Queen Victoria, Chairman Mao and Me

This is the title of the new project that I am shooting in Hong Kong at the moment. This temporary relocation to Hong Kong has been on the cards for several years. I have wanted to spend at least six months here ever since my first daughter was born. We are doing it so that she would at least pick up some Cantonese before she starts school.

It was what I was going to do while I am here that was the hard part. I have had several years to think about this, which is never good. 'Great ideas' became 'what was I thinking ideas'. In the end, I decided that this six months will be a pure indulgence and I will do a project that I truly wanted to do, something that is close to my heart.

The project will be about Hong Kong and it's history, told only through my family history. It far more difficult to shoot than it sounds since the government and the developers here have little sentiment. Buildings get knocked down hastily with no desire to preserve any history. As I don't want to use too many old photographs in the project, which means I have set myself difficult challenges of visualising history with very little actual objects or places to photograph.

I have been here six weeks now and found out more about my ancestors than I have in the previous 32 years of my life. That's itself has been worth doing the project. I will be posting more entries from now on. I do have the perfect excuse for being lazy though as my laptop die on me a few weeks ago and I didn't fancy typing on my ipod.

To sign off, I wanted to share a picture of my Grandfather. It's the picture he sent to my grandmother via the matchmaker prior to their first meeting. He is the slick dude on the left, on the right was the most gormless guy he could find, whom he dragged along to the shoot in order to look better. I think Danny Devito would look good next to him.