By Popular Request - Z

My first and so far only model from the mainland was a pleasure to work with.

Living and working in Hong Kong, a city of over seven and a half million people, I expected that most of my models, in the beginning of this venture at least, would be locals. Perhaps not all ethnically Chinese, since there is a rather sizable expat population here, but at least models who live in Hong Kong. This has very much not been the case. My very first professional model shoot, as long-time readers will remember, was a Hong Kong native, but that was fifteen shoots (and a seeming lifetime) ago, and Hong Kong model #2 remains elusive. Not for lack of trying, mind you – there just don’t seem to be many local models doing art nude work here. If there are, I have yet to discover where they’re all hiding.

All of this is to say that today’s model, Z, is a rare commodity. She’s my second Chinese model, but also my first Chinese model, in that she’s actually from the mainland. She found me in a search on Model Mayhem, connected with me on Instagram, and within a couple days we had already agreed upon a shooting date in the not-too-distant future. (There are upsides to our completely and constantly networked world, yes.)

A brief digression/confession: I’ve never been to mainland China. Not even just across the border to Shenzhen, a city of over 17 million people, roughly 40 kilometers north of my house. I’ve lived in Hong Kong for over 11 years. In my defense, I hasten to add, I have a great many excuses. First of all, within just a few months of my arrival, Hong Kong erupted in a series of prolonged protests that would eventually come to be called the Umbrella Revolution, a time of marked unrest and civil disobedience over the lack of transparency in the legislative process, which had become increasingly deaf (or even hostile) to democratic voices in the city. So that rather soured me on the idea of heading north, just as totalitarian intolerance of democratic norms was spilling southward. There was another flare-up in 2017 when several prominent figures from the 2014 demonstrations were jailed and barred from running for government office. This all came to a head in 2019, when the largest protests the city has ever seen amassed in response to a proposed extradition agreement with the mainland. Things got quite heated and stayed that way for many months. Most of us who were here at the time have stories of being shoved out of the way by stomping cordons of heavily armed riot police and/or getting whiffs of tear gas if we happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sorry, this is all dragging on and getting a bit dark when you’re just here to look at Z, so I’ll make a quick end to my excuse list: And then COVID hit and shut the city down for three years. And I need a visa to go to the mainland even though I’m a Hong Kong permanent resident. And I don’t speak or read Chinese. So, it’s understandable… right?

Z, born and raised in Shanghai, has only been to Hong Kong twice despite being in her third decade of life, so I don’t feel so bad. She’s an otherwise well-traveled and easy-going gal, very easy to chat and work with. Like most models, she had brought a selection of rather elaborate lingerie to work with, so I decided to do a bit with the lacy blue number you see here before completing the session with my preferred art nude style.

The hotel room had its plusses and minuses, as they all do, and I’d grade this particular room this way: on the positive side, a very wide source of natural light from one side, a little bit more space to work with than the average Hong Kong hotel room (including a small couch at the foot of the bed), and the lighted vanity mirror on the desk, which made for the most unique shots. On the negative side, the room was city-view and on a lower floor, so most of the midday light was obscured by the urban jungle. This meant that I had to open even the sheer curtains to get enough usable light into the room, which ordinarily I’d rather not do. There was also a thin but immovable partition wall only a few feet from the bed, which severely limited shooting from that direction, and the vanity mirror, cool as it was, was screwed firmly in place.

Still, the room was workably bright, and the colors and textures were complimentary to Z’s look. We mostly worked the couch and bed areas, but you’ll see some busier shots with the concrete sprawl featured in the background through the tall windows, and of course the moodier stuff with the vanity mirror.

I’m relatively pleased with the use we made of the space, but as I was packing up afterwards I noticed that there were some small spotlights directly over the bed. They were operable independent of the other room lighting, so I should have at least tried to close the curtains and see what I could do with just those little lights. Opportunity missed, I fear.

It’s hard to see if my photography is evolving from shoot to shoot, but my approach definitely is. This is the first shoot for which I didn’t arrive with any palpable feeling of nervousness. This could partly be down to the generally easy and friendly interactions I’d had with Z before we met, but I also think it’s a sign that I’m gaining confidence. I do generally feel like I can show up at the shoot not knowing much about what I’ll have to work with and figure it out in the moment, which is very satisfying.

Or maybe I just got lucky this time, who knows? I shouldn’t extrapolate from a limited dataset. What I know for sure is that Z was fun to work with, and these are the images we got from our time together. I’ll let you be the judge of everything else.