City of Darkness: My New Favorite Photography Book

Alright, I got a confession. I love photography books.

That being said, I am very picky when it comes to photography books. I have owned a number of them over the years, but the only one I have religiously flipped through on a consistent basis is Li Zhensheng's Red Color News Soldier, a masterclass in photojournalism and black and white photography.

That changed when I finished City of Darkness (Revisited) by Greg Girard and Ian Lambot. Truly, I am in awe of the level of polish and detail chiseled into this tome of photography genius.

To completely explain why City of Darkness is so good, one must first explain that, yes, this book is not entirely about photography. At it's foundation, City of Darkness is a history book about the Kowloon Walled City of Hong Kong. Alongside the MANY pictures taken by Girard, Lambot inserts his interviews with the various citizens of the Walled City before it's demolition in the early 90s.

At it's core, THIS is what makes City of Darkness so good. Sure, if it was just Girard's catalog of dreamy/dreary cyberpunk-esque photography of Kowloon, I would have finished the book in a couple of days and enjoyed my time while doing so. With the addition of these very interesting interviews and essays, it forced me to sloooow dooooown. This allowed me to savor the images I was seeing. Like a fine wine, I didn't guzzle the whole thing in a couple of seconds, instead, I took sips and breathed a little bit.

I highly recommend anybody who is at all interested in Kowloon, Hong Kong history, photography, or Cyberpunk aesthetics to 100% check City of Darkness out.

As for the next book I will be reading, I will be returning to 20th and 21st century Chinese history.