Test Shooting in Singapore

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Working on photo shoots for commercial magazines may be financially rewarding, but, in many ways, issues of product and brand placement can put pressure on the fashion exploration and experimentation involved.

Tired of the limits imposed to his creativity, Singapore-based stylist Ashburn Eng set onto discovering new platforms to offer different artists the chance to show their most extraordinary shoots.

Inspired by the possibilities of online magazines and social networks, Eng launched in September 2008 the Test Shoot Gallery (TSG) project on Facebook.

Founded to promote the work of young Singaporean fashion designers through interesting visual galleries and test shoots, the Facebook page turned in less than two years into a proper site and a safe haven for many young creative types from the art, culture, design, fashion and photography industries.

At present two photography artworks shot for the Test Shoot Gallery by one of its regular contributors, May Lin Le Goff, are shortlisted in the Canon FSO Fashion Photography Challenge 2010.

You will find further information on how to support May Lin Le Goff in winning this photography challenge here.

What prompted you to start the Test Shoot Gallery?
Ashburn Eng: The desire to showcase our test shoots using designs from fresh graduates and students from various Singaporean design institutes. Fresh grads are more willing to explore other outlets with their clothing before they get locked into a certain view on clothes and how to present them. In just a few months the TSG gathered a large and ever growing group of followers and we decided to expand to our own site. Our mission is approaching creativity without limits and provide a unique online gallery to showcase our local talents through combined efforts, expressing our work primarily through fashion shoots. In the coming future, we would like to promote new talents and artists through a wider collaboration across various disciplines like short films or clips involving design, arts and music. We are still searching for a filmmaker who shares our vision and idea.

Do you feel that the new social networks available helped you getting in touch with a lot of creative types?
Ashburn Eng: These platforms bring people together like a spider’s web and connect everybody to somebody else. They allow us to communicate in real time, receive up-to-date messages and get connected with specific groups of people. In our case they also provide a channel to exchange creative ideas, ideals and vision. The interest in the TSG has rocketed: we constantly get emails from people congratulating us for our work and this proves that things are going well for us. We are in touch with more artists, and we can share our ideas about fashion and style with them. An old Chinese adage says “One cannot lead a horse to water”, and, following it, we believe it is pointless to enforce ideas on someone’s thoughts. Indeed what we aim to do is collaborating and working in synergy with other artists and constantly improve.

So far, what kind of artists contacted you?
Ashburn Eng: Magazine editors showed interest in sharing the TSG artworks with their readers; fashion designers approached us to conceptualise their advertising campaigns; creative directors got in touch to know more about our experimental style and engage us for commercial work, while artists, photographers, illustrators, hairstylists and makeup artists emailed us their portfolios and showed interest in collaborative work.

There are so many fashion and style sites and blogs on the Internet, what makes the Test Shoot Gallery different from all the others?
Ashburn Eng: Most sites succumb to product placement and sponsorship after a while. The TSG focuses on the new, the hybrid and the unexplored. We want to promote emerging local talents and remind people that, to bring our distinct Singaporean designs to the world, we must show support by buying and wearing such designs. We admire for example the late Isabella Blow who discovered Philip Treacy and the late Alexander McQueen and introduced them to the rest of the world. TSG firmly shares Isabella’s vision by providing a unique online platform to showcase great talents.

What does creativity represent for you?
Ashburn Eng: Creativity is the ability to take distinctly different pieces of information and combine them together in a unique and unexpected way that may also involve certain risks.

Would you like to organise a Test Shoot Gallery event/exhibition in Europe one day?
Ashburn Eng: Of course! It would be a fantastic opportunity to share our ideals and showcase our local talents. I would also love to do a TSG collaborative spread with a magazine based somewhere else.

Is there a famous artist/designer/director/musician or model you particularly like and would love to see contributing to the Test Shoot Gallery?
Ashburn Eng: So many of them: Naoto Hirooka, Wong Kar Wai, Wing Shya, Zhou Xun and Chenman to name a few of them.

What’s the first thing you do when you start working on a photo shoot?
Ashburn Eng: I make sure I have the right casting and combination of unique talents. Each photo shoot is an intimate process for me and I need to work with the right people who share my same aesthetic vision and who are 100% committed.

What does fashion represent to you?
Ashburn Eng: We can use fashion to translate current topics such as politics, sexuality, racial issues or religion into the fashion semantics. Fashion can deliver powerfully provocative statements and I guess I’m attracted to people who dress up to stir emotions or attention or dress up with a purpose in mind, trying to spread a creative message.

Do you have a personal style icon you constantly turn to for inspiration?
Ashburn Eng: I worship Katie Grand for her impeccable style and bravery in fashion.

What’s the fashion scene like in Singapore?
Ashburn Eng: Singapore’s fashion scene has seen vast improvements in the past 10 years. At the moment it’s carving out a definite identity for itself and it is possible to see an increase in demand from the global fashion industry as well. There is a proliferation of niche boutiques and fresh designer labels from the Fashion Incubator Project and I think that Singapore Fashion Week could become a sort of stepping stone for local designers. If Singaporean designers want to go global, they must organise catwalk shows that can draw the attention of the worldwide media. We must also support up-and-coming designers by proudly wearing their creations and not acknowledging them when they become famous overseas. I guess this is a challenge, also considering that this is an equatorial island with no distinctive four seasons, but this is vitally important if we want to create a truly Singaporean fashion identity and aim at becoming the next New York, London, Milan, Paris or Tokyo.

Can you recommend us a great place where to shop in Singapore?
Ashburn Eng: Blackmarket and Next Next Designers at Parco Marina Bay.

All images courtesy of the Test Shoot Gallery.
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