Editor’s note:

It’s always a good moment when talking with photographers about Tibet. They may be an inexperienced student, a prim official, or greedy entrepreneur, but they suddenly reincarnate as a new person, in many cases romantic poets, masters of parallelism sentences, and eloquent speakers, when the word Tibet is mentioned.

Tibet impresses photographers not only for its beauty, broadness, mystery and clean environment, but also they start to see themselves in a new way and realize something so important but long neglected – the freedom of soul.

"Life could be simple.” “I feel like purified.” “I regain peace of mind.” No matter whom you are talking to, those are similar expressions you are certain to get and people, rich and poor, appear to be as innocent as when they were born into this world.

Some photographers worry if the economic development and tourism may threaten Tibet’s unique cultural and religious traditions. Some criticize a laughable hypocrisy to leave Tibet underdeveloped, poor and Tibetans struggling against the hard environment just to maintain their cultural identity that leaves visitors mostly entertained or pleasantly shocked.

Photos of ten photographers we present here are far from picturing a real, evolving Tibet. Like one photographer confessed, they are like the outsiders and it takes more than one trip to understand the texture of Tibet.

It was only three years ago that Mei Duo formed an interest in photographing her beautiful hometown in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. The interest now became a core part of life as she found “a kind of freedom like in the open sea and sky” when discovering and recording different people and social customs.

Mei Duo summarizes her impression of Tibet straightly as sacred, lofty, magical, broad, and religious.

"The snow mountains and holy lakes shape the tough personalities of Tibetans, and their steadfast belief and devoutness fill the desolate land with warmth and happiness."

Little let Mei Duo down except the growing commercialization in Lhasa and a lack of respect for Tibetan culture.

"Many people go to Tibet simply to prove something, but they lack the respect to Tibetans, their customs and their feelings to the land. It is a shame that some photographers roughly take photos of Tibetans praying without asking for permission first," she said.

Mei Duo regards Tibet a place where people can meet their souls and achieve peace of mind. But she said the place is threatened nowadays by climate change with many lakes drying up.

"I hope everyone can realize our responsibility to protect the environment in Tibet," she said.

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"I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way." When you open the online photo archive of Tracy Jacks, this is the second thing you may remember besides hundreds of Tibet photos.

Everyone has a reason to practice photography, and for Tracy he is simply trying to find beauty. Tibet proves to be the top best choice.

"Life could be simple. That’s what I have learned from the trip to Tibet," said Tracy, who is fascinated with how simple and unsophisticated Tibetans live their lives.

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Following the Yunnan- Tibet highway, Shen Jing and his friends rode bicycles for 30 days to finally arrive at Lhasa in 2007. The journey brought him some of his best travelling experiences and daunting challenges too, but one important change was that he started to fall in love with photography.

"My love for Tibet has greatly inspired my curiosity in photography, empowered me with the courage to work hard and face loneliness, and also drove me to pursue more achievements," he wrote in an email.

The word Tibet alone seems to be a perfect starter of discharging his strong feelings and reflections of life. The language becomes lyrical.

"The further and deeper you go, the more remote, quiet and full you feel in your heart. I observe this magic land with my eyes, I feel its amazing strengths with my soul, and I use my camera to record images of this mystical terrain.”

Last year Shen, who works in commercial photography now in Shanghai, went to visit Tibet again, for photography this time. He was moved by what he saw in the cold weather - Lamas chanting, Tibetans praying and spinning the prayer wheels, not bothered by tourists.

At the beginning, Shen felt himself an intruder into a new world of Tibet, but to see Tibetans wearing a smile on their face, slowly putting palms together, and whispering the Tibetan greeting Tashi delek melts down all estrangement and distance.

"It’s good to see Tibetans have their religion practiced and the last thing I can imagine is this tradition becomes commercialized in the process of tourism development, " Shen said.

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Yang Jianghua didn’t say much about of his travels in Tibet expect that he felt “purified” through the trip last year.

The 18-day visit challenged him in many ways, such as high-altitude illness, but the beautiful scenery is worth a lifetime of memories, he said.

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Zhang Mengdi prefers to be called Hu Zi, which means tiger. As a kid, he always wanted to have a camera but his parents worried it may distract his attention from his studies. It’s only after he was admitted into university that he received a dream gift from his mother – a camera, which later turned out to be his career.

Tibet appears to be surreal and a new world to him and maintains a rare, valuable sense of purity despite the bustling commercial development in some places.

"I always feel moved by the sceneries and naturally people enter into a status of becoming open and tolerant. "

On his way to Nyingchi in 2010, he tried to bribe a Tibetan boy with one yuan to prepare him for a feature photo, but the boy tore the note in half right in front of the camera.

But his memory of Tibet was not always sweet. At Namtso Lake, he saw a Tibetan herdsman trying hard to persuade a French tourist to pay and ride his listless horse, and they even quarreled.

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