Life in Hong Kong, writ small

I made an excursion into Central today with my eldest daughter, who wanted to take photos of construction sites for an art project she is working on, and the harbourfront reclamation project seemed a good place to start — its location right next to the piers and the overhead walkway leading to the IFC meant we would be able to get a great view across the entire site.

I brought along my own Nikon as well, and as we were rapidly notching up hundreds of shots between us, I mused on Hong Kong's apparently non-stop construction works; barely is one project completed before another begins. Often, more than one is underway within a stone's throw of another, as indeed was the case today — to one side of the harbourfront site, in front of the IFC, was also a huge construction site where a bus terminus once stood. To the other side of the harbourfront is what looks like a gigantic hole in the ground right by the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre in Wanchai... and there's construction work of some sort going on at the Star Ferry pier as well.

It occurred to me that Hong Kong is not unlike a game of Monopoly: those with the most money win, the rest go bankrupt, the rich own the best areas and charge extortionate rents for the hotels and homes and facilities they build there.

I was also using the Tiltshift app on my iPhone to take a few images, and looking at them later, I laughed as I realised that the 'Toytown' effect in the resulting shots dovetailed perfectly with the stream-of-consciousness I'd had earlier in the day. I love using Tiltshift; I hope these photos also amuse you as much as they did me; not all of them are of the harbourfront reclamation site, but they all encapsulate the sometimes surreal impression that we are living on a gigantic game board.