Sovan Philong is a professional Cambodian photographer living and working in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Philong studied photography with Mak Remissa, the photographer for EPA since 2006. Philong has been a professional photographer since 2009, and worked for The Phnom Penh Post and the The Xinhua News Agency as a full time photographer. Besides covering the news, Philong has developed several personal projects, including those he implemented as part of ‘Studio Image’ with the Centre Cultural Français that was displayed at the Royal University of Fine Arts and at the 2009 Photo Phnom Penh night projection. In July 2009, his work was shown at La Nuit de L’Année at Les Rencontres d’Arles in France. His following project, in which he pushes further his reflections on the portrait by lighting his models with his computer screen, was exhibited in November 2010 at Photo Phnom Penh. In 2011, he also had an exhibition at the 2011 Musée duQuai Branly’s Biennial Photoquai in France.
Philong exhibited his ‘Crickets’ at Hotel De La Paix in Siem Reap during the Angkor Photo Festival 2011. (This exhibition was sponsored by AIR France).
Finally Philong’s ‘Computer Light Portraits’ was projected during the Ruptures and Revival: Cambodian Photography in the Last Decade exhibition in the ICA Gallery 2, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, LASALLE College of the Arts, in Singapore in March 2012.
In 2010, Philong won the Best Reportage at the annual Angkor Photo Workshops, held in Siem Reap at the same week as the Angkor Photo Festival. The winning body of work, titled ‘Rabbit in Your Headlights’, is a series of portraits of people illuminated by the headlights of a motorbike.
Recently, his work was published in Le Monde Magazine, L’EXPRESS style, Internazional Italy Magazine, Globe Magazine, L’OEIL Portfolio, De L’air, IMAGES and The Phnom Penh Post.
Philong Sovan has been a member of Asia Motion since 2011.