S.Y. Chen 陳錫元 learnt to take pictures in 1949.
He was attracted to the lightness and compactness of 35 mm cameras, and chose a Contax IIA, but was disappointed with the quality of the prints when they came back from the shop. There was no improvement in six months. His friends advised him to change to a larger camera, but he stuck to his choice, reasoning that if others could take good pictures with the Contax IIA, so could he. With the help of senior photographer Harry Lau Cho-chak who knew a great deal about miniature cameras, he learnt to develop his own negatives. In the end S.Y. Chen became a specialist in miniature cameras.
S.Y. Chen enlarged two of his pictures, "Whirlpool" and "Going Forward", to 48 x 60 inches, and exhibited them in Francis Wu's Studio. It was no mean feat because in those days the quality of films was far inferior to that of today.
With pictures taken with his miniature cameras, S.Y. Chen qualified as fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain. His international salon results placed him among the top ten photographers of the world in 1957.
With S.Y. Chen's planning, the Hong Kong 35mm Photography Society was founded with Lau Po-hei, Harry Lau Cho-chak, Eddie Ching and H.H. Chan in 1959. It was later joined by Mak Chu-fat and Choy Joe-him. The popularity of miniature cameras in Hong Kong reached a peak in those years.