Michael Wolf

German-American Michael Wolf started his career as a photojournalist, eventually shooting all over the world. When SARS and the financial crisis conspired to make cash-strapped magazines rely less on editorial photographers, he embraced the opportunity to turn a lens on his home base, Hong Kong. Perhaps best known for his zoomed-in shots of high-rises, the award-winning, Sheung Wan-dwelling photographer has also shot Hongkongers in their tiny, stuffed flats, abandoned clothing and squished subway riders in Tokyo. His work embodies the complexities of urban culture today.

“I went to Germany to study photography with a very famous photographer called Otto Steinert. And it was there that I realized that one can earn money doing something that is fun, so I got my degree there and started photographing. At the age of 39, I had a midlife crisis, where I was sick and tired of Europe and felt that everything was too predictable. I moved with my girlfriend, who is now my wife, to Hong Kong in 1994. I was open to anything, but Hong Kong seemed like the most interesting option—really, because of the food. I came to Hong Kong as an editorial photographer. I had a contract with Stern Magazine, which is a very big German weekly that had an international reputation for photography. I lived in Sai Kung, and I basically photographed very little in Hong Kong because I was busy doing reportages all over Asia. And when I was here, I enjoyed hanging out at the beach and just recuperating.

At the end of 2002, SARS hit Hong Kong and the whole city was in panic. Somebody’s father at our son’s school died, and my wife freaked and she said, ‘We have to get out of here. Let’s leave Asia.’ I freaked because I hadn’t done anything personal about Hong Kong, and I thought it would have been a crime to leave this incredible city without doing some personal work. I packed my son’s and wife’s suitcases and bought them two tickets to Germany and said, ‘I’m going to stay here and see what I can do on my own.’ On Christmas Eve they departed and I started working on my first free project, which turned into a book. It was a combination of architecture and vernacular culture. It was a juxtaposition of architecture and scenes I discovered in the back alleys of Hong Kong. Carts of cleaning ladies and gloves and pieces of string. The plants, the mops—I could do a whole book about mops. Mops and gloves and towels. For me it was this incredible visual poetry that I saw everywhere.

Parallel to this whole thing, I was becoming very fed up with editorial work. Whereas before I would get to spend three months on a project and get 12 pages of space, now I would only get a few days and the art director would tell the exact five photos he needed. I was getting older, and I wanted more. It wasn’t about the money. It was just about the intellectual involvement. Just to go someplace for a short time wasn’t rewarding anymore. I had shows all over; the book came out; I sold photos. I realized I could basically live from executing my own vision of things, and that’s important because 90 percent of artists have to do something else, because it’s just such a difficult market to succeed.

I was fortunate that I was in Hong Kong, because China, and Asia at the time, was just the place to be. I was this person involved in a part of the world that was hot, that was important, and it gave me a leg up over many other people. Hong Kong had never really been discovered visually. It’s a city that is so interesting and so quirky and so unique, but very few foreigners had ever done something personal with it. I realized how important it was to get international recognition. In Hong Kong alone there is so little value placed in art.

I found a good gallerist in America who represented me and [my work] sold very well. I found someone in New York and Paris and Amsterdam, and in Shanghai. In Shanghai I sell more than in Hong Kong. This topic of megacities has become ubiquitous. Life in cities is the “red thread” going through my work. It was something I never planned. I had to discover my own style. I basically did that very intensely and consciously with ‘Hong Kong: Front Door/Back Door.’ It had no journalistic narrative... It was a bit like sampling, juxtaposing.

My latest project is called ‘Tokyo Compression’… Working for 36 years as a photojournalist gives you tools that other photographers don’t have. There are a lot of art photographers that are really afraid of people. A magazine wouldn’t want just the portrait.