Robin Moyer was in Seoul, South Korea on assignment for Time Magazine when he heard about the 1980 Gwangju uprising. Shortly after covering Gwangju he became a Time contract photographer (1982–1999) and spent a lot of time photographing feature stories as well as breaking news.

In 1982 he was awarded World Press Picture of the Year for a photo of the massacre of Palestinians in Lebanon, as well as a Gold Medal Citation from the Overseas Press Club’s Robert Capa Award for Courage and Enterprise for his body of work in Lebanon. As chief photographer (Asia) for TIME, he took photographs of many news stories including Cambodian refugees, the People Power revolution and Muslim insurgencies in Mindanao, Afghanistan during Russian occupation, The rise of Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar, Sri Lanka’s long war, the Tiananmen Incident in Beijing in 1989, and the many colourful leaders in Asia. He photographed Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement’ in 2014, and is currently producing a book on the current demonstrations in Hong Kong.