Auditorium, Primary Section, Maryknoll Convent School

The photographs were taken by Dr. Joe T L Chan from November 2010 to February 2011, capturing the decisive moments of the Maryknoll sisters, students, staff, and other members of both the Secondary and Primary Sections during special events and on regular school days. With an MSocSc and a PhD in Economics, Joe not only captures the Maryknoll spirit through his lens, he also shares appreciation for the people with his words of wit for each photograph.

An international award winning photographer and teaching academic, Dr. Joe T L Chan specializes in black-and-white photography in natural lights. Based in Hong Kong, Joe travels around the world to capture the spirit of humanities through “the decisive moments”. Inspired by the works of French photographer Henri Cartier‐Bresson, Joe’s expertise is in candid photography. His insistence on the quality of film photography, his refusal to use the flash, together with his academic insight, his photos spin tales of real people ‐ “the angelic beings in disguise.”

“I take pictures of real people in the street where I gladly surrender myself to the lure of their motion as if they were engaged in some kind of choreography. Usually, they were too busy to pay me any attention, even when I was holding my camera right in front of them within a meter’s distance…

Monochrome is my choice not because of its pleasing tonal gradation, but because black-and-white, being too poetic rather than exact, is not a completely honest medium to report the real world. I do not honestly document the world as it is.”  — Dr. Joe T L Chan

Kenzie Lau (’72) 
Council Member, MCS Foundation