Vertical Village

The brief

Atlas Quarterly asked for pictures that would sit beside long-form reporting without illustrating it word for word. We proposed the opposite of a shoot day: time. Life in and around Hong Kong’s densest residential towers, looking up from the street and out from the balconies.

How we worked

Everything was shot on Ilford Delta 400, handheld, in available light. We kept the crew to two people, spent the first days without cameras and only started photographing once our presence had stopped being interesting.

Each evening we wrote down names, places and small details next to frame numbers. Those notes became the captions — and in the end, half of the story.

Delivery

The final edit of 36 frames was developed and printed by hand in our Lisbon darkroom and delivered with high-resolution scans, a complete contact sheet and a set of fibre-based prints.