Girard: HK:PM

"HK:PM" is Greg Girard’s ode to nocturnal Hong Kong between 1974 and 1989, the earliest work of the photographer’s long relationship with Asia. A journey exploring the underside of a city he first visited as a teenager in 1974 and and later lived in for 15 years. The photographs in HK:PM are imbued with the noir allure and seedy pastels of Hong Kong in its prime. HK:PM shows people at work, people at play, and simply getting on with their lives, mostly with the particular atmospheric backdrop of Hong Kong at night.

A world onto itself, a place where jetliners almost touch the buildings when they come in for landing, where your desires can be met at an instant, and where people from all over the world pass through. Not portraying the glamour that some may associate with the city, instead we are invited to see how this place may have been tough for some, however driven by the hope that is the “Hong Kong Dream.” Attracted to the hidden and often dark beauty in everyday life, Girard is a champion of the common man as he explores “the often overlooked features that define daily life for its residents.” “I started taking photographs at night as soon as I picked up my first camera. I never really thought of them as “night” pictures. It was just a different kind of light, whether neon, fluorescent, moonlight or the light of the city reflected off an overcast sky. But Hong Kong was alive at night in a way that other places weren’t,” says Girard.