On assignment photoessay: Construction, part I

This series of images comes from my body of work from the last year-plus for client Chun Wo in Hong Kong; they are the largest local construction company and are mainly involved in large infrastructure projects, including the airport and Central-Wanchai bypass that spans most of the prime waterfront. As many of you will have seen from previous photoessays and posts, my brief with them is an ongoing on that covers several aspects: 1) documenting work in progress in the greater context of Hong Kong, as a historical record; 2) documenting and celebrating the workers who make it all possible; 3) recording the finished projects. Earlier in the year, we held a successful charity exhibition at the Hong Kong Arts Center which showcased a limited selection of the work – something like ~100 out of about 1,500 images delivered. I’ve been asked many times if we could share some of those images online for those who weren’t able to make it in person, so here we are.

Today’s photoessay will be one of two parts of the section covering people and context; it is the more intimate of the two sets where the people are the focus. In many cases, the ‘context’ is so large, it can easily overwhelm the more intimate details – we will leave that for part II. And having said it before, I’ll say it again: having spent a considerable amount of time on site, I have a new appreciation for the people who do this work because the conditions are often physically extremely unpleasant. We take so much of the result for granted, perhaps partially because most people do not get to see/experience it, and partially because the industry tries to keep the ‘dirty’ side hidden; I’m glad this is not the case here. It is difficult to argue that shuffling paper around and attending endless meetings – as most of the world seems to aspire to – is a more gainful pursuit than actually building something tangible that helps the lives of others.

Note that the sequencing and curation is not exactly the same because the presentation format is different, and there are some extra images I wanted to include (but we did not have gallery space for). Enjoy! MT

This series was shot with a Nikon D810, D800E, 24-120/4 VR, 80-400/4.5-5.6 VR, Zeiss 2.8/21 Distagon, Zeiss 1.4/55 Otus, and Ricoh GR. Postprocessing was completed using the Monochrome Masterclass workflow.

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Images and content copyright Ming Thein | mingthein.com 2012 onwards. All rights reserved