Born in London in 1976, photographer Stefan Irvine has been based in Hong Kong since 2002. With a background in photojournalism and commercial photography, the last few years have seen him focus on fine art photography projects.
Irvine’s photographs have been exhibited in New York, London and Hong Kong, as well as appearing in publications including The New York Times, National Geographic, and The Wall Street Journal.
He is the winner of the Independent on Sunday/Oxfam Photojournalist Award and his documentary work in Hong Kong was short-listed for the Sunday Times Ian Parry Award and The Observer/Hodge Awards.
His latest work, “Streetline”, is a series of panoramic photographs which offer a unique and new perspective on Hong Kong’s much-loved architecture. The project is an international collaboration between Irvine and post-production expert Jörg Dietrich. The images are a celebration of the city’s rich architectural heritage.
Irvine meticulously researches and plans these linear panoramas, often making several trips back to the same location to allow for traffic and parked cars to clear the scene. He carefully shoots along entire city blocks, capturing the whole facade of the buildings, at precise intervals and distances.
The first images from the series focus on Hong Kong’s “tong lau”, or Chinese “shophouse” buildings, a type of tenement architecture previously used throughout Southern China for mixed residential and commercial purposes.
These photographs from multiple perspectives are digitally merged by Jörg Dietrich into one expansive image, creating unique visualisations of everyday architecture. They allow the viewer to simultaneously examine the life of a whole city street, with more detail and greater impact than most traditional forms of photography.
