Canadian photographer Greg Girard (b.1955) has been attracted by Hong Kong from an early age, at a time where the city was a distant destination full of exoticism. His fascination started with a picture of Hong Kong Harbour taken by American photojournalist Eliot Elisofon in 1962. Girard was intrigued by the skyline with its new rising buildings and advertising neon billboards for international brands such as Pepsi Cola and Sony, while, at the same time, old traditional wooden junk boats were still sailing.

Hong Kong Harbour, 1962 @ Eliot Elisofon

In 1973, after graduating from high school in Vancouver, Greg Girard decided to board on a freighter from San Francisco to Hong Kong. Girard recalls: “There wasn’t a lot one could do to prepare in those days. There were a few travel guides, made for retired folks or people with deeper pockets than I had. The first Lonely Planet books wouldn’t appear until a few years later (Across Asia on the Cheap: A Complete Guide to Making the Overland Trip was published in 1975)”.

Girard’s first vision of Hong Kong was from the deck of the freighter, after eighteen days of sailing. Like in Eliot Elisofon’s picture, he discovered weathered high-rise buildings as the ship entered the harbour passing Shaukeiwan and North Point, and, as he said, “this exceeded my limited imagination. I fell for the place”!

Girard started to wander in the city with his Canon. He was particularly thrilled by Hong Kong street life, and by the fact that the city was alive also at night. “Not with “nightlife” (though there was that too) but simply with normal activities going well into the night. Families, children, old folks, everybody was in the streets enjoying life in public”, he explains.

Unlike today where amateur photographers and “Instagrammers” are regularly roaming the streets, few people were interested by urban life and landscape in the 1970s and 80s. Girard started to photograph regular people in the streets, workers, delivery guys, doormen, American sailors…

Golden Lion Bar Wanchai, Hong Kong, Greg Girard, 1974

Night was his favourite terrain. Interested by the effects of artificial light on colour film, he started to make long exposure shots, emphasising the humid, warm and sensual ambiance already induced by the city’s neon glow. Girard wanted to reveal Hong Kong, at a time where only Hong Kong gangster movies could get any sense of what the city was like at night.

After his first trip to Hong Kong, Girard pursued his journey in Asia and South-East Asia to record the social and physical transformations of Asian largest cities. He lived in Tokyo between 1976 and 1980, but returned to Hong Kong in 1982 and decided to stay.

“I’d arrived on a one-way ticket and needed to find work and fortunately fell into a job with BBC TV News as a sound recordist. The four years I spent with the BBC was an education. I learned how to go somewhere you’ve never been before and, in short order, gather visual material for a story”. This is when Girard had to change his style of photography with more wide-angle photographs and less alluring night shots.

Kowloon Walled City, Tung Tau Tsuen Road facade, Greg Girard, 1987

In 1985, while working as a photographer for magazines, Girard came across the infamous Kowloon Walled City, a largely self-governing enclave of more than 35,000 people living in 300 interconnected high-rise buildings, constructed without architectural, engineering or health and safety oversight. Kowloon Walled City was considered as the most densely populated place on Earth.

When Girard stumbled upon Kowloon Walled City, he was initially photographing airplanes descending to Kai Tak airport, almost brushing the buildings. He didn’t know much about this place, a part from the myths and rumours saying it was lawless and full of vice and drugs.

And so he decided to investigate and to record the life of Kowloon Walled City residents from 1986 to 1992. His photographs formed the basis of his book City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City, with co-author Ian Lambot, published in 1993, the same year Kowloon Walled City was demolished.

Until now, his book is considered as the most thorough record of the daily life at Kowloon Walled City. It has even served as a visual reference for creators who wanted to produce an imagined dystopian urban environment, like film directors (Batman Begins directed by Christopher Nolan), writers (The Bridge Trilogy by William Gibson) or video game designers (Call of Duty: Black Ops).

Children playing on Kowloon Walled City Rooftop, Greg Girard, 1989

In 1998, Greg Girard left Hong Kong for Shanghai where he lived until 2011, and renewed with his original photography style, recording the violent redevelopment of Shanghai in the early 2000s. He also photographed the busy Hanoi streets, and the American military presence on Okinawa.

Now based in his hometown of Vancouver, Greg Girard has kept a strong bond with Hong Kong, regularly exhibiting his photographs with Blue Lotus Gallery. Sign of his significance for the city, some of his photographs of Kowloon Walled City are even exhibited at M+ Museum as part of their collection.

Until 12 December, you can enjoy his never-seen before pictures of Hong Kong Golden Age at Blue Lotus Gallery. Details here: Greg Girard: HK UNSEEN

Magazines’ contributions:
Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Forbes, Elle, Paris Match, Stern, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic.

Books:
City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City (1993)
Phantom Shanghai (2007)
Hanoi Calling (2010)
In the Near Distance (2010)
City of Darkness Revisited (2014)
Under Vancouver, 1972-1982 (2017)
HK: PM Hong Kong Night Life, 1974-1989 (2017)
Hotel Okinawa (2017)
Tokyo-Yokosuka, 1976-1983 (2019)