Fan Ho was born in Shanghai in 1931, and emigrated with his family to Hong Kong in 1949. Ho began photographing at a very young age with a Brownie which his father had left at home, and later with a Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex camera his father gave him at the age of 14. Largely self-taught, his photos display a fascination with urban life, explored alleys, slums, markets and streets. His fantastic eye for the "decisive moment" led to him being called the "Cartier-Bresson of the East". He developed his images in the family bathtub and soon had built up a significant body of work, chronicling Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s as it was becoming a major metropolitan centre. His work is renowned for its dramatic use of light and shadow, as well as its poetic and cinematic quality. Fan Ho's photographs not only document the city's transformation but also evoke a sense of nostalgia and timelessness. Ho would use the same Rolleiflex K4A throughout his career.
During his long career he taught photography and film making at a dozen universities worldwide and he died in San Jose, CA in 2016. 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.