John Thomson (1837-1921) was a Scottish photographer who learned photography while still in school, working as an apprentice to a maker of optical and scientific instruments. He first joined his older brother William in Singapore, where they established a studio in the early 1860s. Later in 1868, he established a studio in Hong Kong, the burgeoning center of photography and trade. For the next four years, Thomson travelled and photographed throughout China before returning to Britain in 1872, where he remained until his death in 1921.
His subjects ranged from ethnography to antiquities, beggars and street people through to Princes, from Imperial Palaces to remote monasteries, and from rural villages to the grandeur of the Gorges. His style is distinguished by the quality and the directness with which he represented landscapes and social practices. Thomson has left us countless photographs, illustrated albums, publications and other photographic works that were largely diffused in his time.
