Nick Gleitzman photographs

I’ve been taking photographs for over 50 years now – and I’ve seen a lot of changes since I started.

Like all visual media, photography is a blend of art and science. As a teenager, I learned the science part – sensitometry, chemistry and optics, in those days – at Sydney Technical College (where photography was taught as a trade, alongside plumbing and panel-beating), for four years of evening classes, eventually graduating with honours.

For the next two years, I worked for an established pro photographer, keeping his studio clean and organised, assisting on shoots, running film to and from the processing lab, maintaining his equipment, and operating the black & white darkroom. My first task on day one at his studio: sweep the floor – and this was where my photographic education really started.

Then, going freelance, for more than twenty years I ran a full-service advertising/commercial studio in Sydney, working with some of Australia’s best graphic designers and art directors. With their influence, I developed an eye for detail, a passion for aesthetic and technical excellence, and my own photographic style. I also got really good at sweeping studio floors.

Eventually, though (at 42, strangely enough – thanks, Deep Thought), I became disenchanted with the world of advertising, and I gave up commercial photography in order to concentrate on shooting landscapes and fine art images.

In 2007, two major events changed the course of my work. I got my first DSLR – a massive paradigm shift in the technical process of image-making – and I came to Hong Kong for the first time. I was blown away by the city’s visually rich urban landscape. My work here has two approaches: the sweeping panoramic cityscapes of this amazing city, and the smallest details of life at street level, where I love making striking images of the colours, culture and heritage of Hong Kong.