Born in 1954, in Anshun, Guizhou Province, Yang Yankang now lives in Shenzhen and Chengdu. He is a freelance photographer, contracted with Agence VU in France. From the 1990s, Yang Yankang gave up other work to commit himself to photography,
and became an independent photographer. China’s foremost photographer of religious themes, he is best known for his documentary works on Tibetan Buddhism and rural Chinese Catholicism.