Vintage, cameras and fragrant harbor

Seagulls wallowing facing the breeze, the radiance of pale eastern light towards the city concrete mansions. A tranquil start in the morning. Low-rise and mid-rise residential blocks are in this light in the urban grid of Hong Kong. The change towards modernity and eliminating older architecture in the course of changing Hong Kong is ongoing. The city's language has continuously served within a balanced regime: it sits between grit: attraction, antiquity: modernity, disorder: calculated accuracy, building up to today's skyscrapers.

Kowloon, the peninsula facing Hong Kong Island, is well connected by subway and ferryboats. Nathan Road, like a backbone, is the artery of traffic and commerce, with countless shops and businesses behaving like a gigantic beehive.

Luxury shops and aggressive salesmen try to lure you into buying something. They can become a nuisance. There are some calmer areas nearby. Slightly off the central alley, there is heaven for any camera enthusiast in the Champagne Court. A cluster of camera shops awaits you in this sideway gallery. The windows are stocked with desirable objects and even some quite rare classic cameras.

One of these shops is David Chan & CO, who, as owner, is often himself in. He came to Honk Kong from Canton in 1962, and it happened that a photography shop was his first workplace. In ten years, his hard work paid off, and he started his own company.

Mr. Chan himself loves German optics and mechanics. He feels that their quality is unsurpassed by Japanese products. He is convinced that the best times for optics were the fifties and sixties. There are impressive rows of Leicas, Rolleiflexes, Linhofs, and Hasselblads. Mr. Chan can be described as slender in-built, mild in demeanor, and full of information about photography. He settles between his focus on completing the day's order and informing clients about vintage cameras. Mr. Chan gets excited from time to time, and when he does, it acts as the kindling that would light a furnace.

These days orders from long-standing clients occupy most of the shop owner's queries. Perhaps years prior, Mr. Chan may have been more resistant himself in giving into closing down his shop, but an increase in rent and other changes kind of forces him to most probably do so.

The mixture of old age and a lessening in business has concluded that closing his shop is expected. Had the choice been his, Mr. Chan would continue to labor away. He has long ago found meaning and virtue in his working profession. As one of the few selling vintage cameras in Hong Kong, he has often overheard the murmurs and fascination of clients, myself included, appreciating his everyday ongoings and the quality of his cameras. What enlists and moves my attention to shops like these is searching for history, information, and "good old times." Many old vintage pieces play a role in these attractions in our lives. Nothing we see here is held in continuity, so why do we behave in such manners of irrational decisions driven by the heart? We have to work, live and proceed onward to the future, but there are the features of objects in time and a place we are fond of.

It can be said that sentimentality grows more potent as time changes faster than the present. The complexity of daily life also leads to a necessity to cherish artifacts such as vintage goods. A self-interest inherently exists in connecting to a past we think to better understand the changes around us. The closing of shops like Mr. Chan is undoubtedly a signal of the fall of yet another artifact for a city rapidly chasing to be even more globally.

I remember revisiting this city for more than 20 years, and I've witnessed the alterations this place has encountered to its present-day shape. Artifacts and buildings of old have been replaced by fashionable new ones.

Cities are not meant to remain stationary. Instead, they are constantly in flux. There is a desired vigor and the inevitable process for improvement. In this mood, I mourn the closing of shops like Mr. Chan's and already miss the information I could gather here. I have to hunt again to find something equal within these urban canyons. Until that day, shop 15, Champagne Court, is the place to go for a glimpse of vintage cameras.