A Random Walk in the Hong Kong Flower Show

The Hong Kong Flower Show has been the “training centre” for many Hong Kong photographers and photography enthusiasts. They usually go to the flower show to practise their photography skills and sometimes buy more gear afterwards. Since I bought my first camera 11 years ago, I have been to the flower show almost every year.

The Hong Kong Flower Show was suspended for 3 years and resumed this exhibition. As a frequent visitor in previous years, I wanted to know how the show this year was. Was there any difference between the shows in the past? We went to the Hong Kong Flower Show in the second week of the exhibition period.

The featured flower this year is Hydrangea. The smell of this flower is a bit weird. According to online resources, all parts of the plant are poisonous. Therefore, I don’t know why it was selected as the featured flower – I didn’t take any photos of them. The exhibition looks similar every year. There were large props surrounded by the featured flowers. The same set of European-style statues and Japanese-style ponds were placed at the booths owned by the same organisations every year. Flower competition areas, camera shops, and flower shops were set at the side of the exhibition as usual.

Every time there is a large area for tulips. This year, however, looked halved than the previous ones. One remarkable difference I found this year was the number of visitors with large-scale gear was fewer. Before 2019, the last exhibition, people usually stay around the tulip area. To be more precise, cameras with huge telephoto lenses and tripods were set almost all around the tulip area. The basic setup was a lens with a focal length of 70-200 mm in 135 format. Sometimes you might find even more expensive or rare gear. The Flower Show became the camera gear show as well.

But this year, such a scenario was gone. There were still photo enthusiasts bringing their heavy gear to the Flower Show – less than 10 people stayed at the tulip area. Instead of DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, mobile phones and selfie sticks appeared all over the exhibition site. Was it because people traded quality for mobility? Was it because they wanted to share the photos on social media immediately after taking them? Was it because the flowers in the exhibition this year weren’t attractive enough?

The Hong Kong Flower Show without numerous cameras looked weird to me. No matter why this situation happened, the camera market is shrinking. Will mobile phones kill the cameras? I don’t think so. But the market will turn into a niche market. It is totally acceptable to use cameras or mobile phones for photos. The artistic message behind the photo matters the most.