Kuang Huiming was born in Baotou City, Inner Mongolia in 1964, and took up photography in 1989. Seven years later, he was honored as one of the Top Ten Photographers in Hunan Province. In 2004, photos from a special project on miners were exhibited in Beijing, helping Kuang earn a place in the Top Ten Photographers in China. In 2006, his Portraits of Miners project was selected to be shown across 30 different media outlets, including CCTV. The following year, two projects—Fortunate Wood Can Become a Statue of Buddha, and Miners’ Lives in a Small Mine—won a silver and copper medal respectively in a Chinese national contest, and Miners after Coal Mining, together with Mao Zedong’s Hometown, were selected to participate in the Pingyao International Photography Art Festival Exhibition. Miners’ Life in a Small Mine was selected for the same exhibition in 2008. A photo of residents of Mao Zedong’s hometown won third prize in the 2009 Sony World Photography Awards, and was exhibited in galleries and museum in more than ten countries. That year, Kuang’s project Changes in Basha was selected to participate in the first Yunnan Dali International Photographic Conference, as well as at the Chinese Photography Festival, winning an Outstanding Documentary award. It went on to be shown at numerous other photo festivals and exhibitions around China.
In 2011, Kuang’s project Mao Zedong’s Hometown was selected to be shown at the Toronto Chinese Photo Festival, in Canada, and he was granted a Mid-career Photographer Award, under the National Geographic All Roads Photography program.
