My 41 years photographing Hong Kong and China moments, big and small, by SCMP’s longest-serving staff member, David Wong
Wong started work at the Post at the age of 19. Now approaching 60, he looks back on four decades of snapping tycoons, typhoons, princesses and Chief Executives, demonstrations, handovers and crashed planes
David Wong Chi-kin didn’t plan on being a photographer. But after 41 years at the South China Morning Post he has won numerous awards for his striking images and is the newspaper’s longest-serving employee.
On his 19th birthday, Wong, who turns 60 in February, got a call from the paper out of the blue. He was informed his job application for office assistant had been accepted and was asked to report for work at its offices on Tong Chong Street in Quarry Bay. Little did he know it would be the start of a long career at the Post, where colleagues call him “Sir David”.
His tasks included photocopying, delivering faxes, fetching tea and coffee, and monitoring the “wires” from news agencies. “I had to watch the printers for wire stories. When they were printed out I had to quickly give them to the right editor – business, sports, news. I was running around a lot,” he recalls with a smile.
After about three years he was transferred to the photography department to work in its library, where his main job filing negatives and pictures that had been published that day.
“I made contact sheets of the negatives, writing down the date, photographer’s name and a description of the pictures, and then circled the ones that were used in the paper. I did that because there were many instances when readers asked for copies of pictures, so it was easier to look them up if they were marked,” he says.
Wong soon became interested in taking pictures himself, and began taking classes. If colleagues had time, he would ask them to critique his work.
