Anthony Wallace, AFP’s Hong Kong bureau photographer, recently won the prestigious “Human Rights Press Award” in the photography series category for his coverage on the pro-democracy protests in 2019.

The annual awards, now in their 24th year, recognise international, local and student reporters covering human rights issues across Asia.

The winners for 2020 were dominated by Hong Kong’s protests, which raged for six straight months, upended the financial hub’s reputation for stability and left deep ideological scars that remain to this day.

In Wallace’s award winning series, multiple photographs were taken during the most intense stage of the protests in November when hundreds of demonstrators battled riot police on the besieged campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Here Wallace, 41, details how these remarkable photos were taken: