Street life: Hong Kong in the 1950s as seen through the lens of photographer Fan Ho

Born in Shanghai in 1931, Fan Ho first delved into photography at the age of 14, when his father gave him a Rolleiflex twin-lens camera. After moving to Hong Kong in 1949, he began taking photographs of the streets and alleys of old Central, and of other markets and street stalls in the Hong Kong of the time. 

When Ho Fan took up street photography in the 1950s, Central was still a poor neighbourhood with shabby houses and dirty alleys.

The streets, filled with vendors, coolies and rickshaw drivers, fascinated Ho, who arrived from Shanghai in 1949. Taking pictures in a studio was the norm then, but the teenager was more interested in random, candid shots of strangers.

His creative output in the 1950s and 1960s included what are now recognised as some of Hong Kong’s most iconic photographic images. Between 1958 and 1965, he was eight times named one of the Top Ten Photographers of the World by the Photographic Society of America.

Approaching Shadow, 1954 Image: Fan Ho