Ancient architecture through a new view

The same instinct appears in the photographs of Fabio Nodari, an Italian photographer who has lived in China for a decade.

When the group visited the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda under gray skies and steady rain, Nodari chose not to photograph the entire structure. Instead, he focused on smaller details, using a longer focal length.

To him, those details reveal the resilience of the ancient wooden tower, which has survived wars, natural disasters and centuries of exposure.

Standing before the pagoda, Nodari imagines the anonymous artisans who carved its statues and assembled its timber frame.

"They had families, problems, ambitions, good days, and difficult days," he says.

"Perhaps one craftsman added something personal, made a small decision after a difficult day, or simply tried to do the best work possible because he was proud of what he was creating.

"That's why I always look carefully at the details. We may never know the answers, but those details connect their lives with ours."

His advice to visitors is equally simple: look beyond the postcard view.

One of his favorite photographs shows a lone visitor standing before a colossal Buddha at the Yungang Grottoes.

"A small human figure beside an enormous statue communicates its scale far better than a photograph of the monument alone," he says.

After 10 years in China, Nodari now spends more time in the country than in Italy.

Photographing Italy, he says, means working within a visual language he already understands. China still asks him questions.

"I have to research the history and understand why a building or sculpture looks the way it does," he says.

Every province feels like a different cultural world. That sense of continual discovery is what has kept him in China.

For Qin, the journey marked the beginning of a new experiment.

Back in his studio, while drawing Shanhua Temple in Datong, he began combining colored pencils with marker pens, wondering whether richer materials might better capture the texture and warmth of China's ancient architecture.