Simon Lim — Photojournalist & Video Producer

About

I am a Singapore-based photojournalist and video producer with over 20 years of international experience covering conflict, documentary and sport across Asia, the Middle East and beyond.

Born in Singapore and long based in Beijing, I have photographed some of the defining stories of my generation — from combat embeds in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley to the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. My work has been published in TIME Magazine, Der Spiegel, and NBC News, and distributed globally via AFP and epa wire services.

Fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, with conversational Taiwanese Hokkien, I bring rare linguistic and cultural access to Greater China coverage. I currently work as sole Singapore video correspondent for Viory News and shoot for AFP and epa on assignment.

Documentary

Photo Essay — China, 2008

Cage to Coat

Every winter, northeastern China's fur farms begin their harvest season. In 2008, working alongside a journalist on assignment, I gained access to two mink operations outside Harbin — one focused on breeding and husbandry, the other a larger, fully integrated farm handling everything from breeding through to slaughter and processing. China is the world's largest fur producer. These images follow the chain from cage to coat.

Gaotai Farm, Harbin, China 2008

Gaotai Farm, Harbin, China 2008

Changchun Farm, China 2008

A worker strikes some mink with a spade beside a tumbling machine, Changchun Farm

A worker strikes some mink with a spade beside a tumbling machine used to break the pelts from carcasses, Changchun Farm, China 2008

A worker feeds a mink pelt through a fleshing machine, Gaotai Farm, Harbin, China 2008

Dried mink pelts await grading, Gaotai Farm, Harbin, China 2008

A Russian shopper browses mink coats at an outdoor fur market, Beijing, China 2008

A mink pauses in the snow after escaping from Gaotai Farm, Harbin, China 2008

Greenpeace Commission — Inner Mongolia, China 2010

Wind Rush

In 2010, commissioned by Greenpeace East Asia, I documented the construction and operation of wind farms across Inner Mongolia — then the frontline of China's rapid push into renewable energy. Today China is the world's largest producer of wind energy, accounting for nearly half of all new global capacity added in recent years. These images capture the earliest days of that transformation, when turbines were still rising from grassland that herders had worked for generations.

A tower is lowered onto a wind turbine, Chicheng, Hebei Province

A tower is being lowered onto a wind turbine as a supervisor co-ordinates with other workers, Chicheng, Hebei Province, China. 6 August 2010

Workers prepare bolts and nuts for a new wind turbine, Chicheng, Hebei Province

Two workers prepare bolts and nuts as they get ready to join a tower on a newly installed wind turbine, Chicheng, Hebei Province, China. 6 August 2010

A worker prepares to seal a wind turbine tower, Chicheng, Hebei Province

A worker prepares to seal the tower of a newly installed wind turbine, Chicheng, Hebei Province, China. 6 August 2010

Rotor hoisted to hub on a new wind turbine, Chicheng, Hebei Province

The rotor is hoisted to the hub on a newly installed wind turbine, Chicheng, Hebei Province, China. 6 August 2010

Shepherd with flock grazing near Datang wind turbines, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia

A shepherd with his flock of sheep grazing near wind turbines from Datang Wind Farm, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, China. 9 August 2010

Rainbow and lightning at Datang wind farm, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia

A rainbow and lightning can be seen at a wind farm owned by China's Datang Corporation, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, China. 8 August 2010

IIED · CCAP · UKAid Commission — South West China

The Seed Road

Commissioned by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP), and UKAid, this documentary project follows traditional bio-culture farming communities across South West China — the Naxi people of Yunnan's Baoshan Stone Village, participatory plant breeding programmes in Guizhou, and farmers adapting centuries-old agricultural knowledge to climate change. Photography by Simon Lim & Song Yi Ching.

View Photobook ↗