Born in Germany, then raised in Europe, Canada, and the United States, Wolf began his interest in photography when studying at UC Berkeley and the Folkwang School with Otto Steinert in Essen, Germany. Wolf later moved to Hong Kong in 1994 to begin his artistic career as a contract photographer for Stern magazine. Since 2001 and until his death in April 2019, Wolf concentrated on his own projects, drawing his focus to the tradition of socially concerned photography, while also engaging with the radical transformation of photography of recent years.