David Leung laughs when we ask him for a peek into his editing process. “There’s literally nothing interesting about how I edit my photos: I just mirror them!” he declares and pulls out his laptop to show us his original photos and edited finals. We’re in a Chinese restaurant within Harbour City, having met up with the photography artist for lunch with the intention of seeing him do his thing: taking photos of delicious food. As it turns out, Leung just snaps photos like any normal foodie with an Instagram account does – albeit using a Leica camera – twisting each dish for a few different angles, and is done within five minutes. “Come on, let’s eat, I never let the food get cold,” he says while urging us to our seats and plucking a har gau from its steamer.
Despite the laid-back demeanour, Leung has created a series of food photographs so compelling that he’s been commissioned by several restaurants to create works for their walls, and has also just launched his first solo art exhibition. With a macrophotography style that features the mirroring of certain segments, he creates faces out of food photos that he takes during meals. Aliens, insects, puppies, and even Star Wars characters, the viewer’s imagination is the only limit to what these faces can be interpreted as. Read on to find out how this father of two stumbled into becoming an internet-famous photography artist, and how the faces in his food find him.
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I’m David Leung, and I’m a part-time photography artist; I have a full-time job and an interest in dining out. Like everyone else, I take photos during meals and post [them] on social media, but I try to bring these pictures to another level – as art pieces with the unique concept of symmetrical pareidolism [Editor’s note: Pareidolia is the tendency to perceive meaningful images in ambiguous visual patterns]. I’d call what I do PareidoliART.
As the head of branding and creative director in an F&B group, I’m always connected to food, chefs, and restaurants, which is where I fell in love with close-up photography because it creates more appetising mood shots. I’ve been posting food photos on Instagram since 2010, but the symmetrical pareidolia reimagination of my photos only started in early 2022. I sustained a serious eye injury which nearly resulted in the loss of sight in my left eye. After laser surgery, it took me nine months to recover, and during this time I had to contend with blurred and double vision.
Ever since that incident, there’s been a shift in how I perceive things and I would notice patterns that wouldn’t have crossed my mind before. It was only then that I became aware of the term ‘pareidolia’. Several master artists have leveraged this phenomenon before, but it was often planned and purposeful.
Many tend to misunderstand my artistic creation process. I take photos like every other foodie, capturing realistic moments in the dining experience. I would never bring the dish into a studio and set 10 lights on it to find the perfect angle. It’s all about capturing an appetising moment of food, not looking for a face to capture. I find the faces in the editing process, so I prefer to think that they come to me instead of me looking for them.
I want to inspire people into realising that there’s always another angle to perceive reality. Even with a simple piece of dough fritter, you can look at it and see something else. It doesn’t require heavy Photoshopping to ‘make’ these facial features – I just simply flip a certain part of an image.
I hope my audience can have their own points of view while also respecting each other’s. I can say this piece of siu mai looks like a dog, but if you think it looks like a cat, I’m happy with that too. My art may also kick start conversations between strangers and, as with most food-related topics, it can connect people.
Well, I think people look at my images with a preconceived mindset, and that’s why they see insects. Lots of micro-view photographers like capturing animal faces up close. But with my food content, they can be anything else. For example, in this current show, I can see a stormtrooper from Star Wars, a kind grandmother’s face, and the monkey Milo from the brand Bape. Most interestingly, the key image of the show reminds me of my own pet poodle!
I chose the well-respected Chinese calligraphy artist Benny Li because I love how he combines painting and calligraphy to share his knowledge and views about Asian dishes. This is his first time inscribing his calligraphy on someone’s artwork.
The Art Jamming crossover is a collaboration with food artisan and writer Wilson Fok, who enjoys making jam. He’s given me a bunch of flavours and I’m still sampling my way through them since I don’t normally eat much jam. I’ll admit I’m a bit greedy to have four different collaborators here, but this just shows there’s a lot of potential for future works!
Not really – I love all kinds of cuisine and there’s no particular kind of food I don’t enjoy shooting. It can range from street food to home cooking to fine dining, from starters all the way to dessert. But if you ask me what kind of food it’s least possible to find faces in, it would be soup.
The Chairman, for sure. Apart from the high level of food and service, they’ve also curated eight pieces of my work in the restaurant, so this is where I bring overseas friends for a food and art dining experience when they visit Hong Kong.
I also love simple and fresh food that’s good value for money, so I always go to Chan Sun Kee, a seafood cha chaan teng in the Ap Lei Chau wet market, where I can buy seafood on the ground floor and bring it up to be cooked immediately for a seafood feast. Lastly, the Australian Dairy Company in Jordan is my favourite place for a (really) quick meal of egg sandwich, macaroni with ham, and a steamed milk dessert.
Use natural light as much as possible; video content is a must; and capture the most appetising moments to share. Lastly – and most importantly – enjoy your food while it’s hot and fresh!
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