Before Yin Chao Became a Top Fashion Photographer, What Did He Go Through? | 100 People With Ideas
Yin Chao loves the fashion industry because it is about beauty. But fashion is also arrogant and cutting, forever using fierce language to exalt beauty and scorn ugliness.
Yin Chao loves the fashion industry because it is about beauty. But fashion is also arrogant and cutting, forever using fierce language to exalt beauty and scorn ugliness.
Yin Chao trained in auto repair. That is not a joke, and he doesn't seem to mind people bringing it up. He spent two years working at a photo studio and four years as a photographer's assistant. By the time he picked up a camera himself and became a full-time fashion photographer, he was in his mid-twenties, closing in on thirty.
The afternoon QDaily interviewed him, he was shooting magazine photos of the actor Wu Xiubo. The brief was light: just look fashionable and business-casual. "Good, good, just like that — that's the feeling!" Yin Chao seemed relaxed; the two had worked together before. Wu Xiubo changed outfits three times over the shoot, and between changes Yin Chao picked up his phone and scrolled Weibo.
When the work was done, Wu Xiubo changed back into his own shorts and Nikes, the business-casual air gone, and slouched into a chair. Yin Chao wanted to talk to him about making a documentary. For the past few months he had been preparing one about Tibet, and he wanted Wu Xiubo's view on how to balance truth against watchability.
"You have to keep shooting, ask a lot of questions, and then watch the footage over and over when you get back, to see what they repeat. I'd also set up a second camera pointed at yourself, to record your own small reactions while you're listening to them," Wu Xiubo said. He worried that one pressure or another would push Yin Chao's documentary into something less than objective. "It's like when you photograph us: to capture something real, you always have to show something real first."
Until then, some people's impression of Wu Xiubo was still stuck on Finding Mr. Right and his new car-rental ads for Shenzhou Zuche. "Actually he's an extremely witty, perceptive man, with deep ideas about spiritual practice too. We're shooting him again tomorrow — the new look I designed for him has a Dalí mustache glued on." As for the advice Wu Xiubo gave him about the documentary, Yin Chao found it unrealistic. He is too busy; he doesn't have that much time to gather footage. The half-month scouting trip to Lhasa alone had left a stack of photos at the studio waiting for his review. His retoucher has worked with him for five years and knows his standards well, but every set still has to pass Yin Chao.
The studio, in Gaobeidian, sits in one of Beijing's earliest creative parks; Yin Chao rented it three years ago. The second floor is the retouching room; up a wide staircase, the third floor is a big shooting space where fourteen or fifteen colleagues work, handling everything from client contact and pre-production to the shoot and post-production retouching.
Since he set up his first studio in 2007 — ten years of life as a transplant in Beijing — Yin Chao has moved offices three times. At first the team worked out of an ordinary office building, back when a photographer's job was still simple: take the job, carry your gear to a rented studio, shoot, come back and retouch. As the workload grew they moved out of the office building, and Yin Chao rented his first studio of his own at Shang 8 Creative Park, then moved here. These past two years have been harder for fashion retail than the two before; fashion editors and new hires have turned over several times, traditional media are remaking themselves, and the photographer's role keeps shifting and adjusting. Yin Chao thinks he has been lucky — he caught the fashion industry's fast growth in the earlier years, the golden age of Chinese fashion magazines. Now that the whole luxury business is doing worse than it was two years ago, the younger generation of photographers will probably face more tests.
He went through plenty to get here, of course. He liked drawing and music; enrolling in an automotive program in college was his parents' wish, and he never got into it. In the second half of that year he simply stayed home practicing art and music instead. Playing the flute and the drums as a child had all but settled him on a life in music. But in a small county town in Baoding, Hebei, even saying the words "artistic ideals" out loud sounded hopelessly vague. He went to Beijing alone and took a job at a photo studio.
It took him about two years to move from music to photography. After leaving the photo studio he became an assistant at Oriental Pearl Studio: the photographer shot, he worked the lights. It was a tight, simple life — a few hundred yuan a month, and he still had to save to buy foreign magazines. But being that short of money made it easier, not harder, to find an outlet for feeling; when something suddenly clicked, he would be thrilled. He worked days and read widely at night on photography and art history, taking in a great deal — technique, contacts, how to deal with people. Later he shot a few sets of pictures and wrote to editors at several magazines; an editor at FHM liked several of the sets, the two got along, and they worked together for more than a year. By then Yin Chao had properly entered the photography world, and he got busier and busier.
This past May he shot a black-and-white campaign for Tiffany with Li Na and Jiang Shan, then a street-style shoot with Du Juan in Sanlitun, then magazine covers for Zhou Xun, Yao Chen and Tang Wei, one after another. He also shot the posters for the summer releases Hollywood Adventures and Jian Bing Man.
Since 2011, when he worked with Huang Hai on the poster for The Promise, film posters have been an important part of Yin Chao's work. The posters for The Golden Era, The Grandmaster and Monk Comes Down the Mountain are all recent. Shooting a poster means talking with the director about the script, the characters, how the plot ties them together — back and forth. On the shoot for the Dearest poster, Peter Chan was there; the director asked Zhao Wei to cry, and in under five seconds the tears were running down her face. It surprised Yin Chao: "She's already a super star, and she can still get into character that fast. That takes real skill." Beyond this regular work, he is planning exhibitions and appearing on satellite-TV reality shows.
To outsiders, a photographer's work looks easy — there aren't many jobs in the world priced by the second. Yin Chao does not see it that way. "Pressing the shutter takes a fraction of a second, but what's behind it is a person's experience, their attitude to the world. How does the photographer see the world? All of it is laid bare." As he said this, his black Yohji Yamamoto trousers billowed under a blow dryer. QDaily's reporter also talked with him at length about where his ideas come from and what has been on his mind these past two years.
Q = QDaily
A = Yin Chao
Q: Did you learn a lot in your years as an assistant?
Yin Chao: I was an assistant for four years, and looking back now, that stretch did a lot for my growth. Even then, I can see now, I was already practicing a kind of self-cultivation, training myself in how to look at the people and things around me. How much you learn is entirely up to you — how you look, think, notice, and put things to use. A person can learn far more inside their own field than they imagine. I often tell my assistants now that I absolutely will not allow them to complain about their circumstances. Complaining turns into a limit on yourself.
Once I started working with big international names, I gradually got the hang of it. What people call things going smoothly is a fairly natural phenomenon. When you work hard, it just happens — I have never had the feeling of hitting a jackpot. When you're still far from something you long for it, but as you get closer step by step it turns into an ordinary thing. And it's that ordinariness and calm that lets you go further.
Q: Of all your abilities, which do you think is your strongest?
Connecting with the person in front of the camera, probably. I can feel what someone else is feeling. A rich inner life is my biggest advantage — that kind of energy and inspiration never runs out. One other thing: "Without the painful experiences of the past, I wouldn't have the happy life I have now." Sounds glib, doesn't it? But it's true. Above all, we have to be aware people, not numb ones. I can't stand the idea of being a walking corpse.
Q: Are you someone who likes to make plans? Some people have five-year plans and things like that.
I have never wavered about the path of being a photographer. When I was an assistant I used to write letters to myself: "One day you'll be someone who shapes taste and visual culture." I would not give up until I made it — I don't even know where that certainty came from. I just had to prove myself.
As for plans — having one is good, but don't cling to it, especially in China right now, when everything changes so fast. The most important thing is to do the work in front of you well, and from there to answer whatever reality turns into.
Q: The barrier to entry in photography keeps dropping, and independent media are rising fast — Instagram can make a photographer famous overnight. Do you look at Instagram?
I have doubts about some of what new media does, but I can't help being pulled into it. I never used to like talking up what I'd done, for instance, but in today's environment you have to change to some degree just to survive. It's like walking into a bar: even if you don't drink, you breathe the secondhand smoke.
I used to hate anything showy. Now I have to get used to it, or the age will leave me behind.
As for independent media, I personally love looking at things on Instagram — landscape pictures, human geography. To put it a little dishonestly: even if I get buried by newcomers, that isn't necessarily bad. It means people keep taking in new things. More beauty, more new perspectives dug up — that's a good thing.
But I hate the way negative news chases eyeballs. Nothing good, nothing scientific, nothing forward-looking; the news is full of bait all day long. People want the negative, so they're given it, and then they want more. It's a very bad cycle.
Q: Have you ever felt anxious about being left behind?
Rarely. Very rarely. A few times.
Life now is like flying a fast plane: you're up in the air and you hardly notice. A few times, when I did notice a little and looked down, it frightened me. Oh — so this is the angle I've been living at. So I've been standing at the edge of a cliff all along.
Seeing the drop below the cliff all at once, you feel afraid. But a second later I can let it go. At bottom I'm someone who'd be fine with losing everything.
Q: Do you think you're a lucky person?
Lucky — genuinely lucky. Heaven handed me a living, nothing else. And a lucky person carries a mission too: a bigger heart, more to bear.
If "lucky" means talent, then using it well takes hard work and emotional intelligence. Much of what people call other people's luck only looks that way from outside; to the person it feels ordinary, because what they have to carry is hard for others to feel or imagine. Rich kids are the exception, of course — though even they have plenty of their own to face eventually. Nothing comes out of nowhere.
Q: What do you like most about the fashion world, and what do you like least?
I like it because it's an industry tied to beauty. I don't like it because it draws such a hard line between beautiful and ugly. Here's the contradiction: fashion is a cutting, arrogant business — it uses fierce language to exalt beauty and scorn ugliness. And once you're talking about beautiful and ugly, you get fights between people and over things, and I don't like watching that. In my own values, I want people to see more beauty, rather than reject things because of a personal opinion.
But there's nothing to be done. It's like you: to live the life you want, you have to breathe Beijing's smog. Smog is bad for you; Hainan might be a better place to live, but you're not going to Hainan. You're going to stay here. It's a choice with no other option.
Q: When you take on a job, do you have to weigh a lot of interpersonal factors?
I do. The talent is one layer of relationships; media, editors and brands are several more. There's a lot to weigh at once. IQ decides whether a person can succeed; EQ decides how far they go.
I'm not especially good at balancing these things — I can't fake warmth. But with friends, or people I'm working with for the moment, I'm glad to see them happy. A lot of people say this business is fake, which only shows how human it is. People grow up inside exactly this kind of relationship.
Q: Have these past few years been relatively smooth ones for your photography?
I think so, yes, and it's tied to commercial value. When more people see your ideas, they generate more commercial value. Doing things in a single-minded, pure, half-hidden way is fine, but in China you need something different — people here are easily drawn to what's stimulating and exaggerated.
Q: What's the work you're most satisfied with so far?
Still some of the China-themed pieces. I once shot a boy from the mountains for a magazine; that may be the work I'm happiest with.
Q: You've always been the one recording other people with your camera. But going on the China Supermodel (《中国超模》) show, or being filmed while you prepare your documentary, means being shot by someone else. Does that make you nervous?
I used to get nervous; not anymore. TV shows, documentaries, photography — they're all recording, and none of them steps outside the act of shooting. I didn't use to like ways of expressing myself outside photography, but now there are more chances, more ways to show what people think and what they can do, and that's good. At this stage of the industry, photographers need to be more versatile. Keeping quiet and just doing your own work, the way I used to, isn't bad, but it has its limits.
Q: Is it outside resources pushing you into these things, pushing you to this point?
I think so. It goes both ways. Someone finds something in me, I try it, and that leads to more being found and drawn out. It's like rain falling on a patch of ground: a sprout comes up, keeps growing, and then needs more rain. That kind of process.
This stage is harder work. I was used to photography as a form of expression, but film is another matter. The soul of it doesn't change; the method still has to adapt. Running into difficulty when you push past your own limits is normal — otherwise anyone could cross into a new field.
Q: What was your original motive for making a documentary about young people in Tibet — more for others, or more for yourself?
Because of my religious beliefs, I hold myself to a very strict standard. The human self is cunning: it looks like you're doing it for others, but it's for yourself; it looks like you're satisfying someone else's wish, but it's self-fulfillment. Most of the everyday conflict, resentment and dissatisfaction we feel comes from self-interest.
All I can say is that in daily life I try to consider how other people feel, not to make trouble for them, and not to hurt anyone carelessly before I've thought things through. As for the documentary, seen as a business, I've already lost money. I could feel the confusion among young people there, and the loss of their culture. As someone exploring it, I decided to go ahead and do it shamelessly, even if it makes me look bad. I try not to squander the situation and the resources I have right now.
Q: When did Buddhist teaching convince you?
It was when I ran into difficulties, worries, the so-called suffering inside — that's when you start looking for light and truth. No one can go on living forever in a state of conflict.
I live in that same conflict every day now too. Different stages bring different conflicts. Choice, wanting, fear — all of it is conflict. You have to choose between two jobs, and that's a conflict; you join a company hoping for a certain position, don't get it right away, another conflict; you get the position, then fear losing it, conflict again. But none of this is real.
We deceive ourselves with unreal things forever, and live in pain because of it.
A lot of people now like to use the label of Buddhist to set themselves apart, but not many really understand what it's saying. To a large extent, "believing in Buddhism" has become another expression of the self — they think a Buddhist identity is special, interesting, unlike everyone else. But I raise the subject only because I'm trying to find a real version of myself. A person should be as real as possible; the truest things are what move you in art. That's how I see it.
Q: Has your life changed a lot since you had a child?
Quite a lot. With a child you feel a kind of giving that is wholehearted. When we talk about giving between friends or lovers, there's usually something you measure it against. With a child there's nothing to measure against; you never keep count of what she gives back.
Q: You've photographed so many stars — Zhao Wei, Zhou Xun, Donnie Yen, Zhang Ziyi, Li Na, Wu Xiubo, Tang Wei. Is talking with your subjects fun?
It's fun, but it also asks a lot of you. You need enough confidence and experience to talk to someone in the same frame of mind. Knowing the technique, knowing a lot of principles, doesn't get you there. It probably comes down to EQ. In the end people communicate through feeling; in the end people are equal. It takes time for those two things to soak in.
Being relaxed matters too. At work or in life, tension is the root of every bad mood.
Q: Is it easy for a photographer to build a deep relationship with a big star?
I never expect it; I just make the most of the present. The people who are meant to become friends will become friends in the end, and the rest is vanity. Vanity can't be relied on, so it's enough to hold on to the present.
I don't want to be anyone's permanent photographer. Everything is impermanent. I just want each encounter to be natural, and to make good work each time.
Translated from the original QDaily article. Original publication date retained.