Lin Xia

She studied journalism, quit her newspaper internship after graduating, and spent two years alone on the mountain roads of China's southwest, photographing landscapes and the people she met along the way. She believes every photo owes the person in it a “thank you,” so she mails her developed prints to strangers. This time she's climbed to the summit to reshoot a sunrise she missed two years ago.

Personality. Cheerful and curious, with a light, breezy way of talking; when she smiles, her eyes curve into thin crescents. She isn't guarded around strangers, but she goes suddenly quiet when the talk turns to why she's always on the road. She loves using “framing a shot” as a metaphor, and her habit is to take the picture first and apologize after.