In the early years Tchan Fou-li won first prize in two years from his aggregate score in monthly competitions. For five consecutive years (1956-1961) his submissions to international salons placed him among the top ten photographers in the world.
Tchan Fou-li excelled in photographs of scenery and street photography and he travelled extensively in China from 1959. In the early period his photographs were realistic documents of society and life, acutely observed. In the 1960s, invoking the works of Lang Jingshan, he advocated the fusion of the realistic and the pictorial, of eastern and western influences - essentially adding paintwork to photographs. He put these ideas into practice with works rich in painterly and poetic qualities, and redolent of the flavour of traditional Chinese culture. Recognized as a master in Hong Kong, China and abroad, he enjoyed a high reputation worldwide.
Tchan Fou-li held a number of solo exhibitions in Vietnam, Thailand, India, Canada, the United States and China. He started the magazines Photoart, Photo Pictorial and China Tourism and published several books of his photographs.
Tchan Fou-li was one of the founders of several societies: the Chinese Photographic Association of Hong Kong, of which he became honorary life president; the Federation of Hong Kong-Macao Photographic Associations, of which he was first president and which named him master photographer; the Society of Worldwide Ethnic Chinese Photographers, of which he was honorary president. He also served as museum advisor on photography to the Regional Council of Hong Kong from 1996 to 1998 and was a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and of the National Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and vice-chairman of the Chinese Photographers Association.
In 1988, Beijing Television produced a documentary film "Tchan Fou-li and His Photography". He died in Hong Kong the same year, aged a remarkable 102 years old.
