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BIOGRAPHY

Welcome to my photographic world where animals have a voice and nature reigns supreme! Come along with me to travel the world together to witness and record what our minds permit our eyes to tell through the camera lens.

My name is Romina Choi. I came from a long line of movie people in my ancestry. Just to name a couple, my uncle, Cai Chusheng (蔡楚生), was the first Chinese film director to win an international film award for his movie, Song of the Fisherman (漁光曲), at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1935. His younger brother, my father, Choi Lo-Shan (蔡魯生), was talented in his own way. He was the first film director in Hong Kong to produce a love story about a famous Chinese General in the Tang Dynasty, Xue Rengui (薛仁貴), in his native Teochew dialect in the early sixties. It was a bold move when the mainstream movies were in either Cantonese or Mandarin.

Growing up in Hong Kong next to the Kwokar Film Studio (國家片場) in the early years as a child, I was introduced to the fine points in movie production by my father as he retold the movie shoots of the day or his favorite silent movies by Charlie Chaplin in the evening. He was a great storyteller with an uncanny capability to introduce twists and turns to keep my brother and sisters and the neighborhood kids enthralled. What impressed me most in those story times though was the use of a camera to tell a story using a combination of dialog, scene design, frame composition, camera angles, lighting, etc. I was forever hooked on photography because of his influence.

After high school, it was time for me to get a job to help support the family while pursuing a full-time study in Interior Design. I was variously a teacher, tourist guide, writer, secretary, manager, etc. These jobs had taught me humility, compassion, dedication, self-reliance, relationship building, goal setting and non-stop learning. In a fortunate stroke of serendipity, I was able to start my own import and export company in 1989 on the cheap by having a desk at a friend’s company. Long story short, from that one humble desk and with some luck and a few patents to my credit (thanks to the creativity genes I have inherited from my father), I was able to grow it into a multimillion-dollar business in promotional products with my own office building in Hong Kong and factories in China.

With the business success, I was finally able to pass it on to my son to run it, thus allowing me to revisit my interest in photography full-time. In the last ten years, I have traveled to almost every corner of the world capturing images from forests of towering mountains, expansive grasslands dotted with gentle hills in remote settlements, exotic wildlife at Galápagos Islands, salmon runs in Alaska with hungry bears waiting to devour them on their way upstream to spawn, majestic Bengal tigers in India, colorful dancing aurora or northern lights at Antarctica, just to name a few. These images can be found in my site, Instagram, Facebook and a photo book entitled “Windsong from the Nature Garden” that will be published in November 2019 as a tribute to my father.

For those people who know me well, I have a soft spot for animals. I have 15 cats, 10 dogs over time and an assorted collection of Koi fish and tortoises at my home. Beyond my backyard, I have been entertained by the constant presence of mischievous and fun-loving monkeys! I love them all dearly.

In establishing my own digital presence on the Internet and in publishing the first of a series of photo books, I am hoping to add my voice about the plight of animals and wildlife both in captivity and in the wild. I will donate the profits made from the sales of the photos and the books to worthwhile causes in support of animal rights and animal welfare. I hope you will join me in this endeavor.

Charities

The David Sheldrick Wildlife

Trust embraces all measures that complement the conservation, preservation, and protection of wildlife.

Mentor Mothers

mothers2mothers (m2m) trains, employs, and empowers women living with HIV as frontline healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa. To date, m2m has reached over 11 million women and children and has employed over 11,000 women living with HIV