Monochrome

Dragon’s Breath

Dragon’s Breath
Canon A2, Lensbaby, Ilford FP4+

I hate the smell of smoke and of course the health implications of it (even for me as a passive smoker) but I have to confess that visually, it’s potentially spectacular and nearly always interesting. My friend Julian, the model on this photo, uses an e-cigarette (so it smells of flowers instead of burnt tobacco) that produces these beautiful white clouds. When I was about to shoot I asked him to blow it out of his nose and I absolutely adore the results. This is my best shot of the summer.

Spectacled Hipster

Spectacled Hipster
Canon A2, Lensbaby, Ilford FP4+

One of the amazing things with the Lensbaby, especially for portraits is this impression of a motion blur where there is no motion. I think it works particularly well on this portrait of Manu, who seems more dynamic than the scene really was (though not the guy, he’s dynamic as all hell!)

Causeway Bay

Causeway Bay
Minox 35ML, Ilford FP4+

Causeway is both quintessentially Hong Kong (dense, loud, always something happening, tons of people) and at the same time one of the most un-Chinese parts of the city. Still, plenty of opportunities there for interesting street shots. I quite like this one: the signs, the tram, the people, the mask…

Lonesome Bike

Lonesome Bike
Minox 35ML, Ilford FP4+

Hong Kong isn’t a very cyclist friendly city (and that’s probably a euphemism) in between the high slopes and the dense traffic. So you don’t see a lot of bikers. But there is still a Chinese reliance on cycles for deliveries and personal transportation. When the traffic is dense though, they use the tram lanes, the only place they’re guaranteed not to find cars and buses. The tram drivers don’t seem to mind.

Trolley Delivery

Trolley Delivery
Minox 35ML, Holga 400

I’ve always been attracted to iron curtains. Some in HK are absolute works of art (not those) but any of them make fantastic backdrops in my book. This photo is a little grainy, but I think that adds to its retro charm, don’t you?

Scrapers within Scrapers

Scrapers within Scrapers
Minox 35ML, Ilford FP4+

High risers are so dense in Hong Kong that with the right light you can see them all reflected within each other. This is something I was fascinated by early on when I arrived in Hong Kong, and I did many such shots. This is one of the best despite (or maybe because of) the minimalist setup of the Minox.

Street Food

Street Food
Minox 35ML, Holga 400

On the summer before I moved to Hong Kong I asked my father if e still had his film camera from the 70s. He dug into his boxes and couldn’t find it, but he did find a Minox 35ML, still in its box. Some German customers gave it to him as a gift in the 80s. I decided to try it out and it was love at first sight. Sure, it’s minimalist, but its so tiny that you can carry it around anywhere, and while focusing is a mostly random exercise, the lens is super sharp. I started adjusting to hyperfocal techniques and over the course of the first few weeks in HK, I shot half a dozen rolls. When they came back though, I found out that this notoriously unreliable camera had crapped out on me. Two of the rolls were blank, and two others were partially exposed only. I stopped using the Minox since I couldn’t find anyone to get it fixed. Still, I got some really good shots out of it, including this shot of a street food stall in Causeway Bay.

Captivated

Captivated
Fuji X100F

Yes, people hooked to their mobile phones has become a fixture of my own HK street photography, and actually of street photography in general. But this young man was captivated so fully that people had to walk around him while he was playing his game strolling down the street. That’s another level of hooked…

The Darker Side of Hong Kong

The Darker Side of Hong Kong
Fuji X100F

As a street photographer, I feel it is natural to be attracted to the more beautiful or picturesque aspects of the places you wander through. And I often am, but occasionally, I try to capture a bit of stark reality as well. To a lot of visitors to Hong Kong, the city seems affluent and modern, and it’s hard to imagine the shocking inequalities that hide underneath the veneer of modernity. This is one small example of it.

Stalked by the Catbus

Stalked by the Catbus
Fuji X100F

The Catbus is one of my favourite characters (albeit secondary) from Miyazaki’s Totoro. Imagine my surprise when I saw that so many of the Hong Kong minibuses are disguised as Catbuses!