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The Magic of Fog

How would you use your compact, be it a GX200, GRDII, LX3, G10 or whatsoever, to say your objection in an image against a bad idea?

Take for example a short-sighted redevelopment project. The following photos are examples taken from my on-going assignment on urban redevelopment.

R0013111 (Medium) (Looking Down Upon: The tall buildings stick out behind the low blocks and into the thick fog. Look at their top floors with some structural features shaping like evil triangular eyes. They were what caught my eye. I can easily imagine them as gazing at the old tenement blocks at their feet, relaying a message of the greedy property developers, “We will lick you up, shorties.” The mysterious atmosphere surrounding the evil messagers would not be possible without the fog)

R0013110 (Medium)(Ghosts Looming Over: A wider view affords another interpretation that the tall buildings are actually ghosts looming up from nowhere and going to make its way through the low blocks regardless. The tall buildings masked by the fog appear much more intimidating in comparison to the low blocks)

So, with a bit of luck, a queer weather and regular practices, I was able to notice the scene. The tall buildings are taken to represent the property developers who in the name of redevelopment invariably build commercially viable R0013118 (Medium) tall buildings, the least thing needed in this city short of breathing room. Such short-sighted redevelopment projects have turned old areas topsy-turvy. The future generations will be made to pay a tall price for losing the history of places to such projects.

The fog did some magic to the impression of the neighbourhood which feels differently from a usual day. Contratry to what many may think, the special foggy weather are when one should a grab a camera and shoot some photos. Hong Kong is as foggy as can be for the last few days. The fog mystifies the usual scenes and cuts down virtually any harder shadow in an image. So on a foggy day, I grabbed my GX200 and went shooting in this old district, To Kwan Wan (literally Earth Melon Bay).

It is one of Hong Kong’s old areas showing the true colours of its history. Bordering on the old international airport, it was once a heavily vegetated, sparsely populated area. If we go further back in time to the 1950s, it was still sort of a countryside where my teacher said was secluded enough for his school field trip once. The previous remoteness of To Kwan Wan gives some explanation why the old airport and the gigantic fuel tanks were built there, later appearing to be a threat ridiculously close to the residents.

R0013114 (Medium)(The gigantic fuel tanks have been relocated last years. But you can still see the gas works on the left side of this photo.)

Partly because it sat on the lifeline connecting the old airport and the business districts, To Kwan Wan was too important to be disturbed by R0013115 (Medium)the massive public works for building the MTR, which is the Mass Transit Railway or Hong Kong’s Underground. So, To Kwan Wan and the adjacent districts are skipped by the MTR route all together. However, the airport was relocated long ago. So, the government has announced a plan to extend the MTR route to this side of the city. Property developers are already flocking to this old district to build tall buildings. If this continues, the genius loci of the different old districts in Hong Kong will assume a single common characteristic: commercially viable.

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