The photographs were taken by Iain Masterton, a Scottish freelance photographer and writer based in Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East.

He lived in Hong Kong for five years before heading to Beijing in 2000 to study Chinese language and it was during this time that he discovered and fell in love with the hutongs.

Over the next three years he relentlessly pursued an ambition to visit and photograph every hutong in Beijing. Today, he can confidently claim to have photographed almost every hutong in Beijing (all the good ones anyway) and has built up an impressive portfolio of photographs showing contemporary life in the heart of China's capital.

A selection taken from this portfolio is presented in www.hutongphotography.com

More of Iain's photography can be seen at www.iainmasterton.com

Iain Masterton 2005