OpinionRoad Test: old photo exhibition reflects contemporary issues

Although the Hong Kong Museum of History has an extensive photographic collection of its own, many of the pictures on show in the exhibition "Images Through Time: Photos of Old Hong Kong" are on loan from the Moonchu Foundation.

The excellent quality of the images is testament to the fact that as commercial photography developed in Europe, Hong Kong became a natural home for foreign photographers travelling to the mainland.

Many stayed and established their own studios, leaving images depicting daily life in the bustling city. The eclectic range of photographs showing everyday life in old Hong Kong is interesting for all ages.

At the entrance is an opportunity to interact on a personal level via the Times Studio, an augmented reality photographic service that captures visitors in a Hong Kong street scene. The image is directly uploaded to a computer, and can be e-mailed to a personal account at no cost as a memento.

Other engaging measures include a light table "loaded" with digital photographic albums, like one showing photographs of the China Pavilion at the Paris Exposition of 1878, which can be viewed at will. Another "must do" is the interactive stereoscopic photographic equipment that gives an uncannily realistic 3-D feel to images.

The exhibition follows a meandering path, but care has been taken to create areas of interest with, for instance, enlarged images that recreate street scenes that capture the ordinary lives of people.