All about photo: photo contests, photography exhibitions, galleries, schools, books and venues.
  1. Home
  2. All Photographers
  3. Famous Photographers
  4. Fan Ho
Fan Ho
Fan Ho
Fan Ho

Fan Ho

Country: China
Birth: 1931 | Death: † 2016

Fan Ho's (born in Shanghai in 1931) photographic career started at the early age of 14 when given his first Kodak Brownie from his father. Within the first year he won his first award in 1949 in Shanghai. At the age of 18, he acquired his twin lens Rolleiflex with which he captured all his famous work after he moved to Hong Kong with his parents and continued to purse his love for photography.

Dubbed the "Cartier-Bresson of the East", Fan Ho patiently waited for 'the decisive moment'; very often a collision of the unexpected, framed against a very clever composed background of geometrical construction, patterns and texture. He often created drama and atmosphere with backlit effects or through the combination of smoke and light. His favorite locations were the streets, alleys and markets around dusk or life on the sea.

What made his work so intensely human is his love for the common Hong Kong people: Coolies, vendors, hawkers selling fruits and vegetables, kids playing in the street or doing their homework, people crossing the street… He never intended to create a historic record of the city's buildings and monuments; rather he aimed to capture the soul of Hong Kong, the hardship and resilience of its citizens.

Fan Ho was most prolific in his teens and 20s and created his biggest body of work before he reached the tender age of 28. His work did not go by unnoticed at his time. He won close to 300 local and international awards and titles in his day through competing in the salons. His talent was also spotted by the film industry where he started out as an actor before moving to film directing until retiring at 65.

Fan Ho is a Fellow of the Photographic Society and the Royal Society of Arts in England, and an Honorary Member of the Photographic societies of Singapore, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, France, Italy and Belgium. He most recently won a "Life-time Achievement Award, the 2nd Global Chinese International Photography Award, China, 2015" by the Chinese Photographic Society (Guangzhou).

During his long career he has taught photography and film making at a dozen universities worldwide. His work is in many private and public collection of which most notable are: M+ Museum, Hong Kong, Heritage Museum, Hong Kong, Bibliothèque National de France, Paris, France, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, USA and many more.

Source: fanho-forgetmenot.com

Gallery

Blue Lotus Gallery

Websites

fanhophotography.com

fanho-forgetmenot.com

 

Selected Books

Hong Kong Yesterday
Hong Kong Yesterday
Fan Ho
The Living Theatre
The Living Theatre
Fan Ho

Inspiring Portfolios

Evelyn Bencicova
© Evelyn Bencicova
Guy Bourdin
© Guy Bourdin
George Mayer
© George Mayer
Call for Entries
Solo Exhibition July & August 2021
Win an Onine Solo Exhibition in July & August 2021
© Madison Casagranda
 
Stay up-to-date  with call for entries, deadlines and other news about exhibitions, galleries, publications, & special events.

More Great Photographers To Discover

Chris Steele-Perkins
Chris Steele-Perkins
United Kingdom
1947
At the age of two, Chris Steele-Perkins moved to England from Burma with his father. He went to school at Christ's Hospital. At the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he studied psychology and worked for the student newspaper; he graduated with honors in 1970 and started to work as a freelance photographer, moving to London in 1971. Apart from a trip to Bangladesh in 1973, he worked mainly in Britain in areas concerned with urban poverty and subcultures. In 1975 he worked with EXIT, a collective dealing with social problems in British cities. This involvement culminated in the book Survival Programmes in 1982. He joined the Paris-based Viva agency in 1976. In 1979 he published his first solo book, The Teds; he also edited the Arts Council of Great Britain's book, About 70 Photographs. Steele-Perkins joined Magnum Photos in 1979 and soon began working extensively in the developing world, in particular in Africa, Central America and Lebanon, as well as continuing to take photographs in Britain: The Pleasure Principle explores Britain in the 1980s. In 1992 he published Afghanistan, the result of four trips over four years. After marrying his second wife, Miyako Yamada, he embarked on a long-term photographic exploration of Japan, publishing Fuji in 2000. A highly personal diary of 2001, Echoes, was published in 2003, and the second of his Japanese books, Tokyo Love Hello, in March 2007. He continues to work in Britain, documenting rural life in County Durham, which was published as Northern Exposures in 2007. In 2009 he published a collection of work from 40 years of photographing England - England, My England. A new book, on British centenarians, Fading Light will be published at the end of July. Steele-Perkins has two sons, Cedric, born 16th November 1990, and Cameron, born 18th June 1992. With his marriage to Miyako Yamada he has a stepson, Daisuke and a grand-daughter, Momoe. Source Magnum Photos
Terry Barczak
Terry Barczak
United States
1950
Terry Barczak is a Minneapolis based photographer who began her career as a street photographer in the late 70's. Largely self taught she also studied at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester NY and Lightworks in Minneapolis Mn. Though cities still provide her with subject matter, Terry's other projects look into landscape, abstraction, portraiture, and religion. In addition to numerous exhibitions of her photographs, she has served as art director with filmmaker Shelli Ainsworth on short and feature films, taught photography at a variety of institutions and worked in the photography department at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Her work can be viewed at terrybarczak.com and she is on Instagram as Terry Barczak. Statement Set Piece is a series of pictures that raise questions of what is happening, or what is real. Playing with illusion, deception, and ambiguity, the photographs, as always, document what lies in front of the camera, but I believe they offer more. Assembling the visual puzzle of light, color, and the jumble of the world, the pictures in Set Piece seek to have the viewer pause... to look, to see, and to imagine.
Mike Brodie
Mike Brodie
United States
1985
Claiming inspiration from “old-school American values mixed with a little punk-rock idealism,” Mike Brodie, aka The Polaroid Kidd, hopped trains across the U.S. for seven years, documenting his friends, lovers, and travels with a Polaroid and a 35-millimeter camera and amassing a critically acclaimed body of images. Like a 21st-century Jack Kerouac, replacing pen with pictures, Brodie rode the railways with a motley crew. In 2004, two years into his journeying, he acquired a camera and began photographing this gritty youth subculture. His intimate portraits, saturated with color and often set against moving backgrounds, capture the reality of this life in raw detail—its dirt-encrusted bodies, sickness and exhilaration, dangers and comforts. After traveling more than 50,000 miles through 46 states, Brodie has since become an itinerant mechanic. He says he has abandoned photography—at least for now. Source: Artsy Mike Brodie, best known by his pseudonym "Polaroid Kidd", is a self-trained American photographer from Pensacola, Florida. In 2003 Brodie left home at 18 to travel the rails across America. A friend gave him a camera and he found himself spending three years photographing the friends and companions he encountered with the Polaroid SX-70. Polaroid discontinued SX-70 film, so now he shoots on 35mm on a Nikon F3. His photographs have been featured in exhibits in Milwaukee, at Get This! Gallery in Atlanta and in Los Angeles at M+B Gallery. His work was also selected to appear in the 2006 edition of the Paris International Photo Fair at the Louvre. In November 2007 he collaborated with Swoon and Chris Stain to mount an installation at Gallery LJ Beaubourg in Paris. He also has had collaborative shows with artist Monica Canilao. His photographs largely depict what he refers to as "travel culture", train-hoppers, vagabonds, squatters and hobos. Critic Vince Aletti of artsandantiques.net says of Brodie's work: "Even if you're not intrigued by Brodie’s ragtag bohemian cohort—a band of outsiders with an unerring sense of post-punk style—the intimate size and warm, slightly faded color of his prints are seductive. His portraits... have a tender incisiveness that is rare at any age." Source: Wikipedia Born in 1985, Mike Brodie began photographing when he was given a Polaroid camera in 2004. Working under the moniker 'The Polaroid Kidd,' Brodie spent the next four years circumambulating the United States, amassing an archive of photographs that make up one of the few, true collections of American travel photography. Brodie made work in the tradition of photographers like Robert Frank, William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, but due to never having undergone any formal training he always remained untethered to the pressures and expectations of art market. Brodie compulsively documented his exploration of the tumultuous world of transient subcultures without regard to how the photographs would exist beyond him. After feeling as though he documented all that he could of his subject, his insatiable wanderlust found a new passion, and as quickly as he began making photographs, he has left the medium to continue in his constant pursuit of new adventures. In 2008, Brodie received the Baum Award for American Emerging Artists and has a forthcoming book to be published by Steidl, as well as numerous international shows. Brodie recently graduated from the Nashville Auto Diesel College (NADC) and is now working as a diesel mechanic. Although Brodie has stopped making photographs, the body of work he made in only four short years has left a huge impact on the photo world, and is now being made available to the public. Source: M+B
Bob Krist
Bob Krist
United States
Bob Krist is a freelance photographer who worked regularly on assignment for magazines such as National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian, and Islands. These assignments have taken him to all seven continents and have won awards in the Pictures of the Year, Communication Arts, and World Press Photo competitions. He won the title of "Travel Photographer of the Year" from the Society of American Travel Writers in 1994, 2007, and again in 2008. Bob is a Sony Artisan of Imagery and has become an avid filmmaker, shooting and producing short travel films for a variety of clients, including National Geographic. His movie about Iceland, "A Thousand Autumns," won awards at the Johns Hopkins Film Festival, the Reykjavik International Film Festival, and the Trento Italy International Film Festival. For the last three years, one of his self-produced, one-man-band travel documentaries has placed either first or second in the prestigious Lowell Thomas Awards for Video Broadcast, sharing those top honors with films produced by much bigger and better-financed crews, like those from PBS prime time, CBS's Sunday Morning, and the New York Times. He is currently working on his next book, called, "Old Souls-Enduring Places," which is a collection of his black and white portraiture and landscape from around the world. "It's my 'anti-Gram' project," Krist says about the book.
Emilie Arfeuil
Emilie Arfeuil
France
1983
After cinema studies at the Sorbonne University, Emilie Arfeuil developed a personal photographic work halfway between a documentary, almost anthropological approach, and a free artistic expression. Her work draws from reality and from intimate encounters, through a long term immersive process which transforms at the same time the project, its protagonists and the artist herself. Her projects question mainly the notion of identity and its transformations, through the individual or collective History, through the belonging and the representation, and through the hybridization and the melding.
Tom Zimberoff
Tom Zimberoff
United States
1951
A classically-trained clarinetist, TOM ZIMBEROFF studied music at the University of Southern California before pivoting to photography. As a photojournalist, he has covered hundreds of historical and breaking news stories published worldwide, from the renegotiation of the Panama Canal Treaties; to NATO war games, a trip to Beijing with Secretary of State Alexander Haig opening trade talks with China; the eruption of Mount St. Helens; Super Bowl XIV; to documenting East LA gangs. One plum assignment from Esquire had him photographing "The Most Eligible Women in America." He's shot many hundreds of portraits, including magazine covers from John Lennon to Steve Jobs plus two sitting American presidents (Carter and Reagan) for the covers of Time and Fortune, as well as advertising campaigns for Fortune 500 companies, Hollywood movie studios, and the US Navy. Zimberoff was nineteen when he shot his first photo assignment for Time magazine: the farewell public recital of violin virtuoso Jascha Heifetz - a personal hero. By the time he turned twenty-one, Zimberoff had toured with the Jackson-5, the Rolling Stones, and Stevie Wonder, spent a day photographing John Lennon, and shot the first cover of People magazine. (It was the 1973 proof-of-concept issue featuring Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz.) Zimberoff has fun describing his pursuit as a predatory sport: hunting big game. "We don't load cameras much anymore," he says, "but we still aim them and shoot pictures." He doesn't stalk his prey but gets close enough for a good clean shot (close enough for rapport as much as proximity), to avoid inflicting gratuitous wounds. He bags his quarry with a lens instead of looking down the barrel of a gun but, he also says, "I hang their heads on a wall to admire like trophies." His hunting license was a press pass. His portraits can be found in private collections and museums, including the National Portrait Gallery in London; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the San Francisco Museum of Performance and Design. Recently, his entire career archive - literally a ton of film - was acquired by the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. His first two formal portraits were Marx and Lennon - Groucho and John. Tom's expertise with the business side of photography is evidenced by the articles he's had published in leading industry journals. He is also the author of Photography: Focus on Profit (Allworth Press, 2002), which has been used as a textbook at colleges throughout the country. He also taught briefly at several San Francisco Bay Area colleges. He taught himself to write code and developed PhotoByte®, the pioneering business-management software for commercial photographers. It has been used to teach at colleges across the country. After a ten-year hiatus from shooting pictures to pursue his software business and writing, Tom picked up his cameras once again to illustrate another book, Art of the Chopper (Bulfinch Press, 2003), his tribute to a decades-long affinity for custom motorcycles. It became a best-seller, followed by a second volume (Hachette, 2006), with forewords by Sonny Barger of the Hells Angels and James Hetfield of the band Metallica, respectively. As an encore to the Art of the Chopper books, Zimberoff was invited to curate an exhibition at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in 2008, where thirty of the actual motorcycles illustrated in print were displayed on pedestals as works of sculpture. They were juxtaposed with Zimberoff's photographs large-format black-and-white portraits plus documentary (candid) photos of the moteuriers who built each chopper. The "Art of the Chopper" exhibition traveled to the Appleton Art Museum in Ocala, Florida and to Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri. Tom's most recent venture is a startup dedicated to creating the first data-driven marketplace for commercial and editorial photography. Zimberoff was born in Los Angeles in 1951 to a family with three grown siblings already a generation older - "like growing up with five parents," he says. His mother owned a boutique in Las Vegas, during the 50s and 60s; and his father was a musician who played the Vegas hotel orchestras that backed up Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Bobby Darrin et al. Young "Tommy" grew up in Las Vegas, returning to California, on and off, to live with his older sister and two years in military school), finally leaving Las Vegas for his senior year at Beverly Hills High School when his parents retired. Then he received his music scholarship to USC. Zimberoff now lives in San Francisco, where he says he is ready to throw his lens cap back in the ring, as soon as the Covid-19 pandemic ends. In the meantime he is writing a memoir, an anthology of stories about his career. The title is A Photographic Memory. Each chapter juxtaposes one portrait with equally compelling prose about the events surrounding its creation.
Yago Ruiz
Yago Ruiz
Spain
1985
Yago Ruiz is an award-winning photographer based in London. After a life-changing visit to India and Nepal in 2008, Yago Ruiz decided to use Photography as a powerful means of expression of the culture and people he encounters in his diverse trips. He has visited more than 30 countries so far and lived in Ethiopia and United Kingdom in the past five. Always in the context of travelling, Photojournalism, Portrait and Street photography are his most representative styles, showing special interest for landscapes too. His work has been exhibited in cities like London, Madrid, Zaragoza, Cádiz and Alcalá de Henares, and published in different books, being the most important "Ethiopia" (2016) and "Tras los pasos del Cofrade" (2017).
Mario Giacomelli
Mario Giacomelli
Italy
1926 | † 2000
Giacomelli was a self-taught photographer. At 13, he left high school, began working as a typesetter and spent his weekends painting. After the horrors of World War II, he turned to the more immediate medium of photography. He wandered the streets and fields of post-war Italy, inspired by the gritty Neo-Realist films of Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini, and influenced by the renewed Italian photographer Giuseppe Cavalli, and developed a style characterized by bold, stylized compositions and stark contrasts. Source: Wikipedia With the death of Mario Giacomelli (1925-2000) Europe lost one of its most talented photographers. Trained initially as a typographer, his early interest in graphic effect became a key part of his later photographic work. Winner of numerous medals and prizes, he acheived international status through numerous exhibitions throughout Europe, America and Japan. His highly personal, artistically atmospheric visual style demonstrates a life-long preoccupation with landscapes that emphasize linear, abstact patterns, rural townscapes, streetscenes and portraits of everyday Italian life. His work displays a profound understanding of the country and its people and a mastery of form and effect that make his photographs imaginatve works in their own right. Source: Peter Fetterman Gallery
Alberto del Hoyo Mora
Alberto del Hoyo Mora
Spain
1979
Alberto del Hoyo is a Spanish photographer living in Tenerife. He holds an MBA from the Instituto de Empresa Business School and is a graduate in Business Administration and Photography. His own curiosity about the different forms of life has taken him to remote tribal territories in Asia, South America and Africa in search of the distinctive beauty and variety of his people. In 2016, after 2 years of incursions into the Omo Valley of Ethiopia, he founded Pics 4 Pills. Modest fundraising initiative for the people of the Omo Valley Three years later, at the end of 2018 he published the book Mystic Valley. Photographic travel notebook fruit of 4 years of photographic incursions in the Omo Valley. 100% of the revenues from sales are destined to solidarity projects in the different photographed tribal areas. Also in 2018, Alberto presented the Fine Art portrait exhibition with the same name "Mystic Valley", as a complement of the book. The objective is responsible photographic dissemination. Show the beauty of heterogeneity and cultural identity. About Mystic Valley Nadoria is a 13 years old girl of the Suri tribe in Ethiopia, lives in a small mountain village near the border with Sudan. She is the daughter of one of the elders of the tribe. The size of her ear plate indicates the extent of her dowry. "The bigger my ear plate, the higher number of cows my family will get from my marriage". Barduri, is a young man of 17 years of the same Suri tribe in Ethiopia. He has lost vision in his right eye as a result of a wound during the celebration of the "stick fight", ancestral ceremony consisting of an unprotected one-on-one stick fight battle against young members of the neighboring tribes. The fights can be furious and can result in death. A ritual for the transition of young stars to men. Far from feeling sorry Barduri feels pride, he has shown his family that he is a brave man, he has become a man, a warrior of honor. He has won his right in the tribe to be able to choose his wife and that she respect him. From the beginning of history the human race is composed of a large number of cultures, people and tribes. Each one has its own way of life, values and social rituals. The portraits of these people invite our conscience to remember the importance of understanding cultural identities in all their variety. Portraits of the fragility of a female childhood subrogated to warriors of honor. Portraits of his reality. It is vast, silent. Magical. Omo Valley
Advertisement
Solo Exhibition July & August 2021
PhotoPlace Gallery
PHmuseum Mobile Photography Prize

Latest Interviews

Exclusive Interview with Michael Nguyen
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Michael Nguyen
Michael Nguyen is a street and documentary photographer living near Munich, Germany. He is also the co-founder of Tagree Magazine. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Read More
Exclusive Interview with Jon Enoch
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Jon Enoch
Jon Enoch is a London-based photographer who focuses on portrait and lifestyle photography for advertising and media publications, as well as large organisations. He has won numerous awards for his Vietnamese photography portrait series called cBikes of Hanoi', including the Smithsonian Grand Prize; the Lens Culture Portrait Award and the Portraits of Humanity Award in 2020. The images were also shortlisted for the Sony World Photography Award and they won the gold Prix de la Photographie Paris (Px3) award in 2019. The set of portrait images were featured on the BBC, the Guardian, the Telegraph and went viral on websites across the world.
Read More
Exclusive Interview with Oliver Stegmann
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Oliver Stegmann
Olivera Stegmann is a Swiss photographer and also the winner of AAP Magazine #16 Shadows with his project 'Circus Noir'. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Read More
Exclusive Interview with Francesco Gioia
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Francesco Gioia
Francesco Gioia is an Italian photographer who lives in England. He is the winner of AAP Magazine 15 Streets with his project 'Wake Up in London'. We asked him a few questions about his life and work
Read More
Exclusive Interview with Paul Brouns
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Paul Brouns
Paul Brouns is a Dutch photographer who found his voice by capturing architecture. The urban landscape is his ideal playground for apprehending rhythm, color and geometrical elements. He is the winner of AAP Magazine 14 "Colors" with his project 'Urban Tapestries'. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Read More
Exclusive Interview with Réhahn
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Réhahn
Referred to as someone who "captures the souls of his models", (Wanderlust Travel Magazine, 2018) Réhahn is more than just a man behind a camera. Behind each click is a story. Whether the photograph shows a child with startling blue eyes, a woman pulling a needle through indigo fabric or a man walking alone down a brightly painted street, these are more than just images to Réhahn. They are the culmination of an experience. The stories of his subjects as well as his passion to learn more about their culture, diversity and changing traditions are what drives Réhahn's work.
Read More
Craig Varjabedian: Found Horizons
Interview
Publication
Craig Varjabedian: Found Horizons
Craig Varjabedian's photographs of the American West illuminate his profound connection with the region and its people. His finely detailed images shine with an authenticity that reveals the ties between identity, place, and the act of perceiving. For Varjabedian, photography is a receptive process driven by openness to the revelation each subject offers, rather than by the desire to manipulate form or to catalog detail. He achieves this vision by capturing and suspending on film those decisive moments in which the elements and the spirit of a moment come together
Read More
Exclusive interview with Jacopo Della Valle
Interview
Exclusive interview with Jacopo Della Valle
Jacopo Maria Della Valle is an Italian travel photographer who fell in love with photography at young age thanks to the influence of his father. Since then he has travelled to Europe, the USA, Cuba, Morocco and all over Asia. He is the winner of AAP Magazine 12 B&W with his project Bull Jumping. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Read More
Exclusive interview with Giedo Van der Zwan
Interview
Exclusive interview with Giedo Van der Zwan
Giedo van der Zwan is a street photographer, writer and publisher from the Netherlands. He started working on a long-term project 'Pier to Pier' in 2017 and published his book in June 2018. He is the winner of AAP Magazine 8 Street. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Read More
Call for Entries
AAP Magazine #19: Shapes
Publish your work in AAP Magazine and win $1,000 Cash Prizes
© Hans Wichmann
Explore All About Photo
All About Photo
About Us
Contact Us
Link Back
Press
Blog
Newsletter
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Competitions
All About Photo Competitions
July and August 2021 Solo Exhibition
AAP Magazine: Shapes
Our Jurors
All Photo Contests
Open Photo Contests
Amateur Photo Contests
Professional Photo Contests
Portfolio Reviews
Photo Competition News
Artists
Photographers A-Z
Masters of Photography
Modern Photographers
Rising Photographers
Articles
Interviews
Inspirational
Photography Exhibitions
Photography Festivals
Photo Fairs
Photo Museums
Galleries & Centers
Photographer Monographs
Technique Books
History of Photography
Miscellaneous
Paper Magazines
Online Magazines
Resources
Schools and Classes
Photography Agencies
Equipment Rentals
Studio Rentals
Photo Labs
Camera Repairs
Framing Stores
Photo Tips & Tools
© 2021 © All-About-Photo.com, All Rights Reserved  •  Photographs © the Respective Artists, All Rights Reserved.