Cover “Game Night” (Photo: Michael Kistler)
“Game Night” (Photo: Michael Kistler)
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Each month, Tatler invites a photographer to introduce their favourite image— for March, we speak to Michael Kistler
After enormous skyscrapers towering over a Star Ferry-studded harbour, Hong Kong’s most evocative and instantly identifiable scenes are its narrow streets lit by neon signs. This despite neon sign-making, which became popular in the mid-20th century, being a dwindling trade, with few craftspeople remaining in the industry. Yet such is the pop-cultural influence of the brightly lit logos jostling for pedestrians’ attention that they are recognised as uniquely Hong Kong even by those who have never set foot in the city.
Last March, US-born photographer Michael Kistler captured this night street scene near Woosung Street in the Yau Tsim Mong district. “This photo is a good representation of my brand of street photography: it really exemplifies how I see Hong Kong after dark,” says Kistler, who spent a decade in Tokyo before moving to Hong Kong in 2014. “There is a decidedly cinematic quality in terms of the vibrant colours combined with the neon lights and the various graphic elements, such as the Chinese characters.”
