A stream of images from Hong Kong caught Rick Rocamora’s attention on Facebook: black and white street scenes, with dramatic light and compositions that ranged from kinetic to serene. The fact that the photographer, Xyza Cruz Bacani, was fro
m the Philippines — like Mr. Rocamora — intrigued him, though he was reluctant to contact her.
“I thought she was one of those children of rich Filipinos living in Hong Kong, and all she does is go out and make pictures,” he said.
Actually, Ms. Bacani was one step removed from that world: She is a domestic helper for a well-off family, who wanders the streets of Hong Kong taking pictures in her spare time.
“I said, ‘God! She’s the modern Vivian Maier.”
Mr. Rocamora recalled. Ms. Bacani dismisses the comparison, even if she, too, used to sneak her face into her compositions every now and then, as Ms. Maier used to do. But not anymore.
“When I discovered Vivian Maier, I stopped,” she said, noting the similarity in their job descriptions. “I want to be me. I want people to see my images and say, ‘Oh, that’s Xyza’s photo.’”
She lives in a large apartment in an affluent neighborhood on Hong Kong Island, where she works for an aging Chinese-Australian woman — the same woman who gave Ms. Bacani’s mother a job nearly 20 years ago. One of her tasks is taking care of her boss’s seven grandchildren, who visit almost daily. Recently, the old woman had her repaint the entire apartment. On more than one occasion, she has asked Ms. Bacani to take portraits of the grandchildren.
But Miss Bacani’s story is different from that of many foreign domestic workers, or “helpers,” in Hong Kong, where the abuse of maids is common. Her boss pays her for overtime. The extra cash goes toward cameras, lenses and film. And that, in turn, makes her doubly different from most other nannies.
Bacani, now 27, grew up in Nueva Vizcaya, in the Philippines. Her mother’s employer, who wanted another live-in helper to care for her as she got older, paid for her to study nursing. Ms. Bacani joined her mother and her boss in Hong Kong nearly nine years ago.
Her passion for photography blossomed while she was in college in the Philippines. But cameras, her mother told her, were a luxury. She couldn’t afford one until a few years after she’d moved to Hong Kong, when she bought a Nikon D90 with money she borrowed from her boss. She fell in love with street photography.
“I just go down and I have subjects,” she said. “I have something to shoot.”
With camera in hand, the “glorified nanny” transforms into a “lone wolf” or “stray cat,” prowling the street. When she’s using her phone to shoot under-the-radar, she’s a ninja, capturing scenes that emphasize light slicing through towering buildings before it hits the streets, shifting by the minute.
“When you see the light, you need to press the shutter,” she said. “Or else it’s gone.”
She photographs all over the city, from Mong Kok’s suffocating streets to quieter outlying islands, using her mood to determine her destination. Often, she waits for the sun to set, seeking to take advantage of Hong Kong’s nighttime light, which sometimes turns one body into three shadows of varying shapes and sizes. Fortunately, for a young woman like Ms. Bacani, Hong Kong’s streets are safer than many urban areas at night.
“It’s alive,” she said. “It doesn’t sleep at all. Everywhere you go, you can see people running around.”
Her friendship with Mr. Rocamora has helped Ms. Bacani, who can’t afford photo workshops — and who benefited from the confidence boost. “It’s a very good feeling that somebody is interested in my works,” she said, “not just my mother or my boss.”
It also eases her sense of isolation. Although she speaks Cantonese, Ms. Bacani adopts her lone wolf persona in the midst of Hong Kong’s Chinese community, where she does not feel welcomed. Nor does she have many close friends within the city’s Filipino community. So she uses her images to speak to people.
“For me, photography is a universal language,” she said. “I’m a Filipino and I’m in a Chinese city, so it’s, like, the language of freedom and equality. Because with photography, there’s no gender, there’s no age, there’s no social status, color or race. We speak one language. And nothing of those stereotypes exist.
“It’s a very powerful, silent, wordless type of communication. An image can speak to different people.”
Still, she wants to return to the Philippines to shoot. “My photos are important for me,” she said of her street photography, “but I just want something that is close to my heart — something that can help another community.”
Ms. Bacani will have a bit of a homecoming in May 2015, as Mr. Rocamora plans to include her in a show at the University of the Philippines.
For now, she hopes to begin a project in Hong Kong, where she
will document the abuse of domestic workers — a subject that has been covered by countless photographers, including Mr. Rocamora and Gratiane de Moustier, whose photos were featured on Lens last year.
“I can relate to their stories,” she said. “Our job description is the same. It just happens that I’m luckier than them.”