Hong Kong photographers capture the city’s streets

A new generation of Hong Kong photographers will have you falling in love with the city all over again

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to see Hong Kong for the first time. Having grown up in a city that is defined by its madness, I’ve sometimes worried about becoming apathetic to its allure.

But every now and then, I catch a glimpse of Hong Kong with a fresh perspective, often through the lens of a photographer who captured something seemingly ordinary and often overlooked. Like generations before them, they are attuned to the life of a city through its streets.

Intentionally or not, Hong Kong’s street photographers have become its archivists. American artist Jin Meyerson once told me during one of his exhibitions here that “if New York is a city that never sleeps, Hong Kong is a city that never lets you rest”. Photographs give us the opportunity to pause and appreciate the grit and character that makes this city unlike any other.

“Hong Kong is rapidly changing,” says South Africanborn, Hong Kong-based photographer Gideon de Kock. “It is such a melting pot of cultures. The East-meets-west hybrid and the city’s unique personality are all begging to be photographed and honoured.”

Amanda Kho, the photographer behind many Tatler Hong Kong features, including this month’s cover story, agrees: “I find Hong Kong to be a very emotional and confrontational city. The juxtaposition of so many dualities is crammed into a dense area. It’s easy to both create and get lost in one’s own reality. And it’s just as easy to step out of that reality and experience something else.”

While the sparkling image of Hong Kong’s skyline tends to steal the show, many photographers find that quiet moments and spaces between buildings are where the real life of Hong Kong can be found.

Kevin Cheung, who is Tatler’s in-house videographer, turns to photography in his spare time to capture more static moments. “Every corner you turn is a new scene and every day has something new to offer,” he says. “But I think what makes Hong Kong truly unique is its imperfection, the brutalist architecture, the ‘ugly’ colours, the mixture between traditional and modernity. There is beauty in its imperfections.”

Here, some of Hong Kong’s rising photographers share some of their favourite moments they’ve caught on camera.

“Behind the beauty of the glowing wall of fish, I feel this photo is a metaphor for life in Hong Kong—that feeling of always being surrounded by others but feeling alone at the same time”

—DERRY AINSWORTH