Photographed from above, Hong Kong’s 2,549 outdoor basketball courts become geometric art
Austin Bell’s mission to shoot all 2,549 courts took him and his drone across the city, and created geometric art for a book and exhibition
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Photographer on a mission to document the colourful tapestry of Hong Kong’s basketball courts
In 2017, American photographer Austin Bell visited Choi Hung Estate, a public housing estate in Hong Kong’s Kowloon district that is also an Instagram hotspot popular with residents and tourists, who flock there to photograph its colourful facade.
It was his first visit to the city and, like many, he was captivated by the vibrant hues of the estate’s buildings, which were named Choi Hung after the Cantonese for “rainbow”.
But what really struck a chord were the bold patterns covering the estate’s basketball courts.
“I flew a drone over them and it transformed into a geometric work of art that you could only see from above,” he says.
The courts were in stark contrast to the bland asphalt surfaces found in America, he says.
The vibrant imagery, which aligned with his love of novel aerial perspectives and architecture, sent his mind spinning. “How many more like this existed in the city?” he asked himself.
