Brief

Take a series of 10 photographs of any subject of your own choosing. Each photograph must be a unique view of the same subject; in other words, it must contain some ‘new information’ rather than repeat the information of the previous image. Pay attention to the order of the series; if you’re submitting prints, number them on the back. There should be a clear sense of development through the sequence.

In your assignment notes explore why you chose this particular subject by answering the question ‘What is it about?’ Write about 300 words. Your response to the question doesn’t have to be complicated; it might be quite simple (but if you can answer in one word then you will have to imaginatively interpret your photographs for the remaining 299!)

Introduction.

All my assignments to date have had an overall subject matter of Hong Kong, and I wanted to keep that through assignment 5. Here I have spent many hours traveling backward and forward on the ultimate symbol of Hong Kong, the Star Ferry ( good job it’s less that 20p a journey), capture a combination of the ferries steadfastness in the progressing modern world and the peace and tranquillity it can bring to its passengers.

There is nothing unusual about my technical approach to the assignment, just old fashion leg work carrying an assortment of lenses and camera to capture various aspects of ferry life.

The Images

What’s it about? The Star Ferry

For HK$2 you can climb aboard the Star Ferry at Pier 7 in Central, Hong Kong and embark on a journey that has despite the marching of time and modernization has remained remarkably untouched in decades.

The Star Ferry was the one thing I wanted to do when originally came to Hong Kong on a short business trip – if I did nothing else I had to tick it off my bucket list. Now some seven years later I still take the ferry on a regular basis, and I am still as happy as I was the first day I sailed across the harbour. The ferry is to everything about Hong Kong that I love. For five years I lived stones through away and it would often be the starting point for me on many a day out.

The Star Ferry that it is living museum, a ferry runs from 6 am to 11 pm only stopping for typhoons, not matter how many passengers there are. Even though this is no longer the only way to cross the harbor it is still as relevant now as it was then.

I once said happiness was getting on board the star ferry, coffee in hand, and setting off on the short seven-minute journey across the harbor. There is peace and tranquility on the ferry, even at the busiest times, that you cannot experience any other form of transport. Life on the ferry moves at a different pace, there are details to take in, free air to breathe, there is personal space that you never feel on the MTR (Hong Kong’s underground); these images are an attempt to show the peace I feel every time I step on the ferry.