Untitled (View on the Praya, looking east, Hong Kong)

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Floyd’s views of Hong Kong possess a clarity of organization and elegance lacking in most of his competitors’ photographs. The row of white, Western-style commercial buildings divides the composition horizontally into thirds. In the foreground are water and a single Chinese boat that leads the eye to the closest building. The crisp cubic forms of the buildings stand out against the uniformly dark hillside that serves as their backdrop. Praya, a term used in colonial Hong Kong for the road by the waterfront, came from the Portuguese word praia , which means "beach."