Ski field photography clicks in Jilin

A skier skimmed across the slope before suddenly stopping in a flurry of snowflakes. It happened in seconds, but the images were recorded by a photographer not far away in a succession of shots.

This photographer, Zhang Jian, is the chief of the photography team at the Songhua Lake Resort in Jilin, a city in the northeastern Chinese province of the same name. Since being introduced to the industry, the ski and photography enthusiast said he feels the job is tailor-made for him.

"The thrill of speed and the desire to push one's limits are the charms of skiing, of which photography is the best carrier," he said.

An art major who hails from Jilin province, Zhang landed a job as a ski resort staff member in 2010. Seeing that more skiers wanted photos on the snow, he saw it as an opportunity and worked hard to improve his skiing and photo skills.

In 2015, Zhang became one of the first contracted photographers on China's Hey Snow app, which offers photography services to skiers. In 2018, he took the lead in setting up a ski photography studio called Snow.

He has witnessed growing demand for ski photography and the popularization of winter sports in China, boosted by the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022.

During the snow season in 2021-2022, Zhang's team uploaded a total of 3.82 million photos, 23 times more than in 2018-2019, with sales exceeding 1 million yuan ($140,845). He expects to set a fresh record this season.

According to its provincial tourism industry development program, Jilin has 75 ski resorts and 319 snow trails. The province plans to raise snow and ice tourism revenue to 500 billion yuan within five years.

Since the beginning of this snow season, his photography team's schedule has been almost fully booked. Apart from local skiers, he has noticed more enthusiasts from other parts of China, for whom the experience is a valuable one that deserves to be recorded photographically.

Ski enthusiast Cheng Yang, from Nanjing in East China's Jiangsu province, told Xinhua News Agency she and her friends go skiing each year. In the past, they used to go to Japan or Europe. But now, with the rapid development of the winter sports industry and infrastructure at Chinese ski resorts, they have changed their preferred destinations to Jilin or the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

This year, she has ordered a few photos. "In the past, skiers used to take photos for each other, and the quality was not ensured," she said. "Now that we have professional photographers here, taking photos has become a necessary part of my skiing experience, and I am glad to share them on social media."

Satisfied skiers are what Zhang and his colleagues want to see.

"The photographer might have to stand on the slope for hours to capture a perfect moment of a skier," he said. "It is the biggest achievement for photographers to record wonderful memories for skiers through photos."