To long-term Hong Kong residents nothing is more startling about Hedda Morrison’s photographs than the clarity of her views, such
as the superb cloudy sky opposite, seen from Cheung Chau. People immediately assume she was here in summer, the only time now when – in sporadic intervals – Hong Kong enjoys really clean air with long vistas. When one states that in fact Morrison
lived in Hong Kong only from September and March, now the period of worst air pollution, and often minimal visibility, the viewers gasp with incredulity.   
 
Autumn and winter were once Hong Kong’s seasons of crystal skies, while the humid summer often brought naturally hazy weather and light. Today the reverse is true. In summer, when the southerly monsoon blows from the South China Sea, and as abundant rain ‘washes’ the air, the skies clear. In autumn and winter, when northerly breezes blow down from China, the woeful residue of air pollution that now affects the mainland causes the local Hong Kong skies to haze over.