Wing Shya was born in Hong Kong in 1964 to parents who had migrated from Shandong. As a teenager he studied at a school in Chai Wan and, inspired by Ann Hui's Boat People (1982), set his heart on a career in images; he later studied fine art at the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver, Canada, worked at the American design firm Pentagram, and after returning to Hong Kong founded the design studio Shya-la-la Workshop, designing for the Hong Kong music and pop-culture industries, covering record sleeves and promotional material and at one point producing more than half of Hong Kong's album covers, with more than sixty awards to his name in Hong Kong, the mainland, Canada, Japan and New York. In 1996 he began shooting stills for Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together, and in 1997 was appointed the director's exclusive photographer and graphic designer, going on to work on Happy Together, In the Mood for Love, Eros and 2046, forging a strongly cinematic visual style that became his signature and making him the favoured photographer of stars such as Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung, Gong Li, Shu Qi and Karen Mok, as well as publishing a photobook of Leslie Cheung. In March 2006 he held a solo photography exhibition at the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi Hills, Tokyo, the first photographer to be given a solo show there, and that same year a photograph he took of Maggie Cheung was chosen as the official poster of the Cannes Film Festival. He also shot the web series A Dictionary of Men and Women. In 2010 he co-directed the romance Hot Summer Days with Tony Chan, in which several stars play out interwoven love stories, marking his feature directing debut, and he followed it with the sequel Love in Space in 2011 and later directed Christmas Rose. He has also shot and directed music videos and album covers for singers including Leslie Cheung and Karen Mok.
Wing Shya is known for his film stills and fashion photography; his images for Wong Kar-wai's films fused fashion and cinematic sensibilities and became an emblem of Hong Kong visual culture. His Shya-la-la Workshop has won numerous design awards, and in 2010 he crossed over into directing.
Achievements
- 1997 · Appointed exclusive photographer and graphic designer by Wong Kar-wai
- 2006 · Held a solo photography exhibition at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo
- 2010 · Co-directed Hot Summer Days with Tony Chan