Fan Ho 何藩

About

Fan Ho was born in Shanghai in 1931 and started photographing at age 14 when he received his first camera, a Kodak Brownie box. Four years after that, he and his family migrated to Hong Kong from their home in Shanghai. Here, he acquired his twin-lens Rolleiflex camera, which became his trademark. To understand and explore his new home, he and his camera would travel new streets to capture everyday life. Fan Ho always waited for the right moment, focusing on textures, patterns, collisions within the environment, and geometric shapes. Part of his technical style was to use architectural structures to guide the viewer’s eyes throughout the image. His photography technique usually created a dramatic atmosphere through backlighting, dramatic atmosphere through backlighting, smoke, and light. During his career, he won over 300 awards and titles for his photography. He also moved his talents to the film industry, starting as an actor before switching roles to film director.

I feel technique is not too important. It’s more important to use your eyes, mind and heart…

—Fan Ho

Fan Ho has frequently been called “the Cartier-Bresson of the East.” At the core of Fan Ho’s work, people can understand he is a “humanist” as he pursued to convey the stories of the people around him. But Cartier-Bresson and Fan Ho did not have the stylistic approaches. Cartier-Bresson tended to be more spontaneous and candid, while Fan Ho was more deliberate, which created a cinematic atmosphere. “Approaching Shadow” is one of Fan Ho’s most famous photographs, asking his cousin to pose at a wall and make a diagonal shadow in the darkroom, signifying her and everyone else’s destiny is to allow youth to fade away. This was another technique Fan Ho used for his photography. He would burn/dodge aspects of an image in a darkroom to create an image he wanted. 

Cinque Terre Forest Northern Lights Mountains Mountains Mountains Mountains

The first time I encountered Fan Ho’s work was when I had a film photography assignment about the abstraction of light. My professor used Fan Ho’s work as an example, and I couldn’t understand how he had such control over the light in his works. Studying light through photography is very important, and Ho’s work masters this concept. I also learned to question the darkroom and its materials. The idea of “creating” an image like Fan Ho did in the darkroom through untraditional means is sometimes called the first photoshop. Manipulating an image in the darkroom through shadows and light to create meaning has always intrigued me.