He graduated from the department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard university in 1988. he was awarded a George Peabody Gardner travelling fellowship to spend a year taking photos in China. Later in his life he returned to China in 1992 as an artist in residence at the central academy of fine art in Beijing. He then decided to live permanently there and still lives there today. His photography observes what changes and what remains the same in the worlds most populous country. He does a lot of Beijing cityscapes. His images have appeared in many magazines across the world. For example, in Time, Fortune, The New Yorker and National Geographic.