PHOTOGRAPHY as visual art, which has lived in the shadow of the booming commercial industry in Hongkong, is about to make an impact. Photo company Agfa-Gevaert, the Hongkong Institute of Professional Photographers and the Asian Arts Council are working together to encourage artistic, non-client sponsored photography. This year they set up the Agfa Fellowship, offering an amateur or professional photographer between 18 and 35 an all-expenses paid three-month trip to the United States where he/she can either enrol in a course or simply shoot pictures. ''Hongkong photographers do mostly commercial work,'' said Ms Elaine Ho, senior marketing manager at Agfa-Gevaert. ''We wanted to create an opportunity where we can open their eyes to different ideas and thereby raise the standards of photography in general.'' Applicants must submit a portfolio to a panel made up of Mr Oscar Ho, the Arts Centre's exhibition director, Ms Michelle Vosper, of the Asian Cultur al Council, and two professional photographers from HKIPP. To help raise money for the fellowship, an auction of works donated by professional photographers was held at The Time Is Always Now in Lan Kwai Fong. While it is unlikely one photographer on a three-month course can kick-start an artistic movement, the fellowship is part of a series of programming encouraging photography as a visual art. ''One of the most important aspects of choosing a candidate for the fellowship is the idea that the person will return to Hongkong and give back to the community what he/she has learned, either through an exhibition or through teaching,'' said HKIPP vice-chairman Mr Stephen Cheung. ''But we have been helping photographers in many ways, such as getting increased agency benefits, making agency connections and helping to get financial support for exhibitions.'' The HKIPP is lobbying hard to make clients give photographers a down-payment for any professional job, but Mr Cheung said his group had not ignored non-commercial photography and more attention was being spent on raising the profile of photography as a visual art. The Hongkong Polytechnic and the Sha Tin Institute is holding courses on image building and portrait work, while the Arts Centre has run a five-day summer camp workshop in photography for three years. In the Chinese magazine Photo Pictoro, tycoon Mr Li Ka-shing has financed a section exclusively for visual arts called Nu Na He Do, displaying in colour the latest efforts from Hongkong's artistic photographers. Some photographers balk at the idea that commercially produced material is not classified as true visual art, but Ms Ho said commissioned work often was too restrictive. Whether the door has opened for a slew of budding young Robert Mapplethorpe's to shock and enrage Hongkong audiences remains to be seen, but at least the first steps have been taken to nurture a field of art previously unexplored in the territory.
