Zhang Qian

    zhqcindy@163.com

    TWELVE photographers from Europe arrived in Shenzhen yesterday at the invitation of the Guangdong Province authorities to take photos of the city for the last two days of their nine-day tour.

    “It is my first time to China and I’ve found many interesting things here ... every city that I visited has its own distinguished features,” said Maria Dost, a freelance photographer from Berlin, Germany.

    Before devoting herself to photography, Dost was a producer for the theater.

    “I try to take pictures of people when they aren’t aware of me because that’s how they are in real life instead of posing for cameras,” said Dost.

    Coming from Germany, France, Spain, Hungary and Italy, the 12 photographers were divided into four small groups on May 10 in Gaungzhou at the beginning of the nine-day tour.

    Each group traveled a different route designed to give the photographers a chance to focus on four aspects of Guangdong: city life, economic development, culture, nature and seashore tourism.

    The routes brought them through 15 cities before Shenzhen, where the tour will end tomorrow.

    Among the photographers, some have stayed in China for years while some are visiting the country for the first time.

    The tour was jointly organized by the Information Office of Guangdong Provincial Government and the province’s tourism administration.

    The event’s organizers will collect some of the best pictures selected by the photographers and display them in the Guangdong Pavilion at an event called EXPO 2015 to be held in Milan, Italy.

    “We have visited many places including local schools, factories, parks and mountains, which I think covers a broad range of people’s lives here,” said Dost.