Nuo came to me via an email request to photograph him. From the initial images he sent me, I wasn’t so sure if he had the qualities I was looking for, so an initial meeting was set up to meet him personally and to do some test shots. Upon first impression, I was quite taken by his relaxed and confident personality — not really caring so much as to whether or not he ‘qualified’ to be one of my models. But even before we did the test shots, I felt he had the right personality and innner exhuberance to being photographed. I decided however to give him a bit of homework and to put on a bit of form to his languid slender body. So a month rolled by and so did his training of swimming and weights in the gym. When he got back, he looked much better. Although still the slender guy, he had some form to his muscles, which also added some more confidence to his character.

When the photographs came back from the lab, I was very much impressed by how the images turned out, moreso than other guys I have photographed. I don’t know why exactly. It is his look. And like so much of my photography, the eyes and body language tell a great deal. Inner emotions that project beyond the surface of the body and face.

Nuo, thank you for entrusting me to photograph you. Some of these images are works of art in my humble opinion.

The Nikon F100 with the 28-70mm F/2.8 Nikon lens was used with Kodak’s TMax400 for the black and white. Fuji Provia 400F along with the Mamiya 645 using the standard 80mm lens was used for the colour images.

///