Lai Afong

Lai Afong was a Chinese photographer who established Afong Studio, considered to be the most successful photographic studio in the late Qing Dynasty. He is widely acknowledged as the most significant Chinese photographer of the nineteenth century. He arrived in Hong Kong in the 1850s as a refugee of the Taiping Rebellion and learned the art of photography by 1859. He worked at the Hong Kong studio of Portuguese photographer José Joaquim Alves de Silveira before opening his own studio around 1870. He traveled through various provinces of China, creating photographs of portraits, social life, cityscapes, and landscapes. He also photographed some of China's most important people and architectural sites, such as Qing dynasty official Li Hongzhang, the Summer Palace and the Fragrant Hills Pagoda in Beijing, and the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees in Guangzhou. He captioned much of his work in both Chinese and English and sold his photographs to both Chinese and foreign patrons. He also trained and influenced other photographers, such as Emil Rusfeldt and D.K. Griffith. Little is known about his personal life, although many of his images survive today as testament to his extraordinary talent. He died in Hong Kong in 1890 and his business was taken over by his son.