Nude Shooting with Ajiao at Siheyuan Hotel, Beijing

An experiment regarding nude photography: How well is a nude shooting going of which the model is a Chinese amateur model from Beijing while the photographer is German and does not speak Chinese? Of course the model does not speak English, otherwise it would be too simple, wouldn’t it? I conducted this self experiment as a nude photographer during my short visit to Beijing at the first weekend in November. Well, to be perfectly honest I do speak a couple of words Chinese. And by all means I had my wife with me. Her mothertongue is Chinese. But I really tried to get through the shooting without using much spoken language. First of all: It worked really nicely! Even much better than I anticipated. But it was a little bit adventurous though.

My nude model for that day was the asia-model Ajiao, a friend of a friend of mine who is running an online community for nude photographers in China. Ajiao is absolutely beautiful, has a fantastic body and a very appealing charisma. No matter if she is wearing her hair tight up or open,
her hairdo is a real hit. As most Chinese women she kept her natural pubic hair and does not shave her privat parts.

My makeup artist was Maomao. She did an excellent job and made Ajiao’s beauty really shining. I think it makes perfect sense to have a Chinese make-up artist at such a set because the facial feautures and the hair of a Chinese photo model need a different makeup and care than the ones of western models.

As the location of our erotic shooting I choose the Siheyuan hotel in Beijing. This is a hotel with traditional Chinese style. It is located in the middle of a rather dark and narrow hutong area. When our cab approached that area the cabdriver at first did not want to drive into the narrow road that leads to the hotel. He asked us to get off and walk to there. We were too lazy to walk with our suitecase and the heavy camera bag, so instead we convinced the driver to drive there even though his car did barely fit into the narrow path. The hotel is very suitable for photography. The furniture has an antique flair and everything in painted in traditional colors. The courtyard of the hotel looks very traditional too. All in all a very pretty scenery for erotic art.

At first we had a look at the wedding suite under the aspect of the erotic photography. But the beds in these rooms have curtains hanging down from three sides and the rooms are rather small and are from three sides with curtains to hung and the rooms âre full of nooks and crannies. That was not ideal for the photos that I had in mind. So we changed quickly to a family room. The beds of that room are a little bit more simple but the rooms are larger. That’s better for my photography.

The hotel staff is really kind. They were happy to show us various rooms and let us pic our favourite one. No one took offense because of our erotic photoshooting. Neither did we have any problems when we took photos outside the room. During the day the tourists are seldom at the hotel and the staff hardly noticed us. When we were done with our production and we checked out of the hotel they even reimbursed a half day accommodation, because we were not going to stay overnight. Now that’s what I call goodwill! That convinced me to use this hotel more often in the future.

At the day of the shooting the weather was rather dull and cold. We really learned to appreciate that the rooms at the Siheyuan have a heating that can transform a room into a sauna in less than 5 minutes. It just was a pitty that there was hardly no available light coming into the room through the windows. This light is especially valuable in nude photography. I tried to make up for that by pointing an EX580 flash either at the window or under the ceiling in front of the window. That’s how I tried to simulate natural light.

When I was travelling to Beijing I was lucky to find a couple of mens magazines with erotic photos a the airport lounge in Germany. I simply teared all pages with good examples of poses and makeup out and took them with me to China as a help for communication. Prepared like this it was easy for me to tell the makeup artist what flair I need the model to have. And I could show my glamour model what poses I wanted to see from her. Besides that I simply demonstrated the poses and facial expressions that needed for the photos. Ajiao then simply got the idea and realised it - much better than I was able to demonstrate it. I believe it makes a lot of sense that a photographer dares to act and pose himself in front of the model in order to explain what he wants.

I started the glamour shooting with a simple portrait in order to change then to lingerie photos. A good idea to break the ice and lighten the mood in the beginning of the shooting was to make a set in which Ajiao is talking on the phone to a virtual friend. That was very funny and made all people laugh a lot. The following erotic shooting then was very relaxed.

All in all my experiment regarding Chinese nude photography was very successful. Even though I could not talk directly with the model in her language it was still possible to communicate successfully during the nude shooting. And it was so much fun that I will now do glamour shootings with Chinese nude models more often.

If you also have experience with nudes in China or if you want to join the next time I do a shooting then please leave a comment, write me an eMail or phone me at +49.211.561590412

Cheers, Michael

All photos of the Chinese nude shooting at the hotel in Beijing