Hedda Morrison, like most photographers, was drawn – and driven – by visual images. And, again like most photographers, she took for granted her knowledge
of technique and craft, preferring to focus her attention on the subjects of her pictures, on the process of recording the lives she saw around her. That, and her modest unassuming personality, combined to leave very few written records indicating the guiding beliefs, practices and craft underlying her images.

For this project that research gap was filled by the recollections of Alastair
Morrison, her husband, now aged 90. From the first searching for the Hong Kong photographs, Alastair had given enthusiastic encouragement to the work; and, over the years, he steadily recorded his memories of Hedda with Edward Stokes. These interviews, made with the assistance of the Oral History Branch of the National Library of Australia, are now held there.
 
Many of the recordings concern Hedda’s formative years in China and her later times photographing across Southeast Asia, and especially Sarawak. However, Alastair also described their first period spent as a couple – the memorable six months when Hedda photographed Hong Kong from September 1946 to March 1947, together with aspects ofher photography there. 
 
The extracts from alastair's interviews below cover the Hong Kong period. 
 
We were spoiled in ’46, ’47. Hong Kong wasn’t crowded and we were able to
move around freely. There was energy and activity, but the population still hadn’t expanded very much.
 
Hedda would just roam – and if she saw someone she wanted to photograph,
she generally did. She never particularly asked permission. She would just go up and (indicate) ‘Do you mind?’ – and they never did. It was partly her manner and partly, I think, the fact that she was a rare bird. Hedda was quite a small person,
but I think it was more a matter of her being a woman.
 
If Hedda saw something of interest she would stop and take photographs. If she came across a particular scene or a group of people, obviously they could be photographed from various angles. It wasn’t just a single photograph that would satisfy her.
 
Hedda produced a lot of postcards in Hong Kong. In 1946 there weren’t any available, and because she could print very quickly she used to run off hundreds of small enlargements in postcard form. They used to be sold through Kelly and Walsh.
 
Hedda didn’t think of herself as an ethnographer, but she liked seeing different people, doing different things – and (experiencing) different cultures. There is ethnographic value, no doubt, in some of the photographs she took as a permanent record of what soon will be lost – or has been lost.