20 Breathtaking Black and White Photos of Hong Kong From the 1950s Taken by Fan Ho

Fan Ho was born in Shanghai in 1931, but immigrated with his family to Hong Kong at an early age. Ho began photographing at a very young age with a Rolleiflex camera his father gave him. Largely self-taught, his photos display a fascination with urban life, explored alleys, slums, markets and streets, depicting the street vendors and children only a few years younger than himself.

He developed his images in the family bathtub and soon had built up a significant body of work, chronicling Hong Kong in the 1950s and 60s as it was becoming a major metropolitan center.

“... I've always believed that any work of art should stem from genuine feelings and understandings ... I didn't work with any sense of purpose. As an artist, I was only looking to express myself. I did it to share my feelings with the audience. I need to be touched emotionally to come up with meaningful works. When the work resonates with the audience, it's a satisfaction that money can't buy. My purpose is simple: I try not to waste my audience's time.” — Fan Ho, 2014 interview with Edmund Lee

Ho was a Fellow of the Photographic Society of America, the Royal Photographic Society and the Royal Society of Arts in England, and an Honorary Member of the Photographic Societies of Singapore, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, France, Italy and Belgium. Ho was named one of the "Top Ten Photographers of the World" by the Photographic Society of America between 1958 and 1965.

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Awakening of Hong Kong: 70 Amazing Color Photographs Capture Everyday Life of Hong Kong in 1969

1960s in Hong Kong continued with the development and expansion of manufacturing that began in the previous decade. The economic progress made in the period would categorise Hong Kong as one of Four Asian Tigers along with Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Here's a collection of amazing color photographs show everyday life of Hong Kong in 1969, taken by LIFE photographer Co Rentmeester.

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Amazing Black and White Photos of Hong Kong in 1945

People conducting business along Queen's Road.

Rickshaws and their drivers awaiting fares on Theatre Lane.

Members of Royal Navy and Royal Marines shopping at an open air market on Queen's Road.

Overhead of a busy street.

Young girl carrying her baby brother on her back and begging for money.

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Amazing Photographs Capture Daily Life in Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong in the 1980s

The Kowloon Walled City was a singular Hong Kong phenomenon: 33,000 people living in over 300 interconnected high-rise buildings, built without the contributions of a single architect, ungoverned by Hong Kong's safety and health regulations, covering one square city block in a densely populated neighborhood near the end of the runway at Kai Tak airport.

In collaboration with Ian Lambot, Greg Girard spent five years photographing and becoming familiar with the Walled City, its residents, and how it was organized. So seemingly compromised and anarchic on its surface, it actually worked -and to a large extent, worked well. The Walled City was torn down in 1992 but the photographs, oral histories, maps and essays in their book provide the most thorough record of daily life in a place that was a true Hong Kong original. They are updating and redesigning the book, and funding publication via Kickstarter here.

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18 Stunning Black and White Photographs Capture Street Scenes of Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s

In the early 1950s, Fan Ho, a 21-year-old writer and film student, began photographing Hong Kong in a time of dizzying transformation. Bored by his studies, Ho turned to his camera as a source of entertainment and relief, exploring Hong Kong's streets and making images that, seen a full seven decades later, somehow manage to mask any overt, telling signs of the era in which they were created.

Entering his pictures in a local photography contest, Ho was astonished when he was awarded the grand prize -- a windfall that encouraged him to continue further exploring photography (and later, filmmaking) as his life's calling. At last count — some 60 years after winning the contest— Ho has now won more than 280 awards, produced 20 feature length films and published numerous books of original photography.

Shot in an era long before photographers could simply glance at their LCD screens to verify their intent in making a photo had been realized, Ho's process of deliberate observation, waiting (sometimes for an entire day), composing, then recomposing is downright exhausting just to contemplate.

The layered black and white photographs are the visual diary of a patient observer; a diary that, save for the lack of diesel-spewing motorbikes, cell phones and neon advertisements, truly feels like it might have been written -- and photographed -- yesterday.

But then, that's largely the point: at a time when the Hong Kong's heartbeat was quickening to a frenetic, "modern" pace, Ho's patient and deliberate method of working allowed him to see through the bustle and distractions to the true timelessness of place.

Each of Ho's photographs represents immense planning and thought — not just about what the scene should look like, but how it should feel on film.

"I am a director," Ho told TIME, explaining that the people -- strangers and friends -- around him are his actors. Sometimes directing friends into position, at other times relying on passersby or the occasional stray alley cat to hit a specific spot, in a specific way, Ho would wait (and wait some more) for the exact moment when a street scene's essence revealed itself.

Construction, 1957

In a Buddhist Temple, 1961

W, 1959

Street Scene, 1956

Sidewalk Barber Shop, 1960

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16 Vintage Photos Capture Daily Life in Hong Kong in 1972

Photographer Nick DeWolf captured daily life in Hong Kong during a trip to Asia in 1972.

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