Li Zhensheng was born in 1940 in Dalian, Liaoning Province, China. After early studies as a cinematographer, he began working as a photographer for the Heilongjiang Daily in northeastern China, where he stayed for over ninteen years before beginning a teaching career at the International Political Science Institute of the University of Beijing. In 2003 his chronicle of the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was published as Red-Color News Soldier: A Chinese Photographer's Odyssey Through the Cultural Revolution (Phaidon 2003). His photographic collection has been represented worldwide by Contact Press Images since 1999. He is based in Beijing and New York.