When it comes to street (or urban) photography, one of the most asked questions is what exactly is street photography? If you search for it, you might find close-ups of laughing faces, silhouettes in front of a sea of light or inverted skyscrapers that disappear into foggy expanses.

But not just any photograph taken on the street, off the street or from the street counts as urban photography. No other area of photography is so diversified. The public space is an ever-changing environment and it needs a wide range of themes to capture it.

Only in street photographs would you want shot-from-the-hip or blurry, out of focus, images. It’s also one photography area where you want to read as much as possible about the law, understanding what you can and can’t photograph while sticking to strict ethical codes.

A few photographers who've snapped HK

• Michael Wolf - captures the urban density of HK flats

• Fan Ho - captured HK in the 1950s and 60s - high contrast B&W photographs - very strong geometric compositions

• Romain Jacquet-Lagreze - his series 'wild concrete' - captures how nature finds its way through the manmade city