Photography By: Dylan Knight [ Instagram | Thoughts of Other ]
Dylan Knight is a clothier and artist currently based in Hong Kong. The focus of his work is Thoughts of Other, an artistinal hand-crafted, made to order garment label. The following set of digital photographs provides a visual narrative of Dylan’s life since arriving in Hong Kong some six months ago. In photography, there is often an emphasis on the “gear”; cameras with expensive lenses, large digital sensors or film, all of which can make photography seem like a very expensive hobby to participate in. Yet, the importance of the photographer’s eye and on being in the right environment at the right time to create aesthetic images cannot be neglected. Impressively, Dylan’s Vertical Hong Kong set was taken exclusively with his iPhone SE, a modest, older model smart phone, that while more portable than a modern camera, is outperformed in all other technical metrics. This is the third photography set shot in Hong Kong that has been published on Shell Zine thus far (Invisible Horizons by Andreas Mass & Street Level Hong Kong by Tesselvte), with each photographer bringing their own perspective to this vibrant metropolis.
Reflection
My name’s Dylan. I’ve been living in Hong Kong since mid-Summer of 2020 due to issues related to COVID-19. After finishing my fourteen day quarantine, two straight weeks of watching life flow from a 9th floor hotel window, I finally got the green light to leave my little single-room world of food deliveries and endless movie streaming. I left the building at midnight and walked around for probably three hours, excited like a dog just let out to play.
I began taking photos of the city as nothing more than a personal visual journal of the streets and alleys that I wander into, and don’t regard my shooting as anything other than that. Hong Kong is a busy and materialistic city, at least that’s what I make of it. It’s a realm of sensual desires, like most cities are, but to a higher degree than I’m used to. People rush, drills beat rock to no end, countless Teslas and Prada bags pass me by. “Artisanal” coffee shops by the hundreds to satiate the forever pursuit of contentment through material means. “We’ll all be happier once we reach that next step.” Is what I hear from my corner in Causeway Bay.
Walking around at 2:45 in the morning, though, is something quite different. The machine is at a standstill. With the exception of the 711’s being restocked, a group of teens sharing a cigarette, and the light of McDonald’s attracting the “moths,” most all is quiet. That’s when I prefer to move around. I brought an old Canon rebel with me from Beijing, but as I only had my 50mm f1.8 lens, I had no way to capture the wild vertical-ness of this neon kingdom, and so I turned to my iPhone SE to shoot solely in portrait mode for Instagram stories. My shots are grainy and low resolution, but if I can manage to capture the feeling of the alleys here at night, like I tried to do when living back in Beijing, then I’m content.
