VINTAGE PHOTOS SHOW OLD HONG KONG|"攝影詩人"何藩遺作展 回首港英舊年代

Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997, and before that, it was under British rule for more than 150 years. A recent exhibition of black and white images by Hong Kong photographer 何藩(Ho Fan) transports viewers back to the port city's past. As the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China approaches, his works evoke details of life under British rule in the 1950s and 1960s. A lady stands against a wall bisected by a diagonal shadow. A man pushes a rickshaw along the coastline as evening falls. Two old friends run into each other in the hustle and bustle of a market. These are just some of the scenes, captured by a photographer, Ho Fan, during the 1950s and 1960s, a period when Hong Kong was undergoing radical economic and social changes. ==JASMINE YAN Gallery Director, Sotheby's Hong Kong== He was really documenting true life in Hong Kong then and so it is really telling about how lifestyle was then. Just everyday mundane things, but he was able to make it into a storytelling element, romanticizing it often. Born in Shanghai, Ho moved to Hong Kong at the age of 18 in 1949. In the same year, he received a twin lens Rolleiflex camera from his father and began taking pictures seriously. He used that camera for the rest of his career. Ho focused on the minutiae of daily life, putting ordinary people in the spotlight. The event showcases 32 photographs that take viewers back to the streets, back alleys, wet markets and harbors of the then-British colony. ==JASMINE YAN Gallery Director, Sotheby's Hong Kong== If we also want to look into it, he did take a certain images of the fishermen life. Often you see a lot of fisherman, water, life on the water, that's because Hong Kong in the 50s and 60s was very driven by fishing, it was a big industry back then in Hong Kong. His works chronicling old Hong Kong reveal how much the city has changed since its manufacturing industry developed. However, the grassroots struggles he snapped still remain familiar to Hong Kong people today. The exhibition runs from 14 to 30 June at Sotheby's Hong Kong gallery with his pieces for sale and a new photography book published in memory of Ho Fan who passed away in California in June 2016 at his 84. TRANSLATED BY：SASHA CHIU