THIRTY YEARS
OF LOOKING
A chartered surveyor and building engineer who has photographed, judged and written for three decades. The background behind the movement work, the representational practice it grew out of, where it has been shown and what it has been given.
How the work arrived here
Three decades, two professions and two countries: from client commissions and mountain nights to judging benches, and finally to movement as a method of its own.
Self-taught and competing from the late nineties, earning early recognition in Hong Kong civic and press competitions. Alongside that ran steady client commissions: pre-wedding and wedding, food, event and portrait work.
A parallel career as a chartered surveyor and building engineer, working across planning and development, properties and facilities management. Reading structures professionally shaped how I frame them, and led to accredited drone work.
The work I love most. Long walks into landscape, nights under the Milky Way, the solitude of places holding only me. Adventure trained me to find the extraordinary inside the ordinary, and to appreciate nature.
Relocation to Australia, and founding the Photography Society of Hongkongers in Australia. Accredited judge for APJA, PSA, PSQ, SAPF and VAPS, an APJA committee member, and judge for the Mobile Photography Awards and Epson International Pano Awards.
Ambassador for the IAAP, and recognised by the Australian Government as an International Visual Artist. I chair the APS AI and Authorship Standards Sub-Committee, arguing for authorship and digital literacy as ground rules of the medium.
Having mastered the representational genres, the question became what photography can do that description cannot. ICM answered it, and naming IFM and IPM followed. This is photography as expressive art, closer to impressionism than to record.
Where the work sits today
The positions I hold now, across societies and boards, authorship standards, judging benches, editorial desks and the studio itself.
APS — Management Committee
IAAP — Ambassador
IAPP — Board of Directors
RPS — Hon. Secretary, Australian Chapter
APS — Chair, AI & Authorship Standards Sub-Committee
Canadian Association for Photographic Art — Member, AI Advisory Committee
RPS — Member, AI Working Group
TheDayAfterAI News — Art Director
PSQ, SAPF, VAPS
PSA & RPS — Photo Mentor
HK Biodiversity Museum — Advisor
HKCT · HKU — Guest Speaker
RPS — International Content Manager
RPS — Landscape Group Web Editor
MASCE · MIET — Professional Engineer
RICS — Chartered Surveyor
CABE — Chartered Building Engineer
CASA — Commercial Drone Pilot
Director — Jacky Lee Visionary Creations
Founder — PSHKA
Recognized International Visual Artist — Australian Government
APS — Chair, AI & Authorship Standards Sub-Committee; Management Committee
CAPA — Member, AI Advisory Committee
IAAP — Ambassador · IAPP — Board of Directors
RPS — Member, AI Working Group; Australian Chapter Hon. Secretary; International Content Manager; Landscape Group Web Editor
Mobile Photography Awards — Photo Judge
Epson International Pano Awards — Photo Judge
HK Biodiversity Museum — Advisor
HKCT · HKU — Guest Speaker
PSA · RPS Australian Chapter — Photo Mentor
Jacky Lee Visionary Creations — Director
Photography Society of Hongkongers in Australia — Founder
Physiognomy.ai — Managing Director
TheDayAfterAI News — Art Director
Recognized International Visual Artist — Australian Government
MASCE — American Society of Civil Engineers
MIET — Institution of Engineering and Technology
HKIS · NSPE — Professional Member
CABE — Chartered Building Engineer
CASA — Accredited Commercial Drone Pilot
RICS — Chartered Surveyor
The representational archive
Before the abstraction there was description: landscape, nightscape, astrophotography, architecture, black-and-white, aerial, portrait and commissioned client assignments. Technical command came first, because departure needs somewhere to depart from.
Aerial · Architecture · Cityscape · Landscape · Monochrome · Nightscape, each album on its own page.
Shown on six continents
Thirty-three showcases across twenty-two cities and eighteen countries. Every venue is listed below.
See them on the globe →A record across three decades
Over a hundred awards, thirty-three international showcases and twenty media features, from the first civic competitions of the late 1990s to now.
A selection of competition results. The year by year record, including accreditations, judging and exhibitions, is in the full CV above.