Memories of Hong Kong, featuring works by photographer, Benson Bing-Sum Tam, show the different faces of people, ranging from toddlers to seniors, from poor to rich. These images express the events, background and customs, which represent these particular periods of time. They illustrate the average person at work and at leisure. It was a modest lifestyle compared to an opulent one of today. These hard-working people provide an endless source of energy, interest and determination. These are some of the elements that contributed to the prosperity and affluences of Hong Kong. It is the wish of the photographer to share this recollection of his fond memories with all Hong Kong people, elderly, mid-aged and young.

Benson Tam was active in the 1960s, taking part in open and monthly competitions, and submitting works to international salon exhibitions. He won many prizes including the first and second prizes of the ¡§Hong Kong Marathon¡¨ competition run by the Sing Tao Evening Post, the highest aggregate score for the year from the Chinese Photographic Association of Hong Kong¡¦s monthly competitions, and the prize for the best set of color slides in the Chinese YMCA Photographic Society of Hong Kong¡¦s international salon. Living in Vancouver in retirement, Benson Tam is as active in photography as he was in the 1960s. He takes part in a thematic group show in Vancouver every year. He is also a founding committee member of a professional photo club in Vancouver.

The sixties and seventies were important eras in the history of Hong Kong. They paved the way to the city's development of today. Furthermore, they laid the foundations for its economic achievements. It is the people who have transformed this fishing village to a vibrant, world-renowned cosmopolitan city. The eighties and nineties continued the success and further moved this developing city into a modernized one, though politically and economically, it had suffered heavily and survived through numerous bad storms and severe typhoons during all the hard years. These images remind us of the golden age of Hong Kong.

The sequence of photographs includes some 50 large size monochrome and color photographs recaptured into digital output, featuring the real faces of people of Hong Kong in the past four decades. About one third of the photographs have been exhibited, while some are permanently collected by a museum. Many of them are recently dug out from the hidden treasures of the photographer, including an album of over twenty photographs on local ancestry, deity and god worshipping traditions of the elderly and early Hong Kong people.

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