AIR

Finalist

Tommy Fung - Hong Kong in Bottle

Tommy Fung Hong Kong's skyline is considered to be one of the best in the world, but now it is lost behind a curtain of smog.
Tommy Fung Smog is caused by a combination of pollutants from motor vehicles, industry and power plants.
Tommy Fung Hong Kong is the third busiest container port in the world and freighters that dock there burn ‘bunker fuel’, a heavily polluting power source.
Tommy Fung Tall buildings trap particulates instead of allowing them to be dispersed by the wind.
Tommy Fung Keeping cool indoors is making it hotter outdoors.
Tommy Fung Everybody breathes air, so air pollution is a problem for everybody.
Tommy Fung An oft-overlooked cause of the city’s bad air is the thousands of ships that pass through our harbours every day.
Tommy Fung People living close to the roadways are constantly exposed to vehicular pollution.
Tommy Fung Local traffic is actually the biggest contributor to air pollution and street canyons trap that air.
Tommy Fung Seven million people live in this concrete jungle called Hong Kong.

Biography

Tommy Fung was born in Hong Kong in 1979. At the age of ten, he moved with his family to Maracaibo, Venezuela. There he studied Graphic Design at La Universidad del Zulia, where he obtained his degree in 2005. Soon after his graduation, he started his own business as a freelance graphic designer. After some time Tommy found his passion in photography. Since then he has been applying the theories of design to photography.

Currently Tommy is a working photojournalist at two Venezuelan schools — Colegio Bellas Artes and Colegio Mater Salvatoris — where he documents every significant activity and event and compiles a digital yearbook for each, fully designed and produced by him. As a professional photographer he has worked on social events, portrait shoots, weddings and underwater projects. In 2013 Tommy sat on the jury of II Concurso de Fotografía CBA 2013, a photography contest in Venezuela . He visits Hong Kong once a year so he still feels Hong Kong is his homeland.

Project Statement

Can you imagine what would happen to you if you lived in a bottle? The lack of fresh air would result in dizziness, difficulty breathing and eventually death. This is happening in Hong Kong where air pollution is increasingly at a serious level. The air is essentially invisible to the eye, however once mixed with pollutant particles, it manifests in the form of smoke and haze.

I used the idea of putting Hong Kong in a bottle with smoke emitting from it to communicate the idea that we are trapped in middle of a concrete jungle, walking in street canyons where the wind doesn’t blow. We are actually living in a bottle but we just have not realized it yet.