This was a difficult article to pen, not because I wasn’t gifted with a compelling subject, but because spending another day languishing behind a laptop felt deathly after diving into the work of Photo Journalist and travel Photographer Mandy Sham, who goes by the name Peach Punk.
Thankfully, Mandy’s images drip with the sounds and smells of the places she graces, igniting the senses in ways that somewhat counteract the desire to burn all your money and wander into the wilderness ala Alexander Supertramp.
From heaving Mumbai side streets, to the starkly beautiful Unyuni Salt Flats of Bolivia, back to intimate moments shared with strangers over meals, Mandy’s work brings a wise wanderlust into our lives. It’s as though she has been perpetually wandering the earth documenting its most beautiful and secret places just for you.
This intimacy likely stems from Mandy’s joyful and curious approach to her craft, which strikes as more a way of life than a job or career. From an early age, Mandy learned the importance adventure would hold in her identity.
With life beginning in Scarborough, a suburb outside Toronto, Mandy’s family soon returned to their ancestral home of Hong Kong where they lived for four years. She muses that this shift from “a sleepy residential area to an always-on, humid metropolis where thousands of aspirations are clamouring for space” began her journey of self-exploration. Taking a camera on her later adventures opened a new way to document and interpret her life and exposed the multitude of identities she contained.
