Basil Pao

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Basil Pao is a Hong Kong-based photographer, who took the images appearing in all of Michael Palin’s recent books.

Pao started his photographic career in 1980, after spending several years in New York and Los Angeles as art director for different recording companies. It was during this time that Pao first worked with Palin, when they collaborated on the book for the Monty Python film Life of Brian. Pao and Palin went on to work together on several books based on Palin's journeys, namely Pole to Pole, Full Circle with Michael Palin, Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure, Sahara and Himalaya.

Although Pao doesn't take photographs for Palin's Around the World in Eighty Days, Palin meets him in Hong Kong and the two of them travel through China together, with Pao acting as an interpreter.

Pao has also taken photographs for Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor and Il piccolo Buddha (Little Buddha), and held the photographic exhibitions Glimpses of Silence and The Last Emperor Collection across Asia and Europe.