Canadian photographer Greg Girard has spent his long career documenting the transformation of Asia, shooting for some the world’s most prestigious publications.
His long love affair with the region, though, began in Hong Kong, where he arrived on his first trip abroad in 1974 at age 18, via a freighter from San Fransisco.
Pictures from that trip and shots taken during several return visits to the city will be featured at Central’s Blue Lotus Gallery in PMQ, where Girard is tomorrow launching HK:PM, Hong Kong Night Life 1974-1989, a new book and exhibition.
The work showcases the photographer’s early nocturnal wanderings through the neon-lit landscape of Hong Kong in its noir prime: nighttime streetscapes, shady dive-bars, tattoo parlors, and hotel rooms; not to mention the assorted characters who bathed in the city’s glow.
Speaking to Coconuts Hong Kong, Girard said his interest in the city was first piqued by a photo he saw while in high school.
It was a picture of city’s harbor in 1962, showing a skyline of neon sign-topped buildings rising above two wooden Chinese junks sailing towards the lens.
“It just had familiar signs, like Pepsi and Toshiba, and those sorts of things were part of what was modern, and the junks were from this other time,” Girard told Coconuts HK.
“It was all kind of mashed together. I was really hit by that picture.”
As a young photographer in Hong Kong, Girard said he used the experience to learn his craft and capture a side of city that was rarely seen in magazines at the time.
“Hong Kong was alive at night, even then, compared to some of the other places I visited, but more importantly, compared to Western cities,” Girard said.
“The only other visuals that came close were some of the Hong Kong gangster films in the ’80s, some of them had the atmosphere of the city at night.
“It was pretty gritty, very noir and lurid. A really unique feel. There’s just little out there that matched what it felt like to be in the city.”
Girard moved to the city in the late 1980s and stayed for 15 years. His 30-year career saw him covering Asia for publications such as National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Forbes and the New York Times.
Among many other things, he’s documented Hong Kong’s Kowloon-walled city (torn down in 1993), the lives of US soldiers living in Okinawa, Japan, and the rapid urban development of Shanghai.
Tomorrow’s exhibition will be Girard’s first solo show in Hong Kong since 2008 and the first time the early photographs have been collected and displayed as a dedicated body of work.
Reflecting on how the city had changed, the photographer said he’d sensed a more generational shift from when he first arrived.
“Now days you see young Hong Kong people photographing the city. Of course, photography is easier now than it used to be, but people are engaging in making pictures about the city because they care about the place in a way that wasn’t true a generation ago,” he said.
And though many of the streetscapes captured in his early photos have disappeared, Girard said he believed Hong Kong still had its character.
“I still think its got it in spades; it’s still a super interesting city to wander the streets in. To me, it hasn’t changed much in that way. That thrill you get from being out in the street in Hong Kong is still there.”
HK:PM opens 6-8pm tomorrow at PMQ: Room 507s, 35 Aberdeen Street, Central, Hong Kong. It runs until November 12 and is open daily 11am to 7pm.
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