Time travel: Two sides of Hong Kong street 100 years apart ... in one photo

Ken Tam Kim-leung’s photographic work pulls viewers into a time warp, sending them back to a long-lost Hong Kong while maintaining a perspective on the present.

Tam, who is in his early 50s and works primarily in IT, creates his magical and evocative images through Photoshop, taking old black-and-white photos and weaving in new images he has captured standing in the original photographer’s footsteps.

The juxtaposition of the old and new buildings, shopfronts, transport and everyday people brings the city’s past back to life in a tangible way. In one composition, a man pulling a rickshaw is being overtaken by a red taxi. In another, a sailor walks past the girlie bars of old Wan Chai, while across the road – in colour –modern-day bars and restaurants are depicted.

Tam became a semi-professional photographer two years ago, when friends expressed an appreciation for his work. His jobs have included weddings, newborns, portraits, but he has also photographed tattooists at work. He is especially interested in capturing facial expressions, he says.

He got the idea for his “Passage of Time” series from internet users’ photos comparing places in today’s Hong Kong with what they looked like decades ago. It would be fun to combine them into a single image, he thought.

“The challenge is to locate the exact spot where the ex-photographer was, to get a connection with the same place,” Tam says.