The Blue Moment: Hong Kong Highrises in the Eyes of Romain Jacquet-Lagreze
French photographer, lives in Hong Kong. Before he took up photography, he specialized in design and drawing. Exhibited his work in China, Singapore, and the Netherlands. Published his work in The Guardian, National Geographic, Huffington Post, CNN, Wall Street Journal, El Pais, Le Figaro Magazine, Die Welt, Apple Daily and many other media outlets.
— I don’t think that beauty is ever a purpose by itself. I see it more as a starting point. Being able to perceive the beauty in something or in a scene gives the first impulse. It makes me want to capture it and to share it. Many times the beauty of something is not about the prettiness of the place by itself. For example, in my series Wild Concrete, the beauty was lying in the strength and the resilience of the trees growing on the concrete that chased them away.
And for The Blue Moment the beauty is in the mood, the ephemeral aspect of such moments. This blue color that I captured only appears for a short instant and those scenes require very clear air which only happens a dozen days in a year. I love the way this blue hue makes everything look surreal through its rarity and its evasiveness. I strengthen this surreal character by chasing after the most surreal scenes of sheer density focusing on the chaos of the city and the contrast with the intense nature surrounding it. My aim is to show the surreality of this place built by humans in between the mountains and the sea.
I started shooting this series in 2015, although it required a lot of scouting which actually began in 2014. In order to find such angle, I had to find high positions, often on city rooftops. Some places I could get to by getting authorization, but some others where I couldn’t get authorization, so for sure, I got kicked out by building’s security staff a few times.
The series was completed and released as a coffee table book in 2016 by the Hong Kong publisher Asia One.
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