Michael Wolf was born in Munich, Germany and lives in Hong Kong. The focus of Wolf’s work is life in mega cities. Many of his projects document the architecture and the vernacular culture of metropolises. Wolf grew up in Canada, Europe and the United States, studying at UC Berkeley and at the Folkwang School with Otto Steinert in Essen, Germany. He moved to Hong Kong in 1994 where he worked for eight years as contract photographer for Stern magazine.  Since 2001, Wolf has focused on his own projects, many of which have been published as books. Wolf’s work has been exhibited in numerous locations, including the Venice Bienniale for Architecture,  Aperture Gallery, New York;  Museum Centre vVapriikki, Tampere, Finland; Museum for Work in Hamburg, Germany; Hong Kong Shenzhen Biennial; and Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. 

His work is held in many permanent collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Brooklyn Museum, the San Jose Museum of Art, California; the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Museum Folkwang, Essen and the German Museum for Architecture, Frankfurt. He has won first prize in the World Press Photo award competition on two occasions (2005 & 2010) and an honorable mention (2011.) In 2010, Wolf was shortlisted for the Prix Pictet Photography prize. He has published more than 13 photo books including Bottrop Ebel 1976 (Peperoni Press, 2012), Tokyo Compression Three (Peperoni Press/Asia One, 2012), Architecture of Density (Peperoni Press/Asia One, 2012), Hong Kong Corner Houses (Hong Kong University Press, 2011), Portraits (Superlabo, Japan,2011), Tokyo Compression Revisited (Peperoni Press/Asia One, 2011), Real Fake Art (Peperoni Press/Asia One, 2011), F Y (Peperoni Press, 2010), A Series of Unfortunate Events (Peperoni Press, 2010), Tokyo  Compression (Peperoni Press/Asia One, 2010), Hongkong Inside Outside (Asia One/Peperoni Press, 2009), The Transparent City (Aperture, 2008), and Sitting in China (Steidl, 2002).