When a Hong Kong art gallery called me
- Apr 6
- 4 min read
From Experiments to Compliments
For the first years I played and experimented with my multiple exposure photos just for fun, with a mix of curiosity and chance and I took it almost as a game. So, my journey with photography was playful and completely without expectation.
However, when I started sharing a few of these images with my friends (most of them with little or few knowledge of photography), their comments were like: “Hey, that’s cool” or “Wow, how did you do that?” But as time went on, the feedback became more consistent and more thoughtful and I started receiving compliments even from more skilled photographers and of course those little compliments began to stick with me, so that's where I started thinking "Well...maybe you're not that bad as you think..."
I started to feel a bit more confident, though I would never have called myself an artist at the time. There was always a part of me that thought, “This is just a hobby. It’s fun, but I have to take it like this” But the more people responded positively, the more I started to see potential beyond my own experiments. And then something happened that completely changed the perspective.
One day on my website (yes, this one), I received a private message: an art gallery in Hong Kong reached me out. They had found my website, seen my photos and sent a message saying they were interested in collaborating.
My first reaction was: "Wow: is this real or a scam?". Being a bit suspicious by nature, especially when it comes to these kind of situations, I replied them with not many expectations, but at the end I realized it wasn't a scam at all! Who wrote me was the owner of A-gallery, a guy called Alvin.
Who would have thought that the photos I had made almost as a game would attract the attention of an art gallery???
First steps in the art world
So, one day we decided to know each other in person, so I went to the gallery and met Alvin and the rest of the staff and that was an experience in itself. The guy is polite, funny and he is someone who radiates energy and enthusiasm. We talked about my work, the stories behind the images and what my experiments meant to me. Then he proposed me to participate in an upcoming art fair in Hong Kong, Fine Art Asia. I happened in October 2021 and the gallery would display a couple of my works in their booth, specifically Hong Kong boogie-woogie and Drive, also to see what could be the reaction of the customers, since it was the first time for them also to propose some photography to the market.
I didn’t sell at that first event, but honestly it didn't matter: walking around the fair, seeing my work in that professional context, noticing people stop to look and sometimes linger over one of my photos it was already rewarding: who would have said that my casual experiments could end up in an international art fair?
After that, A-gallery decided to bring my photos at the Affordable Art Fair in Singapore, so that was the occasion to go to that amazing city too, since at the time I hadn't visited yet. The crowd was different, international, curious and engaged. To my surprise, one of my photos found a home with an Italian collector, a very funny girl living and working in Singapore who fell in love with my photo "The Guilty" and purchased it (huge thanks to her!).
Then came the Affordable Art Fair in Hong Kong, once again with A-gallery. By this time, I had grown more comfortable seeing my photos in a gallery setting. The experience was still amazing, the atmosphere electric and it gave me confidence to continue experimenting, to trust that my work could resonate beyond my immediate circle.
Unexpected opportunities and lessons
The opportunities kept coming in ways I never expected. Alvin invited me to participate in a charity event with the other artists represented by his gallery, with half of the purchase price from the sale that would go to a non-profit organization. For this event, I told him to choose the photo. I thought he might pick one of my more colorful or complex works, something I considered “representative” of my style., but instead, he chose one of the few black&white I had at the time, called Read Between the Lines.
At first, I was skeptical, since I'd never have thought that that photo would be the right choice, so I told him: "Seriously? Are you sure? There are much better ones I took!". But Alvin insisted: “No no, this is super cool, we should bring this to the event!”. So I trusted him, of course he run a gallery, so he had much more sense than me for these things and for what the market could like, so we went ahead with it.
To my surprise, that photo sold multiple copies. People connected with it in ways I could't imagine. It made me realize that sometimes the works you least expect to resonate are the ones that leave the strongest impression. It also reinforced something I had begun to notice over the years: sharing your work and letting others see it can lead to moments you would never have imagined on your own and open other ways to see your work.
Looking back, it’s funny to think about how far this journey has come. What started as casual experimentation, something almost playful, evolved into a series of experiences across continents. My work was displayed in international art fairs, sold to collectors from different countries and even contributed to charitable causes, all things that I would never have envisioned in the early days.
Sometimes opportunities arrive in ways you don’t plan for and often they come from trusting others, taking small risks and sharing what you love.
My photos started as a personal experiment: now some of them are part of a larger story, one that continues to unfold in ways I couldn’t have predicted.
And that is what makes this journey so rewarding.
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