Racing to capture ancient sites

Drone photographer Rong Kaiyuan has spent two decades building a photographic record of historical sites.

Over the past 20 years, he has traveled across 30 provincial-level regions and 196 prefecture-level administrative areas. He has systematically surveyed and photographed more than 1,700 nationally protected cultural relic sites, accumulating hundreds of thousands of aerial images.

"I am first and foremost an antiquities explorer," he said. "In our circle, we have a consensus — visit antiquities early. Fortunately, I have always had that sense of urgency."

That urgency comes from what he has seen. Some sites open to visitors one year and close the next. Some stand one year and collapse the next. Some allow drone photography one year and forbid it the next.

"So I can only seize every moment and accumulate as much visual material as possible," Rong said.

His photographs have helped him co-publish two books on Chinese antiquities — Bird's-Eye Views of the Most Beautiful Key Cultural Relics Sites under National Protection and Bird's-Eye Views of Shanxi's Key Cultural Relics Sites under National Protection.

More are planned. The next volume may focus on nationally protected sites in Hebei or those scattered across the Yellow River basin, he said. He, his co-authors and publishers are still discussing it.