Early attempts

Born in 1964 in Chongqing, then a major city in Sichuan province, Luo studied at prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing for eight years and was trained as an engineer and an enterprise manager. He founded his own company in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, and has a successful career as an entrepreneur.

Prior to 2008, he enjoyed photography as a hobby. That year, a local newspaper reported that a monk in Shiqu county had captured a blurry video of a snow leopard using a home video camera. Experts confirmed it was the first video record of a wild snow leopard in China. Intrigued by the news, Luo's interest in the mammal was sparked.

Years later, after reading The Snow Leopard, a nonfiction book by Peter Matthiessen, an author from the United States, that recounts his journey with Schaller to find the elusive creature in the Himalayan region, Luo was captivated by the mystical animal and thought of searching for it in China.

In August 2017, Luo met Lyu Linglong, a photographer well-known for his captivating landscape photos in western Sichuan. Lyu mentioned his upcoming expedition to Shiqu in pursuit of snow leopards scheduled for the following year. Their encounter ignited a fervent resolve within Luo to accompany Lyu on his expedition. "To express my determination, I bought a new Toyota Landcruiser and lent it to Lyu for his use in Shiqu," Luo told China Daily. "The four-wheel drive has remained in Shiqu ever since and has already accompanied us on hundreds of trips. Its mileage has exceeded 350,000 kilometers."