He continued honing his skills and, in 1997, he pursued a postgraduate visual art (photography) program at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. He spent two years studying photography optics, photography chemistry, photo-sensitivity measurement, digital imaging and color science.

He also acquired the professional photography techniques required for capturing still life images, portraits, food, architecture, landscapes, among others.

In 1999, Zhang was transferred to the Nationality Pictorial (Minzu Huabao) in Beijing, where he got down to work focusing on specific areas of photographic expression.

Earlier work experience predisposed him to aiming the lens at the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

"The massive and majestic landscape, and numerous miracles of civilization were all deeply attractive to me," he says.

In the middle of last year, Zhang published an album of photos, Himalayas.

He selected more than 3,000 pictures from his numerous trips into and around the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau for the album, which covers geographical and environmental features, history, literature and art, religions and faith, and folk customs of the plateau.

For example, he devoted a chapter to sculptures, in which he presented images of gold and bronze statues from Tibet and central regions, and India and Nepal, as well as clay sculptures and stone carvings.

There are also chapters on murals from famous monasteries and grottoes, and on thangka art that is unique to Tibet.

"For each of the six parts, I invited a specialist to write an essay on the subject, which adds an academic touch to the book," he says.