Award-winning photographer Bobby Lee helped start the first Leica M Digital Workshops in Hong Kong. Presented here is the video where you can watch as students immerse themselves in the hands-on lesson at an the the old style hair salon in addition to seeing examples of their work and reading how Bobby Lee emphasizes the relationship between analog and digital photography.  

Bobby Lee specializes in creating technically superb industrial and corporate images, capturing compelling pictures of people and documenting cultural events and settings with an incisive eye for detail. He also does a significant amount of pro bono work for the benefit of society at large. On October 22, 2011, after nearly a year of preparation, Lee, working closely with Schmidt Marketing, Ltd., started up the first rangefinder camera workshops in Hong Kong. The initial workshop series consists of four modules, each devoted to a specific topic. The accompanying video footage, captured during the third and fourth modules of the workshop, focuses on documentary photography and post-production of the images.

The subject of the documentary is an old style hair salon, the kind of traditional barbershop that is vanishing in a fast-moving city like Hong Kong, being swiftly replaced by group enterprises and chain stores. Documenting this endangered species through the eyes of local photographers is one way of preserving these elements of local culture. Before the workshop photographers visited the shop, they spent a full day brainstorming, reviewing works by some of the world’s great documentary photographers. Their overarching mission: to create and open platform for photographers and fostering an open-minded attitude in approaching the world of documentary photography.

“Our rangefinder camera workshops are different from any existing workshop related to this type of camera,” observes Lee. “We do not merely immerse ourselves in the technical aspects of photography or concentrate on how to make photographs. Instead we go deeper into the relationship between analog and digital photography, and the essential concept behind the rangefinder camera as well as how to get the most out of your equipment. In this way we can not only preserve a great tradition, but also take it into the future, and keep it evolving and relevant.”

-Leica Internet Team

To find out more about the Hong Kong workshops and see the documentary images created by the participants, visit: photo-society.hk or schmidtmarketing.com/events.