TITLE: Social Distancing

Residents of Hong Kong gather in a shopping mall atrium on a Sunday during the Covid-19 pandemic. To tackle Covid-19, the Hong Kong government has enforced by law to prohibit group gatherings of more than four persons in public places; therefore, every group of people maintained a minimum 1.5 meter 'social distance' from another group of people. The man with the lanyard around his neck is a compliance officer enforcing the 1.5 meter-minimum social distancing rule.

AUTHOR: Jason Au (Hong Kong)

Jason Au (b. 1994) is an award-winning photographer based in Hong Kong. Jason is interested in street and fine art photography, with black and white being his preferred medium of expression. His high-aesthetic works often incorporate creative, geometric and balanced compositions.

His street photography series “Geometric Hong Kong” comes with the compositional approach of isolating urban subjects, geometric elements and forms from the chaotic urban environment of his hometown. The series portrayed the way of life of different urban subjects in the context of their surrounding geometric environment, which were all culled from mundane everyday scenes. Nevertheless, those subjects look trapped and lost inside an artificial geometric labyrinth without realising it - perhaps this series is also a metaphorical view of urbanity and the hectic contemporary way of life within a metropolis like Hong Kong.

Jason has won numerous international photography awards, including Shortlisted in the “Sony World Photography Awards” (Architectural & Design Category, Professional Competition) in 2022, 2nd Place in “LensCulture Street Photography Awards” (Single Image) in 2021, 1st Place in “International Photography Awards (IPA)” (Street Photography Category) in 2021, 1st Place in “IPA - One Shot: Our Times - Pandemic Perspectives” (Isolation Category) in 2021, 1st Place in “ND Awards” (Street Photography Category) in 2021, 1st Place in “Paris Street Photo Awards” (Street & Architecture Category) in 2021, 2nd Place in “Fine Art Photography Awards” (Street Photography Category) in 2021, Silver Prize in “Prix de la Photographie, Paris (PX3)” (Street Photography Category) in 2021, Silver Prize in “Budapest International Foto Awards (BIFA)" (Portfolio - Fine Art), and Best 50 Photographers in “BNW Minimalist Photography Prize” in 2021 etc., as well as many other Honorable Mentions.

Jason’s works have been exhibited in London (UK), Trieste (Italy), Athens (Greece), Tuscan (USA), Orlando (USA), Portland (USA) and Minneapolis (USA).

His works have been featured in the South China Morning Post, the Guardian and the Observer.

Jason is an artist at Blue Lotus Gallery of Hong Kong and a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain (FRPS).