John Yang (Chinese, 1933- ) taught himself to photograph and print from negatives when he was just thirteen. But despite an early interest in photography Yang grew up to become and architect, practicing in Manhattan during the 1960s and 70s. However, he fit in time for photography during those years - at lunchtime or on weekends. Influenced by the work of Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand and Robert Frank, Yang has showed their influences in his work of town and country life in the 60s and 70s. In the 1980s Yang became a  full-time photographer and has since produced multiple bodies of work including: crystalline panoramas of Innisfree Garden in Millbrook, N.Y; documents of pristine golf courses in the Northeast; stone faces on New York City building facades; and, most acclaimed, The Mount Zion portraits, which were also published as a book (D.A.P., 2001). The Zion portraits result from the four years Yang spent photographing the enamels of Mount Zion Cemetery in New York.