In the eighties and nineties of the last century, the wall calendar was an indispensable decoration for people's New Year, and it was inseparable from decorating the room and visiting relatives and friends. Every New Year, every household has to hang up a new wall calendar, there are scenery, there are portraits of leaders, there are world famous paintings, of course, the most popular of them is the "big beauty".
At that time, a group of Chinese photographers really got rich by taking pictures of wall calendars, and it is said that one photographer printed 500,000 copies of a wall calendar in a certain year. Throughout the 90s, Jia Yuping's beauty wall calendar was popular throughout the country, with the highest record selling 220,000 beauty wall calendars a year.
Someone once asked Jia Yuping why your wall calendar is so good to sell and so popular, and he said that it is because he is not hypocritical, he knows what ordinary people like. Some people say that his works are vulgar and pornographic, but it is undeniable that in the era of cultural confinement and no Internet, these "beauties" on the calendar have influenced the visual aesthetics and imagination of the Chinese public for nearly 20 years. Today, those "beautiful calendars" are history, but in retrospect, these photos, which were once criticized as vulgar pornography, have become more "good-looking" and more "real".
Jia Yuping: An old man who specializes in photographing beautiful women
Written by: Nari Matsu
Article written in 1999, selected from "From Hongxing Alley to "798"
Jia Lao's directness is notorious, his temper is stubborn, and no one is convinced. For this reason, his old man has also attracted a lot of criticism.
Of course, if you want to catch up with Jia Lao and treat you as a friend, then you just wait for Jia Lao to take out your heart...
In Jia Lao's "Burrow", you will see with your own eyes the famous single bed that has been by countless beauties, as well as the flowery and green reverie swimsuit underwear, the most extreme thing is that when Jia Lao shows you his "masterpiece", you will find that he packed all the reversal pieces in various categories such as mooncake boxes, sugar boxes, shoe boxes, etc., he will tell you that this is his "passbook", and the most valuable things in his house are in these broken shoe boxes.
Maybe you remember the "big beauty wall calendar" that was overwhelming on the streets a few years ago, and that year was also when Jia Lao was most beautiful; Nowadays, although those "beauties" are no longer so popular in the city, as the saying goes, "the vast world has great achievements", when you go to the countryside to "collect the wind", you will find that those big beauties are stuck to the walls of the peasants' houses. Jia Lao said: This is called responding to the call of the market, going up the mountain to the countryside...
(The following is Jia Yuping's statement)
When it comes to photography, everyone has to pursue a little, to be honest, we can neither pour white powder, nor gamble, nor engage in women, so I love photography. When I was in middle school, I liked photography more, at that time there was an old German camera at home, and during the Cultural Revolution, I had nothing to do, and I took more pictures, and I liked to take pictures of scenery and portraits at that time.
Later, when I got married, in 1975, I was 38 years old, it was a late marriage, at that time I made a three-chapter contract with my lover, I don't smoke or drink and love photography, photography is inevitable to contact some women, then you don't be jealous, and then the conditions permit, I will buy some equipment, you don't disagree, then in fact, she has always been very supportive of me, and there is nothing because I contact such beautiful girls, I think things between men and women, is to do it in good conscience, so many years, Nothing inappropriate happened to me and these models.
So how did I start commercial photography, that has to start from the late 80s, when you have to buy a camera, lenses, very expensive, buy Hasselblad or something, dare not imagine, in addition to the salary earned, how much money can be left, you have to find a way to earn money, and then a friend told me that you can earn money by taking wall calendars. It takes a big machine to take a flip calendar, so I borrowed money to buy 120 cameras. The first wall calendar was taken for a company, and it turned out to be smashed. But I didn't lose heart, and after failure, I succeeded immediately.
The photography industry is more complicated, everyone has a problem, including myself, I feel that I shoot well, other people's are not good, this is actually useless, let the market to identify, use the film to speak, everything else is blind! So I studied the wall calendar a little more, and I found that there were two key issues: one was the sales market, and the other was the subject. The subject is the model, these models are uneven, and the price of those "supermodels" is too high to be worth it! I usually go to the literary troupe to find some fledgling little girls, they like to take pictures, they are easy to teach, and the price is low.
Second, you have to have buyers, people say that the wall calendar market is not good now, but still sell a lot of copies every year, just say now, if you can cover one-tenth of the national market, you can be exhausted to death. So how to find a good buyer, the important point is that you shoot well, of course, many peers do not admit it. Say that he is not just shooting big beauty, then you also shoot, who buys yours, who has a market and who does not have a market, people will know at a glance.
Once, a calendar dealer came to me and said that a famous photographer only sold 200 yuan a piece, why do you sell 2000 yuan a piece, I was on fire as soon as I heard it, wasn't it 2000 just now, now 2500, less than a penny! I hate this bunch of people who disrupt the market the most. Another point is to keep promises, you can't make a girl promise three in-laws, so even if the wall calendar market is so bad now, there are still many people looking for me to shoot, no, in 2000 I sold 16 copies.
Over the years, I've shot more than 200 copies. Magazine covers, I can't count them, you see I have piles of them here, and throw a lot, thousands.
You said that I don't shoot many big stars, there is also a market problem here, one is that the big star asking price is too high, the shelf is large, there are many problems, the other is that the photos of the big star are too much, the buyer does not recognize, he also needs some fresh faces.
Old shooting beauties, of course, often attract some gossip, some people say, Jia Lao, your life is very romantic, live in beautiful women every day, do you also help them change their clothes? I said I wanted to help, but people wouldn't let me. They said again, you are with them every day, don't you move? I said, to be honest, it's still moving, but at the beginning there was a thief's heart and no thief's guts, and then there were both thieves' hearts and thieves' guts, but there was no thief body, just kidding, shoot beautiful girls, at least have a happy spirit.
There is also a rumor in society that you have to "go to bed" to take pictures at our house, and that is also a joke. I shoot models are not willing to go to other people's studios, most of my models are trained by myself, it is not easy to practice, so I don't want others to shoot, but if you use his studio, he asks these models you can't stop ah, so I try to ask the models to the house, you see how small my room is, in order to achieve the shooting distance, the models have to "go to bed".
I'm retired now, and I haven't taken pictures on Sundays and Saturdays for a few years, and I rarely take a break.
I have a lot of imported swimwear and underwear, at least enough for 25,000 yuan, and it has to look green and trendy. Because they can't model their own swimwear and lingerie.
Most of the money I earned bought a camera, which must be worth at least 7.8 million.