HEDDA MORRISON'S HONG KONG 1946 - 47

Victoria Harbour was – and remains – the most dramatic visual representation of Hong Kong.
One of the finest ports in the world, and the best deep-water anchorage on the South China coast,
it has always defined Hong Kong's existence. Lying between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Peninsula, the harbour was the foundation of the Colony's trading economy. The ocean-going
ships, coastal vessels and small craft that plied
its waters were daily reminders that, without the steady flow of trade, Hong Kong was nothing.

Hedda Morrison's record of Victoria Harbour covers more than just its middle commercial
parts, where ships discharged and took on cargo. Well-known views are there: the praya cargo quays and the expanse of water seen from the Kowloon Star Ferry. Always seeking original locations, Morrison also climbed the slopes above Central and Wan Chai. There, amidst hillside shrubs, she framed views over the central anchorage and its naval dockyard. She went out to the harbour's eastern end, photographing Shau Kei Wan's fishing port and village. And, having gained from her time in China an abiding respect for daily hardships, Hedda Morrison captured the
harbour-side coolies' labour and their agility.

By today's standards the harbour seen in Morrison's photographs seems very empty.

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Moreover, the width of its bays, with their merely wind-ruffled waters, is in stark contrast to the
now excessively reclaimed harbour with its countless high-powered vessels that produce extreme choppiness. For Morrison, whose 1937 photographs taken along the Shantung (Shandong) coast were her only prior marine images, Victoria Harbour was 'alive with shipping'. With wharf space limited, she wrote, 'most ships loaded and discharged their cargoes midstream'.