The fishing boat was smaller than my hotel room, wooden, painted blue, with a diesel engine that sounded like it was arguing with itself. I was in the Aberdeen Harbor, on the south side of Hong Kong Island, photographing the last generation of traditional fishermen who still live on their boats. Mr. Lam, seventy-two, had been born on this boat, as his father had been, and his grandfather before that. He invited me aboard, served me tea in a chipped porcelain cup, and told me that his son worked in an office in Kowloon and had no interest in fish. 'The harbor will be empty in ten years,' he said. 'Then you will have only photographs.' I spent three days with Mr. Lam, documenting a way of life that is disappearing faster than I can focus my lens.
The Boat People of Aberdeen
Aberdeen Harbor was once home to thousands of boat people, families who lived, worked, and died on floating villages of junks and sampans. Today, fewer than two hundred fishing boats remain, and most of the residents are elderly. The government has offered relocation incentives, and younger generations have chosen apartments over the cramped, damp conditions of boat life. I photographed at dawn, when the harbor was still and the light was soft, and at dusk, when the neon signs of the shore reflected in the water and created a contrast between the old world and the new. The boats themselves were beautiful: weathered wood, rusted metal, coiled ropes, and nets hung to dry. Each vessel was a portrait of its owner.
Mr. Lam's Daily Routine
Mr. Lam's day began at four in the morning, when he cast his nets in the waters between Hong Kong Island and Lamma Island. He fished for grouper, mackerel, and squid, using techniques that had not changed in fifty years. By nine, he was back in the harbor, selling his catch to a distributor who paid him in cash. The rest of the day was spent repairing nets, cleaning the boat, and cooking simple meals of rice and fish on a propane stove. I photographed every part of this routine, but my favorite images were the quiet moments: Mr. Lam reading a newspaper in the stern, his cat sleeping on the engine cover, the rain dripping through a leak in the roof that he had patched with duct tape. These photographs did not win prizes. They recorded a life.
The Technical Approach
I photographed the boat people in black and white, using a digital camera set to monochrome with a yellow filter simulation that darkened the sky and emphasized the texture of the wood and the water. A 35mm lens was my primary tool, because the space on the boats was too confined for anything longer. I used natural light exclusively, supplementing it with a reflector on overcast days. The harbor water was polluted and brown, so I composed carefully to avoid including it in the frame, or I used it as a dark negative space that isolated the boats. In post-processing, I increased contrast and added a slight grain to evoke the documentary photography of the 1970s, when this way of life was still common.
The Meaning of the Work
Documentary photography is often described as a way of preserving the past, but that description is incomplete. Photographs do not preserve. They witness. They say: this existed, and I was here to see it. Mr. Lam understood this. On my last day, he asked me to make a portrait of him in front of his boat. He put on a clean shirt, combed his hair, and stood with his hands on his hips, looking directly at the camera. The expression on his face was neither proud nor sad. It was resigned. He knew that his way of life was ending, and he wanted to be remembered as he was: a fisherman, on his boat, in the harbor where he was born. I printed the photograph and mailed it to him. He wrote back in Chinese, through a translator, to say thank you. That letter is on my desk. The photograph is in my portfolio. Both mean more to me than any award.
