Hong Kong Gen Z: Meet the Film Photographers

This article is the fourth in a series about Hong Kong’s Generation Z. Born between the late 1990s and early 2010s, this generation accounts for 1.6 million people or 22 percent of the population. In this series researched and written by Gen Z writers, Zolima looks at how this generation is coming of age.

In the previous article in this series, we dove into how Hong Kong’s Gen Z has fallen head over heels for analogue photography, combining a love for nostalgia with a craving for authenticity. This trend isn’t just about snapping pictures – it’s about capturing the spirit of a city and a generation. Now we’re turning the spotlight on two young photographers behind the lens, sharing their stories and the vibrant communities they’ve created around their film photography passion.

@9shootclau

Like any 22-year-old, Claudia Wong’s photography style is as spontaneous as it suggests in her Instagram handle. At first glance, her Instagram feed is decked with double-exposure neon photos and candid captions. Freshly graduated and working in accounting, she reminisces about taking up film photography as a freshman during Covid. She had already started taking snapshots on her digital camera then, but one day her father gifted her first ever film camera, an Olympus Mju-1 point-and-shoot. It was originally a gift to her mother, who seldom used it until Wong inherited it. She started documenting her walks on the streets of Hong Kong with her Olympus. Eventually, she took her pandemic hobby further and dived into the rabbit hole of creative techniques in film photography. Talking about her signature style of double exposure of neon signs superimposed on portraits, Wong says it was “an unintentional accident” when she was photographing the neon sign of Pat Chun Fine Foods (八珍食品) in Mongkok.

Stationary tramway sandwiched between two buses speeding past – Photo by Claudia Wong @9shootclau

Wong recalls being the youngest among the local young film photographer community to regularly join photo walks. They invited her to participate in a photo exhibition at a Sheung Wan café in 2023, A Grainy Photowalk: Hong Kong on Film, and looking back she is proud of achieving this milestone. Her film photography is personal and authentic, with captions of candid anecdotes from friends and people around her. “For me it is about self-expression, to convey my emotion at that exact instant,” she says. “It’s also quite a common phenomenon I noticed among my peers.” 

She also takes inspiration from My Little Airport, a fixture of the local indie music scene, who weave in tongue-in-cheek lyrics with a dreamy and strong sense of locality. Since high school, Wong has picked up her camera and visited locations mentioned in My Little Airport songs, such as Sycamore Street and Hoi Sham Park in To Kwa Wan. “I also feature the lyrics in my captions when it describes the right mood.”

Although she has always painted Hong Kong in the best light possible, Wong’s appreciation for its cityscape is quite recent. Born and raised here, she shared the collective exasperation of living in a compact yet overcrowded city that never sleeps. However, a semester’s exchange in the Netherlands changed her mind about her hometown. After countless dark and gloomy winter nights, her fondness for Victoria Harbour and other Hong Kong nightscape icons only grew and she learned to treasure them. She says they will always be irreplaceable to her. 

Wong does not limit herself to using film, but the mindfulness and tangibility of film photography are exactly what she feels she needs. She uses digital cameras for freelance work but describes herself as a perfectionist whenever she uses them, repeating herself until she is satisfied with the photos, becoming less mindful of the moment in the process. By contrast, film photography allows her to be more thoughtful, especially while travelling. “I calm down, shoot the photo and put down my film camera. Then I forget about it and savour the moment,” she says. 

She admits film photography can be an expensive hobby, and the urge to ditch the hobby resurfaces every now and then. But she still hasn’t, yet. Keeping her negatives after developing them, she would cut each slide and put it in a lightbox to preserve the moments. “The feeling and experience feels a touch more human and tangible than digital records,” she says with a smile. “It will endure even when a computer malfunctions out of the blue.”

Although Wong believes analogue trends come and go, they lead to unexpected creative possibilities. “It’s like me buying vinyl records with beautiful covers even if I don’t own a turntable at home,” she says. Wong is the go-to person to troubleshoot her friends’ blurry photos and recommend cameras, but they eventually figure it out themselves. The process is not as intuitive as digital apps, and beginners painstakingly pay for trial and error in their first few rolls. But the process opens up new creative doors. 

She shows us her favourite photo, a portrait of her friend at the Temple Street gateway with a double exposure of neon signs nearby. It was exam week, and that was a last-minute practice the night before a photoshoot with a Ukrainian expat who was about to leave Hong Kong. “I agreed to do a double exposure on a portrait of her, but I was actually nervous because it’s new to me,” she says. The next day, she quickly developed the film and the effect turned out surprisingly well. Not only was it a much-needed confidence boost later that day, it also pushed her to experiment with double exposure techniques as a way to document the city’s vanishing neon signs.

Wong has quite a few favourite photo spots in Hong Kong, but Sham Shui Po never ceases to fascinate her. A historically working-class neighbourhood, Sham Shui Po is an interesting mishmash of street eats, flea market knick-knacks, textile heaven and gentrification. “Every time I’m there, I discover new things left and right,” she says. For a change of scene, she turns to the Central and Sheung Wan districts with more of a “quaint” vibe. “I took this photo on the first day of my first internship,” she says, pointing to a photo of the stationary tramway sandwiched between two buses speeding past, which ultimately got her into night photography.

Speaking of future plans, Claudia says Hong Kong’s outlying islands have caught her eye for a while. “Not right now in Hong Kong’s summer though,” she shakes her head without the slightest bit of hesitation. better stay tuned for her photos next season. 

@yuhinfilm

27-year-old Yuhin Chun was stranded in Hong Kong for a gap year because of Covid-19. On the bright side, it kicked off his film photography hobby. He had not picked up any real cameras before that and was first inspired when he saw his friend’s Canon A-1. They ended up meeting every day taking photos religiously. “He started driving me and other friends around Hong Kong every day,” says Chun. “We went hiking, to industrial places, wherever we could go.” It later became one of his fondest memories because now everyone is settled elsewhere, some in Canada, others in Australia or America. Chun himself returned to London to complete his architecture masters. 

Chun says he is inspired by Saul Leiter’s abstract street photography that painted the everyday sublime within the cacophony of New York urbanity. He aspires to capture the quotidian and express it through the unpredictable distortions of his film camera. Going back and forth between his home in Sha Tin and Hong Kong Island, or to Mong Kok, where he developed his film, he started to notice the crisp lines and colour in tunnels and took a snapshot instinctively. The blurry motion effect is evocative of the ending scene of Fallen Angels by Wong Kar-wai, although Chun says the similarity was not deliberate. “I like his work and I do see the similarity, but I don’t think it’s just a direct inspiration,” he says, but thinks it’s admirable how people recognised the director’s visual style which spread internationally. The photo became one of his favourites and he started taking more. For some, the routine can be banal and monotonous, but it is an opportunity for him to introduce new elements in his film photography. 

Hong Kong’s repetitive layers make it quite a special place to take photos, but the architect in Chun admits it can be a bit boring and visually exhausting at some point. “The city is built very efficiently and modularly, where a lot of elements repeat themselves. It’s like putting layers on top of layers,” he says. “But what interests me is how people incorporate within these structures. How do I bring something new to it?” His dissertation explored how public housing typologies, built with efficiency in mind, foster a sense of community and neighbourhood. He looks at the city’s visual and cultural layers as a palimpsest and creates focal points through rhythm and symmetry. Somehow, the cluttered and visually busy city he grew up in, in contrast, helped develop a more minimalistic style. 

Portrait by photo by Yuhin Chu @yuhinfilm

His feed is a mix of landscape and portrait photos, as he alternates between spontaneity and curation. Yuhin takes more landscapes when he travels to capture unexpected moments. He prefers to keep things spontaneous. “I’m quite impatient. I just can’t wait for ten minutes with my camera,” he says. When he travelled with his medium-format Pentax 67, ten shots was all he got before running out of film. It forced him to slow down and observe his surroundings to find something worth capturing. 

But he is also drawn to taking portraits in Hong Kong because they are more visually exciting for him and allow for more creative control. “A lot can go into my portraits, from fashion styling to the way a person is sitting; the choice of lighting and background. It all creates a different ambience,” he says. He sums up the two sides of his film photography. “It’s like telling a story from two different angles – a documentary and a movie. I’m intrigued by both.”

Chun sees film photography not just as a medium for self-expression, but also as a gateway to more creative opportunities and connections. “It’s a way to branch out to other areas of creativity,” he says. It’s fashion for him, and perhaps writing or poetry for others. It is also a handy icebreaker. “In London where I’m working, a lot of people enjoy photography,” he says. “I’ll meet people in fashion or architecture, and it can be a very good medium to talk about visuals and concepts.” After showing his photography work, they would come up with ideas for a new photoshoot or a headshot.

Chun believes analogue photography will always have a place in the digital age. “Nowadays people get quite exhausted by the fast pace of life,” he says. “Film photography slows us down a bit and gives us a reason to remember the moments a bit more.” That’s true even with an abundance of new technology like AI photography apps that aim to recreate the film aesthetic. For Chun, film photography is all about its process – building a relationship with an object and a hobby. 

That’s especially the case with a film camera that is simply not very user-friendly. “It’s not like an iPhone or espresso machine where you press a button and get a cup of latte,” says Chun. To operate it you can’t fast-track the manual basics. He finds himself becoming more mindful. “If it’s going to be sunny, I’ll pick a 100 ISO film. Or if I go for a night walk, I’ll pick another with 800 ISO,” he says. Being aware of different variables like the weather and things you might take photos of, gives something to look forward to. Instead of the thousand photos you AirDropped to your friends, photos taken on a film camera carry more thought and presence of the moment. “You remember every time you click the shutter, almost. I remember every single photo I’ve taken with my film camera,” says Chun.

Among the photo locations Chun likes most are public housing estates. He is fascinated by old spaces built to foster organic community interaction, especially in the first-generation “twin tower” public housing typology. “Back then people would gather at the massive square and see their neighbours, so it built a sense of neighbourhood you see in old movies,” he says. “People took care of their neighbour’s kids. When someone got a TV, everyone just goes to the same house [to watch it].” Nowadays this kind of jan4 cing4 mei6 (人情味 “human touch”) may be lost, as public spaces become “slightly more artificial and segregated”.

The process of capturing people’s daily lives can be a tad bit intrusive, Chun admits. He recalls taking photos in public housing estates to the point he had to leave before people started getting suspicious of him. “Imagine you have a camera like this zooming into the house,” he points to his bulky Pentax 67. “So maybe not a great place to take photos, actually.” In any case, film photography built up his courage to connect with people. Initially shy and keen to avoid confrontation, he might now approach people to see if they agree with having their photo taken. “It’s an inevitable part of street photography,” he reflects.

Looking ahead, Chun envisions film photography will expand as an exciting creative outlet instead of simply documenting day-to-day life. “People have always been abstract and creative with it, but I think it will be more so in the future. Like a painting,” he says. It’s not just about nostalgia. While Gen Z and future generations will always be in a position to be inspired by the past, they also have the tools to create something new. With online tutorials and resources more accessible than ever, it is much easier to learn about creative techniques. “It’s a great time to be a photographer,” says Chun.