By Bobby Yip

Hong Kong became the focus of the world’s media this week after Edward Snowden, a former contractor at the National Security Agency (NSA) who leaked classified NSA information, gave The Guardian newspaper an exclusive interview and then went to ground somewhere in the financial hub – a town more used to a focus on money-making matters.

With more than 6,000 people living in every square kilometer, Hong Kong is one of the most crowded cities in the world. After checking out of the Mira Hotel where he first stayed, the public has no idea where Snowden’s current “safe house” is. One magazine article even suggested Snowden head ‘offshore’ and hide on one of the island’s iconic “junks”.

After The Guardian’s world scoop, there were failed attempts to chase after Snowden or chase after the few journalists who had met him. As the media chased after images, still photos and TV footage of Snowden (The Guardian released a few of their own to the media) have bombarded citizens here: on the front pages of newspapers and magazines, on local websites supporting him, on banners displayed on the streets, in the hands of protesters, on transportation, in shopping malls, and outside the famous Chung King Mansion.

There is seldom a story with so much interest but such a slim chance to approach the main character. I tried to depict Snowden from as many possible angles as I could think of, relating him to the lives of people here, and the support he gets.

This clandestine story is likely to drag on for a while, as Snowden may continue to hide somewhere, communicating with the public via live chat through the internet. To me, the question “Where in Hong Kong is Mr. Snowden?” is easy to answer. According to my images, he’s just around the corner.

With a well-dressed attractive woman waiting to pose for me, I asked her to sit on the darker side of a classic sofa, trying to depict the situation she is facing — waiting for people to accept her status as a lesbian, the first among Hong Kong’s upper class to have a same-sex marriage.

Gigi Chao is a comparatively low-profile person among celebrities here. As the daughter of a tycoon playboy father and a divorced actress mother, she was followed by local paparazzi occasionally. Curious entertainment journalists finally broke the news of her getting married in Paris in April – to a woman.

It was not front page news, not until her outspoken father Cecil Chao Sze-tsung made a statement days later, offering a $65 million “marriage bounty” to any man who was able to win her love. Headlines were splashed in nearly all Chinese media, printed and online worldwide, as far as I could find. Foreign media around the world were not far behind local media in their interest.

Because of a strong connection with our TV journalist, we managed to get an exclusive face-to-face interview with Gigi. It was more than I could hope for as the planned ten-minute brief meeting with her office extended. I now had more time to look deeper into the story.

She was very friendly, talkative, confident and humorous. She showed us some of the very interesting marriage proposals received by email which bombarded her from all over the world.

“I’m interested in your offer to wed your daughter, who also happens to be gay. I am a male person, who also happens to be gay.” She read them out, smiling.

She even accepted my request to do separate portraits wearing a different dress. I found the conference room to be a nice scene setting, with ready-made pops that could symbolize the story’s bigger picture – acceptance between cultures, or women being treated as objects.

I didn’t take a lot of posed photos, trying not to squeeze the last bit out of the brave subject. I got more than I expected. An exclusive opportunity didn’t need to turn into a machine-gun shooting experience. I enjoyed her sharing her experiences with us and bless her from the bottom of my heart. Beneath the surface of this funny story lies some deeper significance.

Hong Kong celebrates its 15th anniversary since the handover to Chinese sovereignty from British rule on July 1, 2012. In the city’s King George V Memorial Park, a plaque from the colonial era is hidden behind the roots of a banyan tree. I found this to be a good symbol of the fading former colonial links to the territory’s past.

Bearing the romanticized phrase “Pearl of the Orient”, Hong Kong attracts visitors from around the world. Due to a fast growing economy, a flood of mainland Chinese visitors in recent years (including many big spenders) have boosted the city’s retail sales. In 2011, nearly 42 million visitors came to Hong Kong, about 64 percent of them from the mainland.

SLIDESHOW: HONG KONG 15 YEARS LATER

The “Forever Blooming Bauhinia” sculpture outside the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, a gift from the Chinese government in 1997, is one of the most popular tourist spots for mainlanders. To me, they enjoy a freedom of expression here without fear of political correctness. Under an immigration scheme, a few of might eventually settle in Hong Kong. With a good judicial system, low crime rate and a wide range of personal freedom, just to mention a few, becoming a Hong Kong citizen is a dream for many on the other side of the border.

The late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, architect of “one-country, two-systems”, said Hong Kong “will remain unchanged for 50 years”. In reality, various educational and cultural programs are conducted to try to strengthen the locals national identity and to make them become more patriotic. Flag-raising at schools and national studies are increasingly popular.

Yet, a lot of people still consider themselves as “Hong Kongers” rather than “Chinese people”, recent local polls showed.

Nearly one-third of the 50 years has passed. The capitalist city inside a fast growing communist China remains one of the most competitive in the world, with a hope that the pearl continues to shine.

A ten-day media tour to North Korea is a challenge for the authorities, as well as a challenge for the press. As one side tries to highly control what should be seen and who should be interviewed, the other side tries to show the world what the reality is.

Except visits to scheduled events, in most cases photographers are not allowed to walk on the street to take photos. Many of my images were shot through the window of a media bus or on one occasion through the window of a train. Watching the street scenes and the village scenes along the way, I felt an isolation between the people and me. I also sensed the isolation between the people themselves. It is the ideology behind the surface which distinguishes North Korea from many other countries, and it shows on the streets.

Events arranged for the media to cover are colorful.

North Korea surprisingly opened their rocket launch pad, as well as the control center at the site and another on the outskirts of the capital for media visits.

Another highlight which attracted media attention was ceremonial events surrounding the centenary of the birth of North Korea founder Kim Il-sung, including a military parade, fireworks display, concert and gala show.

There were also visits to factories, farms and a university.

Still, the scene closest to us all — ordinary lives being lived right outside our buses — is tightly controlled for media access.

I like the natural look of the streets, even though I explored them in an uncomfortable way. Normally window glass is an obstacle for a photographer. But here in North Korea it’s a perfect angle to capture the atmosphere of Pyongyang and its surroundings; distant and subtle.

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Those who have visited Hong Kong know how packed the buildings are, how busy the traffic is and how quickly people walk. When there was a global photo project on the world’s population reaching 7 billion, the first image that came to my mind was Mong Kok – one of the most crowded places in the world. The Guinness World Records lists Mong Kok as having a population density of 130,000 per square km or 340,000 per square mile.

Unlike the two high class shopping districts for tourists, Causeway Bay on the island side and Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon Peninsula, complete with world famous fashion brands, Mong Kok has a more authentic feel of the territory. Here you will find older residential buildings, smaller stores of all kinds with tags displaying cheaper prices. It’s packed with people on the pavements, crossing the streets and even sitting on the ground.

I tried to illustrate my feelings by showing many of those walking past, isolated; seeing what happened within a split second of this isolation.

One of the two approaches I used was with a slow shutter speed, holding the camera steady on my face or supported by concrete. In others I shot with a fast shutter speed, observing the subject but not through the viewfinder while clicking the shutter. In this case the camera settings, including focus, were pre-set.

I admire the Henri Cartier-Bresson approach of street photography in catching the decisive moment so a high-speed motor drive was not a must here. But the difference between Paris in 1930′s and Hong Kong in 2011 is that so many people are walking in front of you or blocking the view. Though I like the perspective of a standard lens like Cartier-Bresson, there was just no space for me to step back (too many people) and capturing a person’s full length with a standard lens is nearly impossible. So, I attached my full-frame camera with a super wide angle lens without a lens hood on it so I could move around as freely. The super-wide angle perspective also helped to depict the isolation.

There is a lot to be seen on the streets. It’s always nice to grab one or two nice snapshots in between routine assignments as “an exercise of eye judgment”, as that master of street photography on the 1930s Paris street once said.

When a flying machine is made in the shape of a flying horse, a dragon head or a television set, I wonder if anyone expects that it will really fly.

That was the case at a birdman competition held this week at a downtown lake in Jiangmen, a city in China’s southern Guangdong province.

Dozens of contestants only took a few seconds to nosedive straight into the water, right after taking off in these “flying machines”. Some of the inventions, mainly made of foam and fiber, fell apart before hitting the lake. Others flew further with broken wings. Out of 34 contestants, a couple managed to fly as far as 50 meters.

I tried to symbolize dreams of flying in an image showing a contestant on a flying horse, with another birdman in the background, waiting his turn. “I am scared,” the one sitting on the horse said to me. “I try not to think about how I’m going to fail. I just want to take the chance to fly my way.”

I covered them ‘flying’ from as many angles as I could. I shot on the take-off ramp, from several side-on positions on the ground and from head on, with focal length lenses ranging between a 16 mm wide-angle to 300mm telephoto. My initial plan to bring a 500mm super telephoto was dropped after reading information on the official website about the site and the size of the flying machines. The lens raincoat I took was useful due to rains after a typhoon hit the day before.

The take-off ramp became slippery in the rain. Without a safety belt, I stayed away from the edge of the slope. On several occasions those helping push the flying machines to take off fell into the lake because of the slippery surface. One of them was left hanging in mid-air by his safety belt. I couldn’t imagine myself taking a dive with all the camera equipment.

One might ask themself why the participants even bother to build something that has already been fully developed. Why not use the money spent on these toys to buy a flight ticket for a real flying experience? It’s so easy and safe.

To me, ignoring the enthusiasm of these participants undermines the human spirit — the desire to explore, to discover new knowledge and to gain experience through trial and error. Those who spend their time making their own machines and risk their lives flying with them deserve to be respected.

As a “professional witness”, my duty was to freeze those flying (or diving) moments in a way that keeps this spirit alive.