Wu Yinxian studied fine arts in Shanghai in the 1920s. His early photos were about the hard lives of the working class in Shanghai, featuring excellent composition and lighting techniques. He was the cinematographer of early films that were extremely popular among the public, e.g. “Road Angel” (Ma Lu Tian Shi), “Turbulent Times” (Feng Yun Er Nv), “Urban Landscape” (Du Shi Feng Guang) and “United” (Sheng Si Tong Xin). In the 1940s, he managed to take a number of splendid pictures of Mao Zedong and other CPC leaders in Yanʼan in spite of highly difficult conditions, such as the lack of lighting sources and expired films, making these pictures a milestone in Chinese photography history (which can also be called the photo history of Chinese politics). Wu Yinxian enjoyed a very long and prolific career and left us with many photo and film masterpieces.