska) Daily News, https://www.ketchikandailynews.com
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