Hi, I'm Iain Cocks, also known by my online moniker @gaatzaat. Based in Hong Kong, my photography is focused on the diverse built environment of the city I call home.

Hong Kong can be an intense place to live, a city of extremes. The climate, geography, urban density and political landscape all conspire to break you out in a sweat. With everyone and everything squeezed together, it’s not a city for the claustrophobic. But it’s these conditions that lead to a very unique locale, full of life and brimming with photographic potential.

From wide-angle shots of architecture and cityscapes to close-up studies of everyday life, my aim is to capture and curate a collection of images that present our ever-changing yet ever-so-familiar city from a range of different perspectives. Part treasure hunt, part exercise in mindfulness and part plain old exercise, this practice has taken me to every corner of the territory and continues to grow. In an age where our attention has been commodified like never before, the simple act of looking with intent has been more engaging and thought-provoking than I ever expected. I hope that through my photographs, you the viewer may experience some of that too, and perhaps be encouraged to reclaim some of your own attention!

Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to be featured in a number of articles and interviews, most prominently by U Magazine, Time Out HK and Apple Daily, the now-defunct tabloid newspaper who recorded a video interview with me not long before it’s forced closure. Before their content was pulled offline I managed to save a copy of the video and will share it below. I hope they don’t mind! It focuses primarily on my public housing series, the works I’m best known for in Hong Kong and a setting I find consistently rewarding to explore.

As my online portfolio, the work presented here has been carefully selected, but for brevity limited in scope. For a less organised but more comprehensive collection of my work head over to Instagram, where I post frequently as @gaatzaat.

愛されずして油虫ひかり翔つ

It is not loved
But the cockroach sparkles
As it takes off

Hashimoto Takako