Peninsula Moments | The Peninsula Hotels

The Peninsula Hotels bring the best of the unique aspects of each destination city to guests with style, sophistication and elegance - moments and memories that reflect an authentic sense of destination are brought to life by the stunning architecture, thoughtful design, local insight and the genuine desire of Peninsula staff to showcase the very best of their cities.

To celebrate this, The Peninsula Hotels introduces “Peninsula Moments”, a new global brand campaign to showcase the magic that The Peninsula brings to its guests with photography and short film, going behind the scenes to tell each hotel’s story and featuring the special memories created by staff members. Iconic elements of the hotels and their destinations are captured, with compelling images to make the viewer stop, look and reflect.

Short video vignettes complement still photography, directed by Jean-Claude Thibaut and Antony Crook, and produced by Ridley Scott Associates. One short film per destination is released each month.

The images are by Russel Wong, a Singapore-based photographer known for his work in Hollywood and for his portraits of celebrities ranging from Jacky Chan and Michelle Yeoh to Tom Cruise.

Jean-Claude Thibaut’s first foray into film directing was with much-acclaimed experimental shorts, featuring soundtracks by Philippe Cohen-Solal of multinational musical group Gotan Project. After these creative successes the French filmmaker was approached by Armani to shoot a fragrance commercial. Other prestigious luxury brands followed, with Thibaut directing film and photography campaigns for Dior and Louis Vuitton, among others.

As a director, Thibaut explores and defines his particular fascination with women, and his wider response to people, places, history and situations. His style embraces the glamour and twist seen in his portraits of the beautiful, the talented and the notorious, like Naomi Campbell, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sophie Marceau, Kristen Davis, Ethan Peck, Julian Perretta and others.

Thibaut purposefully forces his viewers to feel and not passively observe his work. In addition to beauty and fashion, the main source of inspiration for Thibaut’s imagery is contemporary pop music, cinema and international youth culture.

Antony Crook began his career as a photographer before recently taking on the challenge of the moving image.

The New York- and London-based photographer and filmmaker has had his still work included in numerous public and private collections, as well as working for commercial clients including Nike, Orange, Microsoft, British Vogue, Interview, The New York Times and i-D – giving him the opportunity to work with some of the world’s iconic figures in music, art and fashion, including David Byrne, Tim Burton, David Hockney and Malcom McLaren.

Crook’s stills work has been described as “gentle, filled with a quiet sense of stillness. It’s the kind of quietness that breathes a sense of wonderment and mystery”. This same style has served him well crossing over into moving images.

Following Crook’s transition into movie making, he is now working with RSA Films. In a very short time, he has gone on to direct work for Rapha, Jaeger, Baracuta and Clarks.

Russel Wong is noted for his photographs of celebrities – from movie stars to rock musicians, sports personalities, politicians and fashion gurus – but his varied portfolio also includes still-lifes, nudes, landscapes and conceptual pieces. He is also branching out into the filmmaking arena.

Wong’s first break came when at 19 he photographed runner Sebastian Coe for the cover of Track & Field News. A student at the University of Oregon in the United States at the time, Wong was also carrying out work for Nike, photographing athletes such as Carl Lewis, Mary Decker and John McEnroe.

Los Angeles Times Magazine assigned Wong to photograph fashion spreads of Hollywood celebrities. Since then, his photographs have featured Joan Chen, Isabella Rossellini, Oliver Stone, Paloma Picasso, Michael Jackson, Andrew Lloyd Weber, Glenn Close, David Lynch, Bruce Willis and Jackie Chan.

In the film world, Wong has photographed on the sets of such motion pictures as Zhang Yimou’s “House of Flying Daggers” and Ang Lee’s “Lust Caution”. Russel recently attended the prestigious New York University Film Program and plans to direct his first feature film.