Michael lau seansean
As a multi-disciplinary creator with decades of experience in the design and fashion industries, I have honed my skills in various fields including interior design, brand graphics, motion graphics, advertising campaigns, and creating seasonal catalogs and lookbooks for fashion brands.
My passion for storytelling and creating incisive brand narratives is evident in all my work and has led me to become a regular contributor as a fashion photographer and art director for international and local magazines and prestigious fashion brands.
With an educational background in interior design and extensive experience, I bring a unique perspective to my work as a fashion photographer. I am able to generate ideas for building sets and props that tell compelling stories and give me a sharp eye for art direction in every project.
In the past ten years, I have put more focused on fashion and commercial photography, producing and publishing hundreds of editorials and a few advertorials for fashion magazines such as VOGUE,ELLE,NUMERO and L'OFFCIEL , I have also worked on a few advertorials for prestigious fashion brand such as LOUIS VUITTON, GUCCI, and Hermes, including an advertorial for CHANEL Haute Couture collection with Chinese super model Du Juan which was officially featured as the best advertorial of the year at the CHANEL GLOBAL MARKETING CONFERENCE PARIS.
My understanding of art, design, and fashion as a visual language contributes to my singular perspective and signature style in photography and art direction. In 2005, I adopted the name 'Michael Lau Seansean' as pseudonym in honor of the birth of my son, Sean, reflecting my deep connection to my family and my pride in including them in both my personal and professional life.
Originally born in Hong Kong, I have lived and worked in various cities including Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai, and Beijing.In my quest for inspiration and a change of pace, I recently relocated to the tropical island of Ko Samui, Thailand, where I spend my time reflecting on my career, exploring new techniques ,opportunities or new media ,and at the same time,enjoying the natural beauty and tranquility of the island. The serene environment and renewed energy of the island have reinvigorated me and I am now ready to re-ignite my career, eager to bring my skills and experience to new challenges and projects.
Skill
interior design advanced/proficiency level
Interior design is my major at design school. I have also professionally worked as an interior designer for over 8 years before diversifying my work into multi-disciplinary fields, mainly in retail, office, and some high-end residential projects. Although I have only worked on a few fashion retail projects for the last decade , as I have been focusing on photography and creative imaging for the last 10 years.
photography pro-level
I fell in love with fashion photography when I was14 the first time I read a UK fashion mag ,it should be either "The Face" or" I.D. " ,and that was a Nick Knight image that blown my minds away . Since then I self taught myself photography until now. I wouldn't say that I have learned everything there is to know about photography, as it is an impossible task. However, my skills and knowledge enable me to handle nearly 99% of my commercial projects with confidence. I would classify myself primarily as a fashion photographer, as it is the main driving force behind my work in photography . Of course, I can handle some simple tasks on occasion. For example, I once shot a Chinese brand's products (table-top) on the same location we did for the campaign in Paris for that coherent look, as requested by the creative director of the agency.
graphic design advanced/proficiency level
In order to reduce production costs and stay within budget, I designed almost 99% of the catalogs for my clients during the early years of my career. This forced me to learn a lot from true professionals through extensive reading and observation. And these are the big names I admire who influence me tremendously on graphic design; Fabien Baron, Mark Farrow, M/M Paris, David Carson...
In the early years of my career in China, around 2005 to 2015, I involved a lot of editorial graphic design work for my own photo shoots. The reason for this was that at the time, smaller fashion magazine labels in China had not yet reached a high level of quality in their graphic design, often detracting from my photographs, including using inappropriate fonts and proportion matters. However, the scene has improved considerably since then, especially with bigger and more reputable labels like Vogue China, GQ and Wall Paper China joining the market.
production,post-production and photo retouch advanced level
I wouldn't consider myself a professional in this field because I don't work in it full-time yet. However, I have spent a lot of time on these projects, dedicating about half my time to the production part of my own 'local' shooting jobs .. I know it's not healthy to work that much as a photographer that I should focus more on photography, but I don't have the benefit of an in-house producer to assist me, unlike some other photographers.
But the best part is I have gained a lot valuable experiences from all these extra tasks I did such as casting models, scouting locations, budgeting, scheduling and designing sets etc.However I have worked with some very good producers for my oversea shooting in Paris ,New York and Tokyo .A good producer can really save me a lot of time so that I can focus my job as a photographer.
I do have three photo retouchers who work for me primarily on lookbooks or catalogs for garment retouching that clients really cares about.I trained them specifically for the fashion industry, not just general photo retouching, as it requires a different skill set. They were graduates of art schools with fine art majors and were able to learn quickly due to their natural artistic abilities .Good taste and a keen eye are important in this field.
3d, virtual composite and digital imaging intermediate level
I have a strong feeling that 3d and virtual reality might be the future of all mainstream visuals ,and I love exploring the 3d and virtual world . I started learning and applying 3d in my workflow 20 years ago when I worked as an interior designer full-time before I diversified my creative works into multi-discipline manner.
Here is a lists of 3d programs that I am working with or still under experimenting:
1/ KEYSHOT ( 3d rendering ,product shots or car rendering)
2/ BLENDER 3D (advanced 3d composites,3d modeling)
3/ CINEMA 4D (advanced 3d composites,3d modeling + animation)
4/ SKETCH-UP (simple 3d scene , modeling or 3d visualize/defining problems at pre-production stage)
5/ MARVELLOUS DESIGNER ( virtual clothing / fabric-like 3d modeling )
6/ UNREAL-UE5 ( high quality and realistic virtual scene with ray tracing )
7/ TWINMOTION ( for composing a city,group of buildings or virtual scene)
8/ ADOBE SUBSTANCE (realistic texturing)
9/ ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE (all graphics and the final touch of prints)
10/ADOBE AFTER EFFECT( video editing )
11/ I-MOVIE ( basic and fast video editing )
work summary
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2005-2019 ,SHANGHAI/BEIJING BASED
Art Director ( Independent )
Photographer / Fashion Photographer ( Independent )
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2001-2004 PINGPONG , TAIPEI BASED( multi-discipline )
art director , designer , photographer
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1999-2001 Conde Nast , Taiwan web-based creative director
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1996_1999 MIDI , Hong Kong / Taipei ( multi-discipline )
chief designer
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Advertorial
LOUIS VUITTON GIORGIO ARMANI HARRY WINSTON CELINE GUCCI HERMES CARTIER SHIATZY CHEN GAP
Advertising
Leo bumett Ogilvy and Ogilvy Fashion Mccan Ericson Sony Ericsson Panasonic Grey Goose Vodka EMI Virgin Adidas Disney T-Mall ESEEmodels Yolanna Mclon Luolai Meters-bowne Lenzos
Campaign
Robert Di Camerino C&A(Dutch) VerriMilano (Italy) Bosideng Vogue Et Dieu Crea La Femme (France) Cable & Co (Italy) Cemni HK Xander Zhou Signature Dissona Ya Ying E.P. MsMIN M.U.X.shoes K.A.K.0 Satchi Saint Angelo Mark Fairwhale /men/ladies/ L'OFREO
Super Models
FeiFei Sun Liu Wen Soo Joo Park DuJuan WangXiao Tian Yi Charlotte Di Calypso Emma Pei Lena Zhang Miao Sonny Zhou Kiki Kang Lili Ji Stella Song Amber Xu Bonnie Chen
Celebrities
Ines de la Fressange Caroline de Maigret Miroslava Duma Maria Luisa Poumaillou Lewis Hamilton Michelle Reis Zhang Ziyi Maggie Q Ethan Ruan Hu Ge Aaron Kwok Shu Qi Daneil Wu Gu Tian-Le Christine Fan Kwai Lun-Mei Zhang Yuqi Zhou Bichang Elva Hsiao Angie Chiu Lee-Hom Wang Li Xiaolu Alec Xu