The shooting style of men's clothing is gradually in line with that of women's clothing, and there is more freedom to play.
"I think some photographers are born to be stars, but I'm not, I'm just an ordinary person," Ding Li said, "a very ordinary and ordinary fashion photographer." ”
Ding Li's "ordinary" is actually not ordinary. The photographer from his hometown in Guangxi, who studied art in high school and was fascinated by fashion photography in his freshman year, especially loves colorful fashion blockbusters, where models are frozen in beautiful clothes he has never seen before, like unknown worlds full of bizarre imagination, with gravity like black holes, making him infinitely closer.
Entering any line of work requires a stepping stone, not to mention the ever-changing but competitive fashion world. Ding Li's stepping stone is simple and unpretentious — a retouching skill he spent weeks teaching himself.
"At that time, I really wanted to learn photography and be a photographer, but when you don't understand anything, others won't want you, only through post-editing technology can you enter the door first." So I taught myself the art of retouching for a few weeks, and then took the repaired work to the local photographer and visited the house one by one. A "traditional photographer" was his enlightenment teacher. In his words, this is an "old photographer" with the title of vice president of the local photographers' association, and his diligence and hard work have won the favor of old photographers, who have taught him some basic elements of portrait photography, and he has learned it with hunger. Later, in order to better develop, he went to a commercial photography studio in Beijing to continue to work as a retoucher, and gradually got a job as a photography assistant. In 2005, he moved to Shanghai and hasn't left since, working for a year as a post-retouching and photography assistant for a senior photographer in the industry. In 2006, he finally made his official debut as a fashion photographer.
Compared with those who plunged into the fashion photography industry by chance or had a life experience like the protagonist of a novel, Ding Li's experience before entering the industry was indeed very "ordinary and ordinary", down-to-earth, plain, step by step, without any shortcuts, but it is precisely because of these seemingly ordinary and actually solid learning experiences that he has mastered very professional basic techniques and skillful control of the film, and none of these long and small life experiences have been wasted—— They are the most solid foundation and make up his diverse and profound visual style.
The completion of a group of fashion blockbusters usually involves the following steps: creative planning, preparation stage, official shooting, film selection, and post-retouching until the final film. Ding Li's solid foundation and years of filmmaking experience can often complete the creative planning stage, and then be able to control and predict the finished film to a certain extent - this is not simple. Because the shooting of a group of blockbusters will inevitably have some random situations in the process, resulting in the final film appearing slightly different, Dante's rigor and keen intuition will allow these errors to be compressed as much as possible until the image he expects in his mind.
In this regard, Ding Li said very modestly: "For photographers, it is naturally good to have solid basic skills, but if the basic skills may not be good enough, but as long as there are good ideas, it doesn't matter, because photography itself is a team work, such as your poor light control ability, you can also find an experienced lighting engineer to help you perform." ”
The diverse and rich photographic style is attributed to his personality, "I feel that I have no style, style is a talent, and photographers with this talent are geniuses." I see that many of the young photographers now come out very good and have a very obvious personal style. I want to try whatever style I like, whether it's this or that, I want to try anything. This attempt is often summed up in curiosity, a desire to explore, and the saying "power for love." The formation of a style may be natural or deliberate, and Ding Li prefers to present the former. "A lot of styles are formed because photographers love it, not for style's sake, which is an opportunistic approach. I think it's unhappy to do something that I'm not passionate about. ”
Compared with colorful and varied fashion films, although Ding Li claims to rarely make people (interview) films, "People interviews are a type that I rarely shoot in my photography career, and I have been making fashion films since my debut." Shooting people, my efficiency may be relatively low, a group of films I have to grind for a long time, so I can't shoot a few sets a month, probably only two or three sets. ”
Many years ago, in a feature of a character interview in a magazine, I, who often acted as a transcriptist, rarely moved from behind the scenes to the front of the stage and became the model of the day, and he was the head of that group of character features. Except for the professional models who had been in the battlefield for a long time, the rest were behind-the-scenes fashion workers like me, and that shoot was one of the few relaxed and natural shooting tasks in my memory, and it was Ding Li's patient guidance that helped me complete this work. "When you photograph people, you just don't set the standard of shooting as a model. Before shooting, you can set some plots for them, and then let the other party act, such as giving them some props and making simple settings so that they have something to do. ”
In his case, the fashion cover films of artists that we have already seen will be carefully classified and labeled with different types of labels, "some are biased to emphasize people's material sense, some are artistic creation, and the styles are different, but what is inseparable must be the consensus between the photographer and the subject." He mentioned a group of fashion films that others "shot" Zhou Xun with scanners, "That group of films is a very pure artistic creation, and it has little to do with photography itself." It's mainly about how the magazine and the artist reach a consensus, and how we can improve and execute better. ”
He has a group of entertainer cover story blockbuster "Old Boy", which is impressive. The protagonists are Li Guangjie and Huang Jue, who carry a large-caliber spear during World War II, imitating the former soldiers, respectively interpreting the scene of being wounded and helping each other... Inspired by an authentic historical photo. It's one of his many works that he pleases considerably, and he credits his co-editors and good creative planning: "The editor is sometimes the one who leads the idea, and the photographer is his ideal partner." ”
If we look at Ding Li's fashion photography works longitudinally, his works have witnessed to a certain extent the transformation of the aesthetic style of video by fashion magazines in the past two decades. In the early fashion blockbusters, the style difference between men's and women's films is quite obvious, and the style of men's blockbusters often focuses on timeless and classic, with low-key colors, calm postures, and attention to being quiet and not moving. The female models in women's films tend to dress up more gorgeously, dress exquisitely, and the actions will be more dramatic and pompous (of course, this is also related to the fashion style of the time). However, at present, whether it is a men's blockbuster or a women's blockbuster, regardless of fashion style, the two are no longer as distinct as in the past from the perspective of shooting aesthetics, and the shooting style of men's clothing is gradually in line with women's clothing, and there is more freedom to play.
"In the traditional fashion magazines in the past, men's clothing was actually not important, and men were excluded in most cases, not as complex and diverse as they are now," Ding Li explained the change, "The reason is the economic logic behind it." What sustains the magazine? Naturally, the advertising placed by those clothing brands, the economic source is the purchasing power of female consumers, so the magazine will definitely want to emphasize the best mental style shown by women after wearing it. Magazines are based on this, and then slowly have other content, such as cars, watches and the like, and now we have the Internet, with the fan economy, which is another logic, it will give birth to many new things. ”
He said that these external reasons are related to the "sense of the times" reflected in his films, "because this determines the style trend of photographers of different eras." In the past, magazines that cooperated with overseas copyrights also needed to pass overseas review, and sometimes several countries (magazines) collectively made decisions as reviewers, and if you shoot them can't understand it, then the manuscript will be killed, that is, the style that the decision-makers liked at that time will determine the style of the fashion blockbuster. ”
What he is telling can lead to another dimension of thinking, if the era itself has a decisively fixed aesthetic preference for photographic aesthetics – which also seems to coincide with fashion trends, and clothing that is particularly popular at a certain stage may cease to be popular after a while – does this prove that the style of photography or the photographer itself has a limited shelf life like fashion?
Ding Li believes that even if there are "traces of the times" in the works of photographers, the "freshness period" is not certain, "because even if some photographers do not follow the trend of the times and choose to insist on doing their own things, they will eventually become a unique style, which in turn makes the times guided by him." ”
"I still love photography in my bones, and now I have more time at my disposal than before, and I used to be very busy when I was popular, and I didn't have time to study," he said, half-jokingly, half-seriously, "but it's rare for a photographer to want to be popular all the time." There are a lot of people who graduate every year to do this (photography) thing, but there aren't many opportunities left for everyone. It often requires strong perseverance and knowing how to overcome the inertia in human nature. Ding Li admits that the epidemic in previous years has given him rare free time to rest, which has allowed him to take a break from his busy schedule and think about new ways forward, and also gained some new inspiration from Xiaohongshu's social media that young people are keen on, and AI painting tools (such as Midjourney) that are popular recently.
"I feel that I have entered a very vigorous learning period now." He said. In fact, he is still studying hard and applying his newly developed post-production techniques to his past works, which he named "remakes" and posted them one by one on the Xiaohongshu platform he uses to communicate with more people, "Photography is to be re-sculpted and recreated over and over again, and I find joy in learning." ”
Editor: Liu Pengfei
Author: Xu Xiaomiao
Image: Courtesy of Ding Li
Design: Xu Hongyan
New Media Editor: Chen Jia
New Media Design: Open