He became a professional photographer in 1987, based first in Hong Kong and later in Shanghai. His work to date has examined the social and physical transformations taking place throughout the region. In 1993 he co-authored (with Ian Lambot) City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City, a record in photographs and text of the final years of Hong Kong's infamous Walled City, demolished in 1992. This unique city-within-a-city was comprised of 300 separate interconnected high-rise buildings, erected piecemeal, and housed more than 33,000 people. In 2007, Phantom Shanghai - a monograph of his photographs of Shanghai - was published by Magenta Publishing for the Arts.