The many faces of Hong Kong

Growing up in Hong Kong was a privilege that I don’t think I could have ever fully understood until I moved away. When I was living there, I was looking forward to the next step in my life: University. But now I am at University and have moved to the UK, I look back at my childhood and time there with such fondness. I sometimes wish I could go back to Hong Kong for just a week, to go to all my favourite places, eat all my favourite foods and experience all the things I used to when I was there, but the flights are so expensive and the journey so long that it doesn’t seem worth it. I will definitely try and get back to my home at some point soon.

Hong Kong is such a vibrant and interesting place to photograph. While I am no expert, I loved taking photos there because of the variety of people and places it had to offer. Only now, after moving away, do I realise how lucky I was to have such colourful and vivid subjects to capture, right on my doorstep. A photographer’s dream!

I really love 35mm film photography, and there was something about capturing Hong Kong on film which can only be described as…magical. The stark juxtaposition between the modern high rise buildings and the dilapidated ancient alleyways and backstreets was so intriguing, and photographing the local people that inhabit these spaces was something that I found really invigorating and exciting as a photography enthusiast. Therefore, I have collated a selection of my favourite photos of people in Hong Kong that I took on my 35mm film camera between I would say 2017 and 2019. I use the Canon AE-1 Program 35mm camera, and while I can’t remember exactly what film I used for all these photos because they were all taken at different times, chances are they are either Kodak Gold 200 or Kodak ColorPlus 200.

Out of all these photos I took, I would say my top three favourites are probably the old woman bent down (Row 4 middle photo), the chef talking on the phone and smoking a cigarette (Row 3 middle photo) and the man sitting in the hammock attached to a tree (Row one last photo).