Lü Xiangyou (1928-2007) was born in a poor peasant family in the mountainous area of ​​Liuhe County, Jilin Province. He joined the revolutionary troops in 1947 and was soon selected by the People's Liberation Army to study at the local photographic training class under Zheng Jingkang, a famous photographer. After the start of the Korean War, Lü was among the first to enter the Korean battlefield, and took a lot of battlefield live photos. In 1957, Lü left the army and transferred to the People's Daily (人民日报, Renmin ribao) as a photographer, and started his career as a professional news photographer. Later, he focused on photography interviews with party and national leaders.  Lü published more than 2,000 photos in journals and photographed Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and other elderly leaders.