Photographer Von Wong has highlighted the issues around plastic straws in his latest imagery and an installation. Called “The Parting of the Plastic Sea,” it is in Saigon and features over 168,000 straws which were gathered over six months by clean up groups. These were then cleaned, sorted, and attached to a 3.3m (10 ft+) tall art installation called the strawpocalypse.
Photographer Benjamin Von Wong has become well known recently for his large photography projects that have far reach on social media and simultaneously carry a social message. This time, his message is plastic pollution in the form of plastic bottles, not the most exciting of subjects. To make the subject a bit more flashy and appealing he sought the help of a colorful mermaid, and a project was born.
As usual, Ben Von Wong’s latest photo shoot has gone viral, but this time the resulting image was for a good cause, sharks. Together with Shark Stewards, Von Wong is supporting a petition to create a Malaysian shark sanctuary with his image, Shark Shepherd. The fantastic underwater image required many hands and many hours to create what appears to be a woman and two sharks digitally manipulated to be in the same frame.
Benjamin Von Wong is known for his elaborate photo shoots, including ones that are underwater. Here is a behind the scenes look at his latest photo shoot that took he and his team 30m below the surface into a cenote, just above an underwater river of hydrogen sulfide.