Portfolios: Chinese cities in their fullness and their emptiness

The parallel approaches of two photographers trigger our reflection on Chinese urban forms and their paradoxes. First, Kai Caemmerer (USA), whose Unborn Cities series shows huge buildings in still uninhabited Chinese cities. As for Andy Yeung, he has chosen with Urban Jungle to portray the density of his hometown of Hong Kong using a drone flying a couple of meters above skyscrapers.

Caemmerer depicts the surrealism of Inner China’s new cities, built years ahead of the arrival of their populations. The absence of any human in the pictures and the cold light from dusk and dawn give these urban landscapes a monumental and lunar aspect. His Hongkonger counterpart also shows this surrealism in his own way. With a high-angle shot and a very deep depth of field, he seeks to reveal the extreme luxuriance and the bottomless aspect of the city. He unsettles the viewer by putting him in an equivocal position between appeal and vertigo.

For more details see: www.andyyeungphotography.com, www.kaimichael.com