The back cover of Fragrant Projections touts the book as presenting an 'alternate world'. Its beginnings are unconventional enough: Hong Kong-based writers James Ockenden and David Whitton use gritty snapshots of the city as the catalyst for a collection of quirky tales.
It's an experiment in how one medium inspires another, Whitton says. Their collection of short stories and the evocative images by sometime photographer Ben Sand that sparked them is released today, along with an accompanying exhibition of writing and photos.
Although the colour-rich photos by Sand, aka Ghostkamera, are the immediately striking feature of the book, it's the short stories that set it apart - as an interface of literature and Lomography, the trademark term for images produced using a Lomographische camera.
Whitton and Ockenden conceived the idea last November and began looking for photos that could inspire and illustrate their writing. Countless samples were collected from friends and acquaintances, but they only found what they were looking for after stumbling on Sand's photos on an online photo-sharing website. 'We have similar styles in the quirkiness of our stories and when we came across Ghostkamera's photos, the mood and colour just seemed to fit with our writing,' Whitton says.
When the Fringe Club offered them an exhibition slot, it spurred the pair to complete their project in eight weeks to meet this month's deadline. The 150-page book, which will be available at local booksellers, will sell at the exhibition for HK$80.
The first tale begins with an old woman at a railway platform waiting not for a train but for a story. 'Stories are everywhere,' she says. 'But one of the best places in the world to find them is right here, underground, on these trains.'