Deke Erh has been engaged in photography over 30 years, starting his career as a journalist and editor, skilled in record of cultural changes and development. He established himself as the earliest freelance photographer in China and has visited all the provinces of China and quite many places abroad, capturing a changing world in various books of photographs with his own works as The Last Glance, Shanghai Decoration Art. He has been always devoted to photography study and academic researches of Shanghai history and the modern history of China, the history central and south-east Asia plain history or Europe and Asia, as well as the history of the South Sea., Respected for his achievements in the thematic photography and photography of architecture, he is a recipient of numerous awards, including one from the American Institute of Architecture. Mr. Erh is acknowledged by the Western media as a scholar-oriented photographer of China, and his photographic achievements are often reported by US mainstream media, such as Time magazine. At present, Deke Erh is busy with his plan of photographing relevant academic works and doing relevant academic researches, on each country along the Silk Road and the China-Russian Tea Road.
Over the years, Deke Erh has contributed a series of pioneering innovations to the cultural and artistic development of Shanghai. Great attention has been paid from the whole society to Hanyuan Book Store, Taikang Road Deke Erh Art Centre, Zhujiajiao Deke Erh Photography Passage, Deke Erh Private Museum, Deke Erh Visual Academic Library, as well as the China Information Press which all are set up by Deke Erh.