‘I love to capture moments and I just got lucky’: project manager turned fitness instructor recalls award-winning photo
- The 46-year-old camped out at the end of the Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge to snap the award-winning shot
- A former civil engineer, he left a stable, high-paying job in construction to purse fitness and photography
Alan Li had what looked like the perfect career. As a civil engineer, he was a project manager on various constructions sites around Hong Kong and making a great wage. But the Hong Kong University graduate was unhappy, stuck in a profession he found boring and unfulfilling. The 46-year-old left his stable job in 2012 after almost 15 years in the industry.
“I completely kicked the construction job that year, and at that moment my salary dropped 50 per cent,” said Li with a chuckle.
Li had known for a long time that civil engineering wasn’t for him.
“Once I started studying this field in university, I thought, ‘I wasn’t supposed to be in this field’. But in Hong Kong once you get into a certain subject you can’t switch from one to the other.”
He was a Hong Kong rowing champion in college, but found after graduation that his health took a back seat to long hours on construction sites. He did something about it, planting the seeds to what would be his second career and a major life turn.