Good fortune came again when a passing acquaintance led me to Claire Roberts, of Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum. Roberts, having herself done pathfinding work on Hedda Morrison, told me that Alastair Morrison, Hedda’s husband, was living in Canberra, Australia. In late 1995 he replied to my initial letter. ‘The whereabouts of the Hong Kong photographs’, Alastair wrote, ‘is something of a mystery; and any light that you might be able to throw on them would be most welcome.’ A year later, in April 1996, Alastair Morrison and I met for the first time. Hanging in his home were much-loved framings of some of his wife’s most memorable images. From that first encounter a mutual understanding evolved: to find and publish Hedda’s Hong Kong photographs.   In the late 1980s Hedda Morrison – aware of the historic value of her lifetime’s work – had chosen the Harvard-Yenching Library at Harvard University, and the Cornell University Library, as the permanent repositories of her photographs. Shortly after her death in December 1991, Alastair fulfilled her wishes: Morrison’s China photographs went to Harvard, her Southeast Asian collection to Cornell.   Hedda Morrison had intended to catalogue her life’s work, but the size of the task, and the sudden onset of her final illness, made this impossible. Thus, when her collection reached Harvard in 1992, almost the only records were Morrison’s own filing system. As with many photographers, her filing rested largely on a long-developed visual recall of individual images. This, allied with the fact that none of Morrison’s summary documents mentioned any Hong Kong photographs, made initial research into the collection – seeking the 1946 – 47 Hong Kong images – doubly difficult.   Hedda Morrison’s Hong Kong photographs have historical and social significance for three reasons besides their content, range and quality. First, she was an ‘original’, with no imposed agenda from any journal, employer or strong personal socio-political views – thus adding to the objective evidence that her images offer. Second, despite the troubles that Hong Kong saw from the 1930s to the early 1950s, the place was not photographed in detail during that period; and nor does one find the concerted work of a single photographer of Hedda Morrison’s stature. Third, in 1946 – 47 Hong Kong was on the brink of profound change. Within little over a decade economic and social transformations would sweep away much of the traditional Hong Kong life, precisely that which Morrison’s ethnographically-inclined photographs depict so well.