1,000 photos taken at Tian'anmen waiting for owners

Gao Yuan, a 55-year-old photographer in Beijing, has kept roughly 1,000 unclaimed photos he took for visitors at Tian'anmen Square in the Chinese capital, reports the Beijing News.

An unclaimed photo Gao Yuan took for a group of visitors at Tian'anmen Square in Beijing. [Photo provided to the Beijing News by Gao Yuan]

Working as a photographer at Tian'anmen Square over the past 38 years, Gao has taken nearly 700,000 photos for tourists.

Currently it only takes one minute to get the photos. However, the waiting time for a photo was two hours in the 1990s. In 1979 when Gao took the job, visitors needed to leave their addresses and waited for up to one month to receive their pictures.

An unclaimed photo Gao Yuan took for two visitors at Tian'anmen Square in Beijing. [Photo provided to the Beijing News by Gao Yuan]

Some tourists left wrong addresses, and some coming with tourist groups didn't have enough time to wait for their photos, therefore, many photos were left unclaimed, said Gao.

Keeping the unclaimed photos, Gao said he hopes to return them to their owners someday.

Gao Yuan displays unclaimed photos he has taken through the years at his home in Beijing on Tuesday, May 23, 2017. [Photo: the Beijing News]

The photos have evolved from black and white to color. Clothing styles have also transformed through the years. However, tourist's love of Tian'anmen remains the same, said Gao, adding that many visitors told him it was solemn moment to have their images taken in front of Tian'anmen.

"Many tourists might only visit Tian'anmen once in their life time. For them, it was an important memory and the photos are meaningful," said Gao.

Gao's daughter is now using Weibo to try to reunite his father's subjects with their photos. A number of media outlets have also taken videos of Gao to help people remember him, and help him connect with his former clients.

Photo of a Henan farmer and his father taken in 1990s. The owner of the photo has been located through Weibo. [Photo provided to the Beijing News by Gao Yuan]

The media blitz is starting to work. A farmer from central China's Henan province contacted Gao through Weibo last September, saying that he and his father visited Tian'anmen when he was 18 years old in the 1990s and were photographed there. According to the farmer's description, Gao was able to find the photo and returned it to its owner.

However, it remains difficult to find the owners of most of the photos after so many years. Still, Gao said that he plans to keep the photos until they are claimed, adding that he would be more than happy to take another photo for the photo owners when he locates them.