Freelance photographer Guan Xiaodong, 40, was obsessed with seeing the outside world, but he found beauty nearby when he turned his lens toward his hometown — Zhuanghe in Dalian, Liaoning province.

"I didn't have a deep affection for my hometown before. But now I know it has unique charm, with mountains on the north, the sea on the south and the urban area in the middle," he said.

He spent a year photographing the representative elements of Zhuanghe, including mountains, islands, starry skies an black-faced spoonbills. Through his photos, many people noticed the county-level city for the first time.

A series of photos were posted on National Geographic website in December 2020. Inspired by that, Guan and his partners are making a video to cover the four-seasons of the city.

"It must be a top quality promotional video for our hometown. We plan to do this over three years. For each place, we'll visit at least once every season," Guan said.

Guan had been painting since childhood. Thanks to this, he has a unique sense of photographic composition.

When the water plant Suaeda Salsa turned red at the mouth of a river in September 2019, Guan took an aerial photo. The winding beach was like the branches of a tree, the blue sea like a tree canopy. A flock of birds flew by to give life to the image.

The photo earned a prize in a nationwide landscape photography contest. During the awards ceremony, a veteran photographer asked him why he chose to take pictures of scenery rather than people to record history.

"I said it was because beautiful scenery makes people happy," Guan recalled. "Scenery can also be history. Will people be able to see the snow mountain I photographed many years later?"

Guan fell in love with photography in 2018, when a friend gave him a high-quality camera. Before that, he took pictures with his mobile phone.

He began to learn online and was hooked. Together with another photography enthusiast from Zhuanghe, he drove to the Tibet and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions and to Qinghai and other places to shoot photos. On the way, he continued to learn photography theory and techniques online and practiced continually.

In less than four years, Guan has become a freelance photographer with a top photography institution in China.

Sometimes, to get a good shot he would take risks. Once he was injured.

"I fell from a high place and got hurt. But it's worth it to get a good shot," he said.

Ma Zheng contributed to this story.