Hong Kong As It Was

Hedda Morrison's Photographs, 1946-47

Edward Stokes

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• Published: September 2009
• Subject Listing: Photography, Asian Studies
• Bibliographic information: 232 pp., illus., 10 x 11 in.
• Territorial rights: North American rights only
• Distributed for: Hong Kong University Press
• Contents

Following on the substantial collection of photos published in "Hedda Morrison's Hong Kong" and accompanied in that book by a major text in both English and Chinese, Edward Stokes has, in Hong Kong As It Was, selected the very best of Hedda Morrison's images and shortened the text to make a new, more accessible book in English that will bring these wonderful pictures of Hong Kong in the immediate post-war period to a new readership.

In 1946, the photographer Hedda Morrison, acclaimed for her 1930s and 1940s images of China, arrived in Hong Kong. During about six months there she photographed virtually every aspect of local life. These pictures capture Hong Kong as it long had been, but as it was poised on the brink of radical change. This book presents Morrison's compelling, intimate documentary images of Hong Kong, its people and patterns of life, with narrative essays by Edward Stokes that vividly describe the post-war years.

These unrivalled photographs, superbly printed at Harvard University from Hedda Morrison's original negatives, hold up a mirror to a vanished world.

Hedda Morrison, the highly regarded photographer, was born in Germany in 1908; she died in Australia in 1991. Trained in photography during 1929-31 at Munich, she left for China in 1933. There she found her vocation, as a documentary photographer of great sensitivity and range, thus beginning decades of memorable work.

Edward Stokes, an award-winning photographer and writer, was born in Australia. He grew up in Hong Kong and returned there in 1993.

"The story of how Edward Stokes unearthed, and then documented, over 500 extraordinary negatives, still in pristine condition, of Hong Kong from 1946-47 is told in this lavishly produced book. However, that story is merely engrossing background to the real story which is told beautifully by the photographs themselves. Hedda Morrison's photographs document, as never before, a lifestyle largely unchanged from the 1930s to the 1950s." - Asian Art News, 2006

Foreword: Raymond Lum

Introduction

Central District
Victoria Harbour
Kowloon Peninsula
Hong Kong Island
Eastern Districts

Coast and Islands
Fishing Life
New Territories
Rural Life

Afterword

Glossary
Chronology
Maps
Extended Captions

Photographs: Selection and Reproduction
Further Reading
Selected Bibliography

Acknowledgements
The Photographic Heritage Foundation
Book Credits