UK based photographer and artist, Rich McCor (@paperboyo) last visited Hong Kong in 2016 where he used some of the city’s iconic locations as backdrops for his paper cut-out artwork. During the pandemic, his ability to travel the world to create new art pieces has been limited, so he collaborated with Hong Kong based photographer, Timmy Lo (@timmy727), to create a new set of images highlighting that art has no boundaries. We sat down with Rich to discuss his art, his time in Hong Kong and his most recent collaboration.
1. Tell us how you have forged your career in this unique form of artistry.
It was a combination of two hobbies colliding. The paper side of it came from an interest in stop-motion animations I’d been making, and the photography side came from a desire to explore London with my camera. I realised that I was taking very similar images of London to most of the ones I was seeing on Instagram and so I decided to experiment. My style went through a few different iterations, but I eventually landed on the concept of using paper cut-outs and forced perspective illusions to transform London scenery into objects.
2. How have your travel and experiences around the world formed and inspired your art?
I honestly didn’t think it would turn into anything more than a short series of photos of London. However, I was fortunate that shortly after I put those images out I received invites to travel further afield. I realised it was my surroundings that conjured up the ideas just as much as my imagination. It gave me a lust for seeing new places and for learning more about the places I visited, which ultimately fed my ideas.
4. What was your favourite place to visit in Hong Kong and why?
I had a fun day at Ocean Park with some cabin crew I bumped into the day before. It was a bit of a spontaneous adventure as Ocean Park wasn’t on my list of things to do but I’m so glad I went. The park is full of great rides and the jellyfish ‘underwater garden’ is well worth a visit.
8. What were some of the highlights and challenges that arose from creating artwork countries apart?
It was exciting receiving updates at home from Timmy while he was out shooting the content in HK. I received photos and was able to suggest very slight changes to the framing while he was on location. I could see that he’d chosen absolutely perfect conditions to shoot in.
I loved the fact that Timmy totally understood my ideas and how my final edits would work, so it was easy to collaborate with him despite being in different continents.
This was the first time I’ve ever collaborated with another photographer, never mind the fact it was also the first time collaborating with someone who wasn’t even in the same country, so I did expect there to be challenges, but Timmy’s understanding of my style was brilliant and made the process very easy. The challenges were purely to do with the intricacy of the edits, especially the symphony of lights one, but Timmy’s work and images made the project an absolute pleasure.
Want to see how paperboyo and timmy727 did it? Check out our behind the scenes video below.