On the 27th July 2013, Kwun Tong Vocational Training Center (KTVTC), where famous for its design and photography training programs, was gloriously shut down. After running a variety courses (included vehicles repair, hotel hospitality and etc..) for 48 years, this center not only have trained enormous amount of people, equipped them to be able to survive with technique knowledge, it also was symbol of Hong Kong photography.
An non-official statistics shows that over 80% of photojournalists and magazine photographers in Hong Kong were cultivated from KTVTC, indicating how this place significantly influenced the media ecosystem.
Remembrance of the time with in KTVTC, there is a lots of meaningful stuffs that is hard to make every schoolmate not to be nostalgic. At very least, I'm the one still have the "after taste" of my very best photographic training time with Mr. Chu and Mr. Chak. Dating back to 14 years ago in 1998, I was in a class size of 34 students, lucky enough got passed the interview and successfully enrolled into the amazing program. During the year, from handmade pinhole to 4x5 large format camera, non-silver prints to B/W and color printing, lighting to optical, chemistry film to digital CCD, photojournalism to commercial photography, these were the course contents that the students would learn in one year intensive program. Undoubtably, KTVTC is a Hong Kong Shaolin Temple in photography, where you weren't only learn practical skills, but at the same time, a correct attitude was being shaped whilst taking, making and practicing photography.
Nonetheless, this photographic Shaolin Temple was eventually beaten by many factors, and one of the main reasons is insufficient student enrolment. As if an artist, who cannot survive in this economic world and make a basic living, how can one sustain its artistic practice? Well, it is a brutal fact and indeed a golden rule for any organisation keep running in this planet.
If you asked me what is photography when I was a student, I would say it is a communication tool between people, a reflection of the realities, and an expression of one's feeling or thoughts. If you ask me the some question again now, then I will say photography is a philosophy, a person spirit, and a dream. It is true that my point of view has changed, but if I never went to KTVTC, I wouldn’t be today’s me.
Good bye and Thank you KTVTC!
