Today, I’m joined by Tom Bugatti, a street photographer from Poland, but now based in Hong Kong. His work stood out for its abstract quality and full compositions
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- Website: https://www.tombugatti.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tom.bugatti
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Timestamps of this episode with Tom Bugatti
00:00 Introduction to Street Photography and Tom Bugatti
02:58 The Journey of a Street Photographer
06:04 Shooting with Intent: The Purpose Behind Photography
08:51 The Evolution of Smartphone Photography
11:41 The Impact of Location on Photography Style
14:46 Community and Collaboration in Street Photography
17:53 The Emotional Aspect of Photography
20:16 Aesthetic Choices: Color vs. Black and White
23:24 The Editing Process and Social Media Challenges
29:23 Navigating Instagram’s Influence on Photography
31:38 The Aesthetic Choice: Black and White vs. Color
35:11 The Evolution of Style and Experimentation
39:42 The Shift to Street Photography
43:29 Capturing Hong Kong: A Cinematic Perspective
46:46 Human Elements in Street Photography
49:37 The Interaction Between Subject and Photographer
51:16 Traveling and Street Photography
54:07 The Art of Rediscovery in Photography
Photographers, resources, and gear mentioned in this episode:
- Ralph Gibson
- Leica Q
- Franco Fontana
- Ray Metzker
- Andrei Tarkovsky
- Krzysztof Kieślowski
- Gustavo Linas
- Billy Dihn
- Wong Kar-wai
Thank you for listening to this conversation with Tom. Don’t forget to subscribe to be updated about upcoming episodes. Feel free to reach out via social media if you have any questions or ideas you’d like to share.
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Podcast Transcript
Frederic Paulussen (00:01)
So, welcome to the Slice of Time Street Photography Podcast, a podcast in which I explore the work of different street photographers.
across the world genres and visions. This exposes you and me to different ideas and ways of looking, helping you form your own vision of street photography. And today I’m joined by Tom Bugatti, ⁓ originally from Poland, but now based in Hong Kong. And his work stood out to me because of its like very abstract quality and very full ⁓ composition. So, hey Tom, maybe could you introduce yourself for a minute?
Tom Bugatti (00:39)
Hi Fred, well first of all, thanks for having me on your channel. As you mentioned just now, name’s Tom Bugatti I’m a Poland born photographer, but I’ve lived and worked in Hong Kong for the last 16 years or so. I’ve been doing street photography for about six, six years I think, ⁓ more seriously. An interesting thing is that when I started, ⁓
photography in general, street photography was just supposed to be like a gateway to other types of photography, studio, ⁓ portraiture.
human form, know, and somehow street photography was just supposed to be to help me to get the grips technically with camera and some confidence and I got so into it that I saw it left us that you know something was supposed to be a stepping stone I never moved past that and I stayed because I enjoyed it and still enjoying it so
Frederic Paulussen (01:48)
And so you mentioned you’ve done it for like six years seriously. Did you do it like before that already and do like, yeah.
Tom Bugatti (01:57)
Mm.
I I grew up in Poland with analog cameras, being always around the house, ⁓ more for holidays and family events. I always interested in that, also interested in looking at photo books. So I kind of knew what photography is and I had this idea of doing it one day, a dream of doing it day maybe more seriously. When I first came to
to Hong Kong. I had that planned still, but you know, I quickly started working here in the education sector and then just things got, you know, work got in the way. But when COVID hit here and it hit pretty hard in Hong Kong and there’s a lot of restrictions and we had a lot of more free time because we were working from home most of the time teaching online. So I had some time, you know, to sort of restart that passion and then it became
serious and I’ve connected to the local community of photographers and I’ve had a lot of interesting fantastic people that are working here and some of them became my mentors as well and this is how it started and I just couldn’t put away the camera ever since.
Frederic Paulussen (03:18)
And so…
What do you consider, because you mentioned like doing it for six years like seriously, what do you consider it being like, what constitutes seriously to you?
Tom Bugatti (03:30)
That’s an interesting question. I never really thought about this but I guess I’m gonna have to define it now for myself as well, not just for you. Yeah, no, no, but it’s very interesting question. ⁓ What I mean by this is that, you know, for the last six years I’ve been trying to find a certain…
Frederic Paulussen (03:37)
Well, you don’t have to, but it’s…
Tom Bugatti (03:50)
intent, you know, to make the photos they take more purposeful. There’s this, I’m still looking for this sort of, know, well, Ralph Gibson calls it a point of departure. You know, you need to know what you’re going to photograph. That’s the number one question. It’s not how to photograph it. When I first started, I was obsessed with the technique, you know, and I was trying to copy any photo that I saw on Instagram and I was interested in it.
I think I’m sort of past it now and I’m starting to think more about how. ⁓
no gimmicks, the technique is less important, but it’s what to photograph? That is my first question. And that could mean looking for a project. That could also mean on a smaller scale, on a micro scale, when I go out with my camera, before I go out, I think about what I want to achieve that day. So it’s a bit hard to define because I don’t think about what to photograph. I’m not really thinking about what subject to photograph.
but was sort of perhaps feeling I want to photograph. So that’s how I like to think about photography. for me, it always starts with a certain feeling that I have. It’s not about my emotions or me, but the feeling that I have towards the city that I’m photographing. And I’m trying to look for subjects that could help me to transfer that feeling into a photograph. Does this make any sense to you?
Frederic Paulussen (05:25)
Yeah, I
think so. Is it like a conscious decision then or is it more like a subconscious thing that you go out with?
Tom Bugatti (05:32)
Mmm.
I think it’s a bit of both, I think it really depends, know, very often I can make a conscious decision and so before I go out I think about this and then I go out with an intent and of course for many days I utterly fail at doing that, come back with nothing and on some days it’s more of a subconscious thing when it just feels right and I should, you know, be it from the hip or just suddenly something stops me in my tracks and I often take out my phone because I don’t have
camera on me. ⁓
So that’s also very interesting because I was always against using mobile phone in street photography or photography in because I had this idea that it’s somehow less of an art if you shoot on your phone. But now I use my phones all the time because it’s just there in my pocket. And when I see something or something catches my attention, I just need to take a photo of it. But oftentimes I do come back again with my camera just to get a better day now.
range but according to the color palette with my file ⁓ but without the phone I wouldn’t be able to to catch many of the images that I’ve taken over the years.
Frederic Paulussen (06:45)
Okay,
so it’s more like a sketchbook kind of thing with the phone or… Okay.
Tom Bugatti (06:49)
That’s right, that’s right.
Although there are some photos on the website and on my Instagram as well taken with the phone. I shot a whole series recently, I was in the last December, was for a few days I was in Chiang Mai in Thailand and I shot a whole series just using my phone and surprisingly the quality is pretty good, the quality of the images is what I’m quite happy with.
Frederic Paulussen (06:58)
Okay.
Yeah,
is it like the, you made like diptychs from, those are with the phone then or, okay, I wouldn’t.
Tom Bugatti (07:20)
That’s right.
Yeah, so this is all shot
with an iPhone here and now that you mentioned this, we talking about, we started this question, talking about shooting with intent. So that’s what I was trying to do when I was photographing the street scenes. They’re a little bit more abstract. This is the direction I’ve always been heading towards, you know, less of human subjects and more abstract scenes in the city and Chiang Mai just was less crowded than Hong Kong, you know, and it was easier for me to capture them.
like scenes without people on street but when I was shooting these individual photographs I was thinking about the previous photographs I’ve taken and how they would speak with each other. So that’s also a nice, sorry, sorry, yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but I just wanted to add on top of that, yeah, as I previously mentioned, Ralph Gibson is one of my, biggest influences in the photographic world. ⁓
Frederic Paulussen (07:56)
OK.
Okay, that’s cool.
No, no, Continue.
Tom Bugatti (08:20)
Ralph always talks about ⁓ how images speak to each other on the page of a book. And I remember hearing this in one of the interviews with Ralph Gibson in the past, just stuck in my memory because I’ve never thought about it. It just like an aha moment for me of realization that yes, photos are meant to be.
seen in a book, ⁓ not on Instagram, not on a web page. And since then I’ve been thinking about how two photographs can interact with one another.
Frederic Paulussen (08:51)
Okay, so there’s a few questions that arises already. So I’m gonna go back to the smartphone thing first. ⁓ And I have two questions there. The first one is, what made you change your mind about using smartphones as a tool or like a real tool?
Tom Bugatti (08:59)
Mm-hmm.
That is a very interesting question, I think.
The fact that I realized that often I saw something very interesting and the light was moving very quickly. So I knew that I wouldn’t be able to probably replicate that scene. Like coming back or on another day the light might be different, the conditions might be different, or it’s just a specific person, an interesting character that I would see. And I know this is not a photo that you can replicate in any other conditions. It would just stick on my phone.
Frederic Paulussen (09:45)
Yeah.
Tom Bugatti (09:48)
I think it started with iPhone 12, that was pretty good for me, realized iPhone 12 worked pretty well. But when iPhone was iPhone 16, that was the last year or two years ago, I forgot. But they released, they have those three, in the Pro Max they have three lenses. And one of these lenses is basically an equivalent, like a pseudo equivalent of 135, somewhere between 120 to 135 millimeters. And that is the lens that I’m mostly using on my…
Frederic Paulussen (10:05)
Hiya.
Tom Bugatti (10:18)
because on my camera I also use a 90 and 135 so I found this kind of smooth transition into phone shooting because the length is pretty much the same. Of course we don’t have the compression that you get on a proper lens but for a test shot it works really well and then I didn’t want to carry a camera with me to Thailand because it was a holiday, a family holiday so I ended up shooting on the phone and it was still quite…
Frederic Paulussen (10:29)
Okay.
Tom Bugatti (10:48)
pleased with the results I would recommend everyone to just maximize their camera because like I said, each one of us, every one of us has the phone in your pocket, in your purse 24×7 and you’re missing a lot of shots if you’re not using it.
Frederic Paulussen (10:50)
Okay, that makes sense.
Yeah,
totally, yeah. And then a second question that I had with the smartphone is, does it change your style of shooting and do notice people interact with you differently? Like if you put a camera to their face, it’s not really what you do, like if you’re on the street with a camera, people take you more seriously maybe, they go sometimes out of their way to not ruin your photo.
Do you have the same with smartphone or is that totally different or still the same?
Tom Bugatti (11:40)
Mmm.
I think generally with the phone, people ignore you completely because there’s so many people around you with their phone out and everyone’s taking photos of something or a photo of someone that nobody really pays attention to. At least here in Hong Kong, people are quite busy and they’re going on about their day, everyone’s always on the move. So you pretty much blend in ⁓ with the phone, definitely. So if you take out a phone in middle of a busy square,
on the street crossing, nobody pays attention, nobody cares that you took a photo of them, even if you’re up front and in their face. ⁓ Now, when I shoot with my camera on the street, ⁓ people also don’t usually realize, because I’m either shooting on a 28, so I get very close actually, like 1 meter away, 1.5 meter away. ⁓ But because it’s a 28 and I have such a wide range, they don’t think I’m taking a photo of them, even if I’m so close.
because the camera is not directly pointed at them but they’re still my friend. Sometimes I shoot from the hip so that’s even harder to realize when you’re being photographed. The other type of photographs I’m shooting on like I said 90 or 135 to telephoto but then I’m really not shooting human subjects I’m mostly using this to catch architecture and something like colors and geometry of the city.
Frederic Paulussen (12:43)
Yeah.
Okay, and so you mentioned a few different focal lengths. Do you switch between them often or?
Tom Bugatti (13:17)
quite often I would say yes, quite often. ⁓ It’s changed because, you know, I’m…
When I got my Leica Q some years ago, and 28 was really challenging for me, but then something just clicked and I started only using it. And a lot of my work on the website is using 28. But I’ve always wanted to do telephoto. I’m really drawn into abstract work and photography, like Franco Fontana you know. the geometry is a pretty strong element. You may not see this on my Instagram,
much because these are for my projects that I’m keeping quite private at the moment because I’m not quite sure how I feel about this yet but I’ve been shooting this series here in Hong Kong, know, compressed images of different buildings and textures and there’s a lot of ⁓ colour, like Hong Kong colour in this as well and when I’m ready, I have a set of pictures that I’m happy with, I’m going to start to share these. ⁓
These are mostly shot at 90mm and 135mm.
Frederic Paulussen (14:28)
Okay. And so
Tom Bugatti (14:29)
So I
am drawn to these lenses more in the last two years, but I still use my 28 when I feel like some street action, when I want to get some shots of people, keep my Leica Q. And just, you know, it’s still a lot of fun.
Frederic Paulussen (14:46)
yeah i can imagine in hong kong i can imagine as well it’s so busy so so with a 28 millimeter you people don’t really notice you i can i can’t imagine
Tom Bugatti (14:58)
as
you mentioned, just want to relate to what you said about Hong Kong being very busy. So one of the challenges here, I think, of taking a photo when you’re doing a street scene with people constantly moving somewhere ⁓ is trying to make the sense out of this chaos here. Because, know, in travel to different cities, you know, if you’re into like minimalistic photography and like cinematic shots, can isolate subjects, right? Even on a wider lens.
these
shows like in the Ray Metzker high contrast shows with one person walking into a streak of light. It’s quite hard to do it here in Hong Kong. I mean there’s several spots that I have if I want to show to someone usually go to those spots right but in most places in Hong Kong there’s just so many people that you can’t get the layering right it’s just almost impossible unless you’re super lucky because people come from all different directions it’s a multi-layered city so there’s always a you know there’s always an escalator and the footbridge and there’s traffic coming
from all sorts of directions and courseways and bridges, it’s very hard to use layering. So the challenge for me here is to take a photograph ⁓ that makes sense out of that chaos and tries to organize it. Maybe not organize it, but embrace it. ⁓ That’s what I’ve been trying to do. So you just see some reflections as well ⁓ that sort of organize the chaos of the city.
Frederic Paulussen (16:23)
Yeah
and to me of course it’s an impossible answer a question to answer but I’m just thinking like how much of the place you are in decides ⁓ your style because for me of course like Antwerp is a very quiet city so as you mentioned for me it’s very easy to make those single person wide shots
while we’re such a small city so like on a market like being in a face with a 28 millimeter of someone like you would be noticed just because you approach someone even without a camera you would be you would be noticed so that’s that kind of ponders makes me wonder how much of a ⁓
how much of the location decides your style as well. So of course, that’s not necessarily a question for you unless you have an idea of it. It’s just maybe like a thought I to share just now.
Tom Bugatti (17:23)
I think it’s a really interesting observation and yeah, you’re probably right, you can’t really answer that question but it makes me think that, you know, at first, at least when I was starting, as I mentioned earlier, I would try to go out and try to replicate a certain photo or a style that I particularly found interesting or something that resonated with me and I found it quite challenging because certain photos could not be replicated here ⁓
the city’s character in the music.
dynamic nature of this place. ⁓ So to answer your question, guess it really matters. The city itself, the character of the city, the architecture will, ⁓ to a large extent, determine how you shoot it. Because I had to reject all these notions of trying to replicate something that I liked, and I had to just try to understand how you can photograph the city for its character and not despise it.
Frederic Paulussen (18:24)
Yeah. And so is there, is there like a big street photography community in Hong Kong or?
Tom Bugatti (18:33)
I would say it’s definitely not as big as what you see in New York street scene. There’s a lot of fantastic photographers here and we all know each other. But we’re loosely connected. There isn’t something like a street photography collective. I mean there are sounds but actually they consist of a very small number of friends that stick together. One interesting group here is called the Manos Photos.
recently did a collaborative project and all the photographers who belong to it, they published a book. And usually, you know, we have one or two camera stores that sell vintage cameras and secondhand cameras and photo books, but they also are just kind of root of that community. So people go there sometimes for meetups and just chat. So I quite like that. And when you have visitors, you know, from other countries and, you know, established photographers that we know,
One of us usually brings them to the shops as well to sort of introduce them to the community.
Frederic Paulussen (19:37)
Okay.
That’s nice,
yeah. That’s a cool way to work together. That’s very nice. ⁓ So there was one quote which you use, which I find very interesting. The funny thing is I knew the quote, but I didn’t know who it was from. I’m gonna look very quickly. It was like, ⁓ it’s David Lynch. ⁓
Tom Bugatti (19:55)
Mm.
Frederic Paulussen (20:07)
I’m gonna have a look. here it is. I like to remember things my own way, how I remembered them, not necessarily the way they happened. That’s the quote.
Tom Bugatti (20:08)
You’re almost there.
Frederic Paulussen (20:16)
So yeah, I know it because it’s sampled in a song that I know But it’s it’s a very interesting quote. I didn’t know it was David Lynch at the time because it was just a sample ⁓ But it’s it’s interesting to me because ⁓ lots of photographers It’s not necessarily street photographers, but in in photography. There’s a lot of this this idea that photography is truth to some degree and of course in
documentary and journalistic photography that’s maybe true, but I think in street photography a lot of people think the same, they think their photography is truth.
And so I’d like to see your take on that, like how do you look at street photography? It’s more like a personal thing than I think or…
Tom Bugatti (21:07)
I the reason why this quote resonates with me ⁓
because you know I think you know when I was a kid and I grew up growing up in Poland I was heavily influenced by by Polish cinema as well so I’m talking about people in Polish and you know they’re basically Eastern Europeans so it could be Tarkovsky or Kieślowski and those films you know they’re very different films it’s they’re closer you know European cinema is very different from from Hollywood and those films are always about a feeling
an emotion rather than the story, the never story driven that, you know, somewhere in my subconscious it always stays with me. So when I look at the scene, I’m not absolutely interested in documenting it. I’m trying to see something in it and capture something in it that people don’t
Frederic Paulussen (22:08)
Yeah.
Tom Bugatti (22:08)
Something that just happens for a second, a millisecond, then it disappears forever perhaps. And trying to capture that moment is the challenge. David Lynch, amazing director, but a visionary director. I think if you think about his films, they are actually closer to European, aesthetic to European cinema in that sense as well, because they’re never story driven. They always follow a certain mood or certain emotion.
And photographs, know, when you make a good photograph, think the subject doesn’t actually matter that much. A photograph transcends the subject and becomes its own thing. So when I’m making a photograph, I’m not trying to record what I see in front of my eyes. I’m trying to create something else. Something that would, you know, and it’s not necessarily when I talk about recording a feeling, it’s not necessarily about my feeling because someone who looks at a
I hope they will have an emotional response to it but I’m not really hoping that they will see what you try to guess what my feeling was when I was taking it. It gives them any, it can evoke any feeling in them. I would find this a successful photograph.
Frederic Paulussen (23:24)
Yeah.
Tom Bugatti (23:24)
So to
me, know, just like cinema, photography is supposed to convey emotions and evoke emotions in the audience, like any other form of art, guess, because you can apply this to music and literature as well. Is music supposed to document reality? No.
Frederic Paulussen (23:42)
No, true, yeah, yeah. And in a way I think like document or like photographic, like music for example, let’s take that for as an example. It does document the artist in a way because it’s, they are recording a specific feeling, they’re having same as photographers. It’s recording a specific feeling or moment in your life. So in a way it’s maybe not the truth, but it’s definitely kind of like.
Tom Bugatti (24:00)
Mm.
Frederic Paulussen (24:11)
documentation of a period of your life because maybe in 20 years you feel totally different and you photograph totally different. ⁓
Tom Bugatti (24:20)
Yeah,
and just think about it, like reality doesn’t have any sense of aesthetic on its own. People have a sense of aesthetic, so what we do when you grab a camera, just like when you take a paintbrush or a camera to make a film, you manipulate reality to produce a certain aesthetic.
Frederic Paulussen (24:37)
Yeah.
That’s
a rough one to throw on me today. Reality does not have an aesthetic. That’s true. Very true.
Yeah, talking about aesthetic, because you have like a lot of ⁓ color and black and white work. I’m curious to…
Do you lean into one of the two more depending on your own mood as well? Because you shoot digital, right? So it’s not necessarily a decision upfront, but I can imagine that since you’re such a conscious person that it’s probably still in your train of thought before you go out.
Tom Bugatti (25:29)
That’s right. Generally, if I decide to shoot black and white on the day, has something to do with my point of departure, the intention that I’m trying to catch that day. So I will preset the camera in the JPEG for photo preview into high contrast black and white. So my camera has two black and white modes. You can use the high contrast one to sort of push, know, at the dynamic range, the whites and blacks to the max. And then I will use that for the day just to see what I’m producing.
and then of course I bring it back well so then the work starts from scratch in Lightroom but it helps me to see what I mean by shooting and whether it’s close to what I intended to shoot. ⁓ Occasionally I think there were photos that I know have taken in black and white or vice versa and then after some time, after some weeks when I revisited them again I decided that they do look better in black and white all because they match a different photo. ⁓
Frederic Paulussen (26:04)
Yeah.
Tom Bugatti (26:28)
in my sets. But I’m forcing myself to think more consciously about those things. Not always with success.
Frederic Paulussen (26:41)
I I think that’s art, right? So I think that’s maybe how you learn the most as well. So you mentioned now that you sometimes look at, like we visit photos after a few weeks. Is your editing process that long? I mean, and of course I know you’re not spending every hour of every day looking at the same photo for weeks, but is it, you really try to take your time with a photo then or?
Tom Bugatti (26:45)
Bye.
Yes, I still have some photos that I haven’t posted from the summer, from last summer. And they’re ready, they’re waiting, but I’m still revisiting them and looking at them. I think what helped me to be more, you know, to do it more consciously is when I decided to just give up on Instagram and not to, you know, prepare photos for the sake of posting them and organizing them in different series. Because you know, as you’ve seen on Instagram, know, one photo is not enough, two photos are not enough.
posting you know sets in 4 and 6 and it’s not enough people now post 10 photos, 20 photos it’s just become a bit ridiculous and it took me a lot of you know courage I guess to sort of say no to this and now I post quite rarely and of course it cost me a lot of exposure on Instagram in the last few months because once you repost something after a while after you know three weeks four weeks then you get maybe a quarter of your regular exposure
and the game begins anew and I just came to terms with it I don’t want to do it this way so I’m taking my time with photos and I’m thinking of organizing them someday perhaps one day it could become you perhaps hopefully a book but it’s probably not going to be the stuff that you see on my Instagram actually so like I said the photos that I you know I really cherish at the moment I’m keeping them in my Lightroom vault and ⁓
Frederic Paulussen (28:34)
Okay.
Tom Bugatti (28:40)
Nobody has seen it except for a few people that are close to me and they’ve seen the actual prints. Because the printing game is just another challenge altogether and I’m struggling with that clarity to get the printer photos to look the way they look ⁓ in Lightroom
Frederic Paulussen (28:54)
Yeah.
Okay,
that’s cool. And it makes me curious and also because it’s something that I’ve been struggling with myself for like the past months. It’s like, why do you keep posting to Instagram then? Because it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s the question that I’m trying to answer for myself as well is because it feels like a bit of a, it’s either a full-time job or it’s something that does not. ⁓
pay out or you know it’s like if you don’t do it 24 7 then it’s basically not worth it so i’m curious why you you don’t down instagram but still ⁓ still are active
Tom Bugatti (29:37)
Right, I mean, as you said, if you’re not able to produce something on a daily basis, you listen to Instagram, I admire people like Gustavo Minas or Billy Dihn who are able to produce that volume of that quality because it’s just incredible quality every time without a fault. And that’s just amazing.
For me, I definitely don’t have the time and the talent as well to produce that volume of photos that I think are of quality. ⁓
Why I still use it? Well, Instagram still gives some exposure but it’s mostly for networking. you know, I’ve made some connections, I’ve made some friendships that I wouldn’t have been able to make without Instagram. So, you know, I’ve been able to connect to photographers of very high caliber and hear their stories and hear, you know, get advice from them. And it’s something that would be unthinkable without Instagram. Unless you perhaps live in a city like London or New York.
Frederic Paulussen (30:28)
Yeah.
Tom Bugatti (30:46)
to the best photographers that are out there. ⁓ But without Instagram, this wouldn’t be possible. I also do workshops here in Hong Kong so that having that kind of account and allowing prospective ⁓ customers to see the work ⁓ helps as well. there’s still some traffic coming from there, but ⁓ obviously it’s not to the extent that I would be satisfied with. But that’s okay.
Frederic Paulussen (31:05)
Thanks.
No, that’s totally fair. Yeah, it makes total sense. So it’s yeah, to me, it’s just I’m not sure how my position on Instagram is because of course there’s benefits to it, but at same time, there’s a lot of effort to it as well. And so…
Yeah, you mentioned the choice between black and white and color. Is it like what makes you lean into one or the other? Is it pure aesthetic feeling that you have or is it more a particular story that you like to dive in more or?
Tom Bugatti (31:54)
Generally, I think if I had to choose one, I would probably choose black and white. I like this idea that when you remove color, the photograph becomes abstraction itself already. Because even a portrait of a person, I mean, the world is in color. So when you remove it in a photograph, it immediately becomes something.
Frederic Paulussen (32:01)
really?
Mm-hmm.
Tom Bugatti (32:20)
out of this world. It’s immediately abstract. And I really like that idea because it links back to the quote that we discussed before of David Lynch, that I’m not interested in reality. And black and white already gives you the idea of something ethereal, something metaphysical. However, I do go back to color because sometimes the scene is just too good.
Frederic Paulussen (32:21)
Yeah.
Tom Bugatti (32:44)
with colouring it, I just can’t get myself to remove it. So especially when I’m shooting scenes like when I’m shooting architectural scenes on my telephoto lens with different buildings in Hong Kong, you know, the colour on each building, they just seem such symbiosis that it would be, I think it would be a mistake to remove it completely.
Frederic Paulussen (33:10)
Yeah, because I
Tom Bugatti (33:10)
That’s why
I keep switching between both. And I think there’s nothing, you know, there’s nothing wrong with it. ⁓ I mean…
I did think that I’m gonna have to decide at one point and I think that’s again the Instagram influence Makes us all think that we have to choose a certain style that you have to you know post photos of a certain You know aesthetic or color palette so it has to be black and white or has to be minimalistic right everybody everybody who’s successful in Instagram has just kind of their own thing and they the Instagram wants you and the people that your followers want you to Show that style with every photo and I think that’s that’s really
And why limit yourself? You can do anything.
Frederic Paulussen (33:53)
Yeah,
true. Yeah, it keeps you from experimenting, think, maybe and from growing in that sense. ⁓ So that’s true. So you experiment quite a lot then, or is it more between those colors and lenses?
Tom Bugatti (34:14)
I think I’m getting more steady in there.
the last year and I’m leaning towards what I originally intended to do as I actually before that you know I wanted to do to studio and portraits and beauty and body form and I’m doing a little bit of that right now when there’s time I’m still learning it’s much harder than street photography but I’m out on the street and you know using a 90 to 135 range is when you’re photographing a building or photographing a street scene I think it’s much closer to what you’re doing in a studio.
It has to be a very conscious choice and a very deliberate composition. You see, when you’re shooting on 28, you can get away with a lot in terms of composition.
If shooting a street scene, it’s dynamic, you just get close and you get an interesting subject and the light is good, bam, that’s it. And you already have something good there. And then what’s in the background is not as important. ⁓ Whereas when you’re on a 135, it’s so tight, the composition has to be perfect. Every little thing has to matter. It’s very challenging, but I feel that in the last year, this is the direction I’m moving towards to and I want to stay in that range, at least for maybe a
Frederic Paulussen (35:11)
Yeah, because it gets smaller, yeah.
Tom Bugatti (35:28)
years until I produce something I’m happy with. And then again that brings me back to my photographing inspirations, ⁓ you know, growing up.
always looking at Franco Fontana, Ralph Gibson, and these guys are always shooting on… Franco Fontana goes to extreme lengths because he’s shooting in those landscapes that are extremely compressed. So it must be at least 200 to 400 lenses. I have a 200 to 400 as well, but on a Sony and I always struggle editing Sony photos because they’re just too flat for me. So whatever I shot, you know, with an intention, I like to bring it back and brought it, it’s all gone. I have to start from scratch.
Frederic Paulussen (35:48)
Okay.
Okay.
okay
Tom Bugatti (36:09)
it annoyed
me you know so what I like about a Leica is that the raw file already has some contrast in it the one that you know the starting point is it’s much closer to to the photo that you actually wanted to take that you intended to take so I’m kind of sticking with Leica for now but I still have a Sony because it’s such a quick camera it’s a workhorse
Frederic Paulussen (36:23)
Yeah.
Okay,
and have you used the 200-400 on the streets or?
Tom Bugatti (36:36)
I do, but that’s like I said for abstract shots. I never take like portraits of people from that range because I don’t know, there’s something voyeuristic about this. I might as well come up to this person and shoot him at 28. It’s less intrusive actually, you know, to be like one meter away from them and shooting in their face with them knowing is less intrusive than hiding somewhere in a corner with a 200mm lens.
Frederic Paulussen (36:38)
Yeah, okay.
No.
Yeah.
Yeah, it feels better, right? Yeah, yeah. It allows them a chance, I find, yeah. So I totally agree. A chance to either interact or say no or whatever. Or run away. Yeah, I’m not sure. Are people in Hong Kong in general, do they mind or?
Tom Bugatti (37:10)
Yeah.
Yeah, or to run away, exactly. Whatever makes us sleep at night,
No, I’ve had very very few situations when people responded When they did respond it’s mostly more of an inquiry like why are you taking part of me? are you taking part of me? And once you explain or show us, know, what are you doing? They just go about their business maybe once or twice And I do understand it because there’s certain, you know tourist areas. So like for example street markets here
are very touristy in certain districts and I think these people get photographed non-stop by tourists. So they do get annoyed more often.
It’s justified, you know? But sometimes I still take photos in those shoes because it really fits my narrative or the light is just too good to pass without taking a photo. And maybe a couple of times, you get the look or someone shouting at you in Cantonese. But I’m always trying to disarm this person, either apologize or show them the photo. People get actually more upset when you’re trying to shoot reflections.
Frederic Paulussen (38:04)
Okay, yeah.
Yeah.
Tom Bugatti (38:34)
their cars because you get much closer with the camera to the bonnet of their car and then this is when they get upset like what are doing with my car? ⁓
Frederic Paulussen (38:42)
Yeah, it’s precious. It’s like a care. That’s funny
thing actually. Makes sense in a way. I also always…
Tom Bugatti (38:48)
I think I would
also ask if someone was very close, very near my car.
Frederic Paulussen (38:54)
always feel weird when
I do it with a car as well, I totally… because of… can’t imagine… it’s kind of weird someone looking into your car, it’s… you must be looking to steal it. ⁓ My biggest fear is to do reflections in a car one day and have someone sitting inside that I did not notice and then have them go… like that’s… yeah, maybe. ⁓
Tom Bugatti (39:05)
That’s right.
You’ll make a great photo though.
Frederic Paulussen (39:19)
So there was another quote on your website that you mentioned, it’s something you said yourself or written yourself. My photography journey took a serious turn in 2017 as I started to express my vision through the lens and so I’m curious like what caused that turn and was it immediately to street photography or?
Tom Bugatti (39:42)
No, think the interest was first on portraiture. I mentioned at the beginning, street photography is a little bit later. I think it’s around the COVID years, know, will be 2019, 2017 we were picking my camera and trying to work on portraiture. I’m really interested in how people, how you can present a character of a person through a portrait.
It’s a completely different game and I don’t really have that much time or budget as well because in Hong Kong this gets really really expensive if you want to play in a studio. It’s almost impossible to rent unless you’re a full-time photographer, commercial photographer. Otherwise it makes no sense to have a studio because the rent will kill you. So we’re renting studios from like you know…
Frederic Paulussen (40:27)
Okay.
Tom Bugatti (40:37)
Yeah, there’s a lot of actually, it’s a whole business in Hong Kong where people just buy a space and turn into a studio and they collect hourly fees for rental. So sometimes we do that and then you realize how hard this is. even sometimes, you know, coming with a sample of a photo that you want to shoot from a famous photographer is almost impossible to replicate in very simple photography.
So I forgot what the question was actually because I think I’m digressed. You talked about the quantum plane.
Frederic Paulussen (41:08)
⁓ That’s
what I structured the podcast Street Photography so the digressing is perfect. So it was, ⁓ you mentioned like ⁓ a series turn in 2017 in your photography journey. And so like I was wondering ⁓ what caused that turn in and what made you, in what direction of photography did you go? But it was like portrait then? Yeah.
Tom Bugatti (41:32)
It was, was, but I think, you know, the time just, that’s why I sort of moved away from this and started doing street photography because I just didn’t have the skill set to take a portrait. I mean, of course, you know.
in the most basic sense, portrait is just taking a photo of a person but it was just empty and shallow. When you look at this, it was no different from anyone taking a photo or a selfie on the street. So I kept this up for a couple of years and decided I need to get more advanced in how I use the camera and how I consciously use this as a, not as a tool to take a photo but as something to create.
art, I guess. And I do go back and forth between street and studio, still learning, but I did notice that shooting on the street did help me to transfer a lot of the vision and emotions into studio work. But then again, I’m still struggling with ⁓ capturing human form.
trying to show the beauty. It never just feels right after I’ve taken the photo. I’m not there yet to see, this is what I wanted to achieve. Maybe there’s like three or four photos that I saved that I really, really enjoy and hopefully one day they can become a part of something bigger. But on the whole, usually ⁓ a studio visit ends in that.
massive failure and drop of confidence on my side. You mentioned that quarters talk about the lens is true to my vision, right? What I’m shooting in the foreground is true to my vision. I think again that takes me back to my cinematic influences. I mentioned Eastern European cinema but growing up I was also immersed in Hong Kong cinema.
Frederic Paulussen (43:01)
Yeah. ⁓
Tom Bugatti (43:29)
about the 80s and 90s and the golden age of Hong Kong cinema. ⁓ So seeing those images ⁓ as a teenager ⁓ gave me an impression of what Hong Kong is. And of course, when I came here, I realized that none of that was true. That none of what I saw about Hong Kong actually…
document in Hong Kong. This is where it all comes together because I realized that’s okay. I cannot actually go on the street and document Hong Kong and have the same, you know, it’s not going to take me back in my memory to my childhood of all these films. It’s never going to look the same. So I started thinking more consciously, well, why did they show Hong Kong that way? It was a director of choice, a poetic license of the director and filmmaker to show the mood of how Hong Kong people felt at that time.
Frederic Paulussen (44:21)
Yeah.
Tom Bugatti (44:21)
and how
they felt about Hong Kong. So it’s something much more on a much more deeper level. And cinema and photography are very similar in that way. So when I shoot now, I always keep that in mind. ⁓ I’m trying to photograph Hong Kong, not the Hong Kong I see, but the Hong Kong I feel. Does this make sense?
Frederic Paulussen (44:43)
Makes total sense, And I think that’s a very nice way to put it. ⁓ it’s an interesting thing that you, as a kid, you watched so many Hong Kong movies and then you moved here. Is it because of the movies you moved to Hong Kong or is it totally unrelated?
Tom Bugatti (44:59)
I have to say, no, no,
think the more I think about it, I would say this is a big factor in it. And again, at first I didn’t see it, but definitely made a lasting impression. The whole ⁓ city itself. Because I think if you look back at some of the, like, Wong Kar-wai Cinema, for example, ⁓ the city is a character.
Frederic Paulussen (45:07)
Okay.
Tom Bugatti (45:24)
movies as well. It’s never in the background and you know that made a big impression on me because…
As a child growing up, would think about how it must feel being in that place. ⁓ So, you know, it must have made me want to explore that. I actually ended up… The first place in Asia I ended up was Hong Kong, just for a couple of weeks, and I really liked it. ⁓ But me and my friend, we ended up moving to Taipei because there were more practical reasons we got jobs in Taipei. But I always wanted to come back, so when it was possible to get a job in Hong Kong.
Frederic Paulussen (46:05)
that’s good yeah yeah it’s I mean it’s always job or whatever it has to be practical to some way but it’s it’s nice and at least you yeah you got to move back to ⁓ to Hong Kong
And so I think with the portraiture that you mentioned earlier and that I noticed in your street photography, so it’s always like, well, your street photography is kind of like more abstract, you said, also more personal and emotional, but there’s always or almost always like a human figure involved. Is that something you find important or?
Tom Bugatti (46:46)
I think less and less so when it comes to street photography. ⁓ You see the work on Instagram I’ve been posting.
much less recently and I’m much more selective. So usually if I do post something, it fits that Instagram sort of profile that I’ve established. So I enjoy doing both, but ⁓ in the past year or so I’ve been photographing less people. And so when I’m thinking about a photograph without people, I’m still trying to find human elements, perhaps tracks of human existence. So I play with that idea a lot in Thailand in December as well.
In those photos there’s…
either just fragments of people, know, just body parts, legs, ⁓ people walking on the street, but they’re not really a subject of the photograph. They are just one of the elements in the photograph. So just like, you know, a sidewalk or a street signage, a person’s leg becomes a part of a larger picture. So I’ve never really thought about ⁓ individual people being subjects of these photographs.
Because I think, know, photographing a person on the street ⁓ is very different from photographing someone in a studio when you’re making a conscious choice. That person in the studio is there, ⁓ you know, it’s a sort of an interaction between your subject and the photographer. When you try to grasp the emotion or character and they’re ⁓ interacting with the camera and with you. Whereas on the street you don’t really have that because you’re capturing someone off guard.
So I never thought of them as street portraits. I don’t believe in such a thing as street portraits. ⁓ Unless you stop someone on the street and ask them for a conscious portrait. But other than that, I think they’re just part of a street scene, a street picture. So any human subject in my street photo is not more important than, let’s say, a texture on the wall next to
Frederic Paulussen (48:31)
Yeah.
Okay.
I’m just having a look to your photos to absorb the thing you just said. And in some photos you can definitely see it’s very strongly what you say, others it’s different of course. It’s a bit tougher to see but… ⁓ is there, because you mentioned the interaction between a subject and a camera…
Tom Bugatti (48:59)
Yeah.
Frederic Paulussen (49:17)
which in the studio of course happens and in the street doesn’t happen, in general it doesn’t happen in general. Is that something you miss and that’s why you also want to do more portrait photography or is it just something you enjoy either way?
Tom Bugatti (49:37)
I’m not sure if I miss it. think they’re not mutually exclusive. I do enjoy doing both. The intent is completely different as well. I’m still drawn, pulled back to studio. It’s just that the frequency of studio visit is not as much as I would love to for practical considerations. But when I’m in the studio, I do enjoy that interaction between the model and the subject.
and how I try to project my vision and the models, a personality, character, a mood. So there’s a lot of things going on because I have to project my vision through the lens of the camera and the subject in front of me is trying to communicate something to me but not directly through the camera or through the lens. That is the challenge and then showing that through a photograph.
when you transcend, this communication transcends to something more and it can be registered as a photograph. It’s to me, something pure magic. Whereas on the street, you know, I’m interested in composing the city.
So as I said in the previous question, those people become nameless to me. And I’m not trying to interrogate them in any way. I’m just trying to use them, if you could say that, ⁓ as a part of a photograph of a city. In this case, it be Hong Kong.
Frederic Paulussen (51:04)
Yeah, do you go outside of Hong Kong often for street photography like traveling or because you mentioned Thailand was right or ⁓
Tom Bugatti (51:11)
⁓
Much less, much less, so there’s just so much work here always to be done. We have a little baby as well at home, so there’s always some work, you know? ⁓ But when I travel, travel across Asia usually, I bring my phone or a small camera with me and I try to think about what I want to do with this thing.
Frederic Paulussen (51:25)
Yeah.
Tom Bugatti (51:38)
shoot like a small set you know that I could sequence later so I’m to Bangkok very soon at Okinawa as well in the coming month so hopefully I’m gonna bring back something from there that’s of interest and in value so maybe I’ll share some of that work very soon as well I still have tons of photos from Chiang Mai in Thailand that I’m not posting
Frederic Paulussen (51:46)
Cool.
Okay, nice.
To me it’s… I’m starting to learn to be slow with my edits because I used to like come home edit my photos and I was done. So I’m now learning to be bit more slow and I find that the end selection also gets smaller and smaller that way. But yeah, it’s… To me it’s still amazing that you can wait weeks before you finish a photo.
Tom Bugatti (52:32)
Yeah, but you know the downside of this is that sometimes you forget about the photos you took for a couple months and then you accidentally stumble upon the one on Lightroom and you’re my god, I’ve completely forgotten about this.
Frederic Paulussen (52:38)
Yeah.
Yeah,
Tom Bugatti (52:48)
I recently saw
Frederic Paulussen (52:48)
I mean it is the same.
Tom Bugatti (52:50)
just a funny story here, you know, I did a photo shoot with a model in the summer, so July, and she just sent me a text last week and she was like, where are my photos? And I still haven’t edited.
Frederic Paulussen (53:02)
Hahaha
Okay,
yeah, so I do portrait photography as well, but I do it as a, that’s my full time. So street photography is my hobby. And so for me, it’s like, if it’s not done next week, then it’s, I’m ruined. maybe that’s why I also do it for my street photography. ⁓ But it’s definitely something to, I have noticed it pays off to go slower. So yeah.
Tom Bugatti (53:18)
So you have no choice.
Frederic Paulussen (53:34)
But yeah, at same time there is a limit to how slow you can be depending on…
Tom Bugatti (53:37)
It’s interesting how
you can you know reject some photos at first and then after some time You rediscover them and you see something that is actually makes this photograph stronger Than the photographs that you initially liked I quite like that process of discovery or rediscovering, you know It’s like because usually you know when you take a photo on the street and you like that’s it That’s the one you bring it home and then you like it and then you dislike it and then it’s like after some time But after a couple weeks you you find a photo that you can
Frederic Paulussen (53:49)
Hmm.
Okay
Hmm.
Tom Bugatti (54:07)
And then it one of my favorites.
Frederic Paulussen (54:16)
That’s a good tip,
Yeah, that’s a very good tip. I should probably do that as well. Maybe that’s a good one to end the episode on. And never delete. I have ⁓ gigabytes and terabytes of raw files that will never see the light of day again, but I can’t just remove anything. ⁓ Which is maybe a bit silly. ⁓
Tom Bugatti (54:27)
Yeah, don’t delete them right away.
Frederic Paulussen (54:49)
So anyway, let’s wrap it up on that note. Make sure, like for everyone listening, make sure to ⁓ not edit your photos too fast, but also not too long. So thank you Tom for your time and insights. If anyone wants to follow him, of course, his link to his website and his beautiful website and his Instagram will be in the description. Also make sure to follow the podcast on your favorite platform and feel free to share the episode with a friend who would be interested and I’ll see you next time. So thank you, Tom.
Tom Bugatti (55:18)
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Have a good night.