Hong Kong Locks
"Hong Kong Locks" is a series of 4000 padlocks NFT photographies taken in the streets of Hong Kong SAR from January 18th to March 12th 2022.
The collection includes 4000 pictures, edition 1/1, minted on Opensea, (Polygon).
The project started as I was feeling personally “stuck” or "locked". This word in French, my mother language, is translated by “bloqué” which contains the sound "lock".
I was deep in this mood, walking with Mei, when I saw a small padlock nearby. I took a picture and the idea of a full series came in my mind. I called the first lock who gave me this idea the “master lock, lock#0001”, it is a quite ordinary one but specially rare for me.
As many people in the NFT space, I am looking everyday collectibles with thousands of variations. For this series, the dissimilitudes of padlocks are infinite, shapes, scratches, rust, background. This is not done by computer, it comes directly from the brave old world reality.
My favorite locks are the old rusty ones bearing the scars of time spent outside. Some are so rusty that they do one with their chains and became unseparable. Some are personnalized with colours and numbers. Some are given extra protection by their owners...
I decided to shoot 4000 locks for the symbol of the number,
4 (四) in Chinese is a famous homophone of Death (死) and a bad luck number. Sometimes I feel quite close with this number. It happens that I just spent 4 years in HK.
40 in western culture can refers to a long journey, like the symbolic 40 years for the crossing of the desert by Israel. On a lighter tone, I turned 40 end of February (I planned to drop the series at this date but got delayed).
400 is the number of NFTs of the first drop.
4000 is the total number of pictures of the collection.
4000 is also a reference to the thousands of Chinese Characters I learned during the past years, each one full of meaning, waiting to be unlocked once studied.
I was not sure to find 4000 locks in the city. I had to walk a lot to reach this initial goal. I mainly went through the northern part of Hong Kong Island, along the blue MTR line. The density of locks varies drastically according to the neigborhood.
Though locks are very discreet, they are present almost everywhere in the city. Soon the strange and happy feeling of the collector came each time I found a new one or very special ones.
I shot the series with Mei's Nikon 5300 equiped with a lens Sigma 105mm 1:2.8 DG Macro HSM. Many shots are also from my Redmi Note 10 mobile. (Yes my lens was broken, thanks to my son who enjoys photography with our camera)
It took around one month to gather 4000 shots of padlocks.
Here is a recap of the number of shots by day.
I gave a big push on February 10th & 12th as the rumor of an imminent city lockdown started to spread in the news. My record was 590 locks in one single day.
The project became an incredible opportunity to visit Hong Kong in depth. In addition of the locks photos, I took thousands of pictures of the city. I am happy to give in this thread a glimpse of the treasures I found during the journey.
Roadmap for Hong Kong Locks series
4000 locks NFTs to unlock 4 projects
This project will hopefully be a way for Mei and I to unlock several projects.
1) Community
Our first target is to surround ourselves with a community of people supporting our artistic work.
2) Tang&Mei
If succesful, it will boost the development of Tang&Mei as an Art Brand.
3) Mei Stained Glasses workshop
It will also allow Mei to create a workshop for Stained Glasses, one of her passion.
4) Supporting Associations
4X4=16% of the benefit will be given to associations fighting suicide & women human trafficking as well as helping homeless people
Special Supporters of the project / White List
Special supporters of the project will get a personalized NFT lock designed for them and available in another collection.
Conclusion
I am leaving Hong Kong on March 18th 2022, this series is also a way to bid farewell to this incredible city and pay my respect to the friends and people I met here. 謝謝各位，很高興認識你們，很高興在你們美麗的城市過四年， 再見
