Fan Ho: The Hong Kong Hunter

I enjoy doing photo deep dives, for those of you who have not seen it check out the top of this page, but there are dangers of doing this.  A photo taken in isolation of the rest of the photographer's work is often not representative of the photographer.  It can be a great image, a work of art and might move an entire generation of photographers BUT it might still not represent the type of photographer that took it.

When you look at more of a photographer's work, you begin to understand more about their style, methodology and approach.  Most of the time this is purely academic and but sometimes it can teach you something that you can apply to your own photography.  Fan Ho is a prime example of that.  Going through his work, turning page after page I began looking for themes and similarities in the photographs.  This is what I found...

This picture is worth its own deep dive, from the captured light rays through to the gesture between mother and child not to mention the glance between the man and woman.  All masterful! 

So how does a master street photographer capture such an image? Obvious talent and skill aside...

Here we have another great capture of light, now the subjects are not interacting but are in their own worlds.  You have four different men walking in four different directions through a mist of light.  This shows different people of different walks of life, literally walking in their own direction.  Another great capture.

More light rays this time with subject walking straight for us.  A man, appearing to carry a child walks away from us.  In the background we have a man with a cup and various people walking up the stairs.  This image makes me think of people climbing to heaven and one lady refusing to go.  Going against the flow.

Again wonderful light and interesting people.  This time four women/girls are walking together.  It appears to be a mother carrying a small toddler, a young girls following her and a teenager walking beside her.  Different points in their lives, temporarily walking together, helping each other but with the inevitable parting yet to come.  

Pulling these images together, showing them one after another, the theme is clear.  They are all taken in the same place, same time of day to take advantage of the light rays coming through.  I would guess it is morning light as people seem to be going to work and school.  

His method here becomes clear.  He knows a place with great light, knows the place well and the time he needs to be there to get the light he is after.  He picked his spot and kept going back.  I can picture him going there every few weeks or months, finding a place to stand and then wait for the story to come together.  

Just as a lion would scout out a watering hole, Fan Ho picked his background and then waited to let the people walk into it.  This is not the meandering walkings of a street photographer trying to capture the life in a neighborhood.  Here we have a very methodical approach to capturing life.  Go to the place where life unfolds in front of the background you like.  

This worked amazingly well for Fan Ho.  He was able to control the composition, ensure good lighting and capture a variety of different people walking through.  If you look at any image, the background represents a massive amount of real estate on an image.  If you can control this you have a great deal of elements within your control.  

Fan Ho took amazing images all over Hong Kong and I do not pretend to argue that he only took this kind of pictures.  But what I do see is a methodical artist who went back to the same places to see what changed.  As I look through some of his other images, I see the same methodology.  

So how does this help me?  It taught me the need to know a city, to understand your surroundings know how the light interacts in that place throughout the day and go back.  Keep going back and see what you can capture in that spot.