Works featured in the Shanghai event last year include Untitled (Parrot) by Giovanni Gastel and Horse Pool and House by Luis Barragan. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Well-received exhibitions in the past two years have included an Asian debut show by American artist Taryn Simon, whose Birds of the West Indies series was shown at the Gagosian Gallery booth.

An increasing number of Chinese artists have taken up photography to express themselves, and the boundaries between this and other artistic forms are becoming blurred.

Meanwhile, the number of collectors of contemporary photography and mixed-media works involving photography is rising in China, says Jin Hongwei, a Chinese-American collector.

Jin runs the Cipa Gallery in Beijing's Caochangdi art district, and exhibited at the same Shanghai fair earlier.

He says while Westerners today buy more than 80 percent of photos shown in the capital's 798 Art Zone, the market is developing fast as contemporary photography is gaining more recognition among both emerging Chinese artists and collectors.

"It took 50 years for the (photo) market to evolve in the United States," he says, adding that the 1980s saw an upsurge in interest, thanks in part to a group of pioneering photographers such as Robert Mapplethorpe, who is known for his sensitive treatment of niche topics.