Flatlays and Parisian days

In today’s spotlight: Sherryl Cheong, 23, is a travel and flatlay photographer better known as @wildfxiry on Instagram. Her feed is made up of a combination of sights and scenes she amasses as she shuffles between the cities of Paris and Singapore.

I sat down and had a chat with her about what got her into the art of flatlays, her least favourite things about her favourite city, and how her ideal home would look like.

Hi Sherryl, you’ve been doing flatlays for a while now. What was it that first inspired you to get into flatlay photography?

I think it was probably because I had a friend who was doing it and was rather successful at it. She was also a Singaporean with access to the same resources that I do and it made me see flatlay photography as something accessible and something that I could try.

Credit: Sherryl Cheong

Did you have any fears or reservations going into it?

Perhaps my only fear was that I might cross the fine line between being inspired and mimicking other people’s work. When others before you have created and posted something and received validation for it, it is tempting to mimic it because it is likely to be favourably received as well.

I understand that you spent a significant amount of time in Paris. Would you consider it to be your favourite city in the world?

Yes! It is definitely my favourite city in the world. I think that it’s not so much about the city itself than the fact that I got to live on my own, away from my childhood home for a prolonged period of time. Being able to taste independence and a fraction of what adulthood is like was what made me grow to love Paris.

And what’s your favourite thing about it?

Hmm, I think it would be how every street and every corner has the ability to look effortlessly charming. Its beauty is really incomparable to anywhere else I have ever been to.

How about your least favourite thing?

The cost of living. It is a really expensive city to live in. For instance, it’s really costly to dine outside. It’s a good thing that the supermarkets are wonderfully stocked and that I got to improve my culinary skills when I was there.

Credit: Sherryl Cheong

Now, on the topic of travel and lifestyle, describe to me how your ideal home would look like.

My ideal home would be a light-filled apartment or studio with large windows and translucent curtains. It would be filled with wooden interior, house plants and a large gold mirror.

A gold mirror! I love that.

And maybe some fairy lights, too.

Besides photography, you’re also a keen writer and poet. What is one quote you love and why do you like it so much?

Quotes come and go because I relate to them to varying extents at different stages of my life. Recently, I’ve been thinking about this one quote a lot. It goes, “Jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of a pool. I ask Jessica what drowning feels like and she says not everything feels like something else.” It’s by a poet called Angie Sijun Lou.

I like the last part of the quote because I think that people who write are constantly finding metaphors or words to describe an emotion, a moment or something, and it is beautiful to be reminded that some things cannot be described with words.

Credit: Sherryl Cheong

Was there ever a point when you were running @wildfxiry that you thought, “this isn’t for me, maybe I should stop?”

The times when I thought of stopping were because I wanted greater anonymity, because having people who know me in real life following me makes it harder for me. I think it puts greater pressure on me to produce better content that I am proud of but it can also be crippling and stops me from creating at all because I don’t have the privacy I need to be completely honest in my work. And I think honesty is so important when it comes to prose and poetry.

You can find Sherryl on Instagram at @wildfxiry.