HISTORY MATTERS
香江史料
LAST CENTURY THROUGH THE LENS
鏡頭下的舊世界
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One of America's first camera-toting tourists captured some unexpected images of Hong Kong, says Arthur Hacker 一個早期美國遊客，以他的相機捕捉了香港一些出人意表的影像。撰文：亞瑟．克赫
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n 1898 Great Britain leased Hong Kong’s New Territories for 99 years from Imperial China. Included in the lease were over 300 islands, including sparsely populated Lantau, which is actually larger than Hong Kong Island itself. Three years later an American tourist, Walter J Clutterbuck, arrived in Hong Kong aboard SS Malacca and took some magnificent photographs. At the turn of the century, the average visitor certainly did not own a camera. Rather, most tourists looking to keep a record of their travels would buy pictures from local professional photographic studios such as Afong Lai or Mee Cheung, or purchase one of the recently introduced picture postcards. A few years ago, while browsing in an emporium of antiquarian books, I came across and bought Clutterbuck's personal photographic album of his journey to Hong Kong, via Malta, Suez and Singapore, aboard SS Malacca. The ship was carrying British troops of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and their families. Clutterbuck's
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www.hkcitylife.com | SEPTEMBER 2020
delightfully informal pictures of the British soldiers and their children, lounging around the deck, are markedly different from the traditional stiff, posed portraiture that was popular at the time. During his trip to Malta, Clutterbuck didn't bother photographing the massive and magnificent fortifications of Valetta, but took a series of shots of the poor street children in the Citta Vecchia. Clutterbuck somehow managed to capture the character of the people in the way that Bert Hardy and Bill Brandt notably did half a century later in Picture Post and Lilliput, during the golden age of black-and-white photography. ln Hong Kong, he seems to have spent most of his time away from the city of Victoria, photographing the colony’s countryside and backstreets. His first photo session was in rural Kowloon where he displayed a morbid interest in Indian cattle. He also visited Stonecutter's Island where the racing taipans of the Jockey Club put their old nags out to grass when the glory of their racing days was over. These Chinese ponies were brought down from the wild
在1898年向中國租借了香港的 英 國新界，為期 99年。包括在租約之內的，
有 300 多個小島和一個稱為大嶼山的大島，它的 面積比香港島本身還要大。
三年之後，一個名為 WaIter J. CIutterbuck 的遊客乘坐 SS MaIacca 號來到香港，拍了一 些優秀的照片。在上個世紀初，一般遊客並沒有 照相機。明信片在那時剛剛面世，大多數遊客若 想為旅遊留下紀念，會在本地的職業影樓，例如 Afong Lai 或 Mee Cheung 那裡買幾張照片。 數年前，我在一家古董書店買了 CIutterbuck 由 馬 爾 他 ， 蘇 彝 氏 和 新 加 坡 去 香港的旅程中所拍攝得來的私人相片簿。那艘 遊輪載着英國皇家威爾斯步槍軍隊及家眷。 CIutterbuck 拍攝在甲板上倚坐着的英國士兵及 他們的孩子，輕鬆而愉快，跟當時流行的傳統 硬梆梆的肖像相有很大的差別。 在他前往馬爾他島的途中， CIutterbuck 並 沒 有 拍 攝 Va I e t t a 雄 偉 的 城 堡 ， 他 反 而 去了 Citta Vecchia 拍攝那裡的貧窮街童。 CIutterbuck 捕捉人物的性格，有點像 Bert Hardy 和 Bill Brandt 在半個世紀之後，正值黑白 照片的黃金時期所刊登於 Picture Post 和 Lilliput 之中的作品一樣。
