An evening on the escalators from Central to Mid-Levels in Hong Kong, November 2009 (香港中環至半山自動扶梯的晚上慢步）

While I was in Hong Kong, I heard that an elaborate system of escalators had been constructed to whisk people from Mid-Levels to Central in the morning, and back up the hill for the rest of the day. This is apparently the longest connected systems of escalators in the world. I was interested to read that the construction of the escalators had transformed the neighborhoods along the way, and that the areas near the escalators had become increasingly populated with bars and restaurants.

I immediately decided that I needed to spend an evening photographing it, since I love photographing escalators and moving sidewalks. Lately it has been hard for me to indulge this passion because the coolest escalators and moving sidewalks tend to be in airports, subway stations, and train stations, and hanging around photographing them with an enormous SLR has on a number of occasions led to my being approached by security to ask what, exactly, I was doing. I was hoping that I could spend the evening photographing outdoor escalators in Hong Kong without being disturbed, and indeed, it went fine. I also stopped at an organic food restaurant overlooking one segment of the escalator for a glass of an organic wine.

Here is the gallery and a selection of favorites.

And a couple of shots...

Somehow this shot makes me think of the end of an assembly line that is making clones, or pod people, or robots...



I thought this was evocative...



I liked the color palette here, it reminded me of Wong Kar-wai's 2046... That night I sometimes wondered if this escalator system had inspired the look for that movie...



And of course I need at least one picture of people eating outdoors...