Ning zhou

President of East West Culture and Arts Foundation
President of Nanjing Institute of Visual Arts
Owner/CEO of Ning Zhou Gallery

Born in Nanjing, China in 1963 Ning Zhou developed a passion for photography as a young boy. Out of necessity, he learned how to economize on film by pre-visualizing his photographs -- a skill he honed to an extraordinary degree.

Even today -- despite the advent of digital photography and with more than 40 years experience -- this unique ability is the touchstone of his distinct style. He waits patiently until every variable, setting, and condition are accounted for and assimilated in his mind so that he can see them like a camera. Then and only then does he press the shutter.

Ning Zhou's art opens our eyes to the beauty around us while focusing our minds inward.

His career as a professional photographer began in the early 1980s after he graduated as one of the first students in China to major in photography at the university level. His body of work is spectacular: images classically balanced, symmetrical and meditative that capture that perfect Zen moment in the transcendent dance of light and color, shape, and shadow.

He currently divides his time between Nanjing -- where he is president of the prestigious Nanjing Institute of Visual Arts and Vice Chair of the Aesthetic Institute of Jiangsu Province -- and Aliso Viejo, California, where he serves as president of the East-West Culture and Arts Foundation and operates the Ning Zhou Gallery.