It often happens in modeling that you never get to see the pictures you take when shooting for a certain brand. But this time, almost a year after I shot for underwear brand Natural Feelings in Wanning, city in China’s southernmost province of Hainan, I just happened to come across some pictures taken then (*see the gallery below) – for this reason, and as my memory of the trip to Wanning is still very fresh, I will describe the two days I spent in this idyllic place, when we took these pictures.
The flight for the city of Sanya (*largest city of Hainan) was planned in the middle of the week, specifically on Wednesday on the last day of May 2023. That day I also had a basketball lesson at HQIS school, which ended at five o’clock in the afternoon, so the client booked the last flight to Sanya from Hongqiao Airport for that day at about eight o’clock in the evening. When I arrived at Sanya Phoenix Airport, I still had about 2 hours by taxi to the end point, which was, before mentioned, the little city of Wanning, very famous for its beautiful beaches and well known as a paradise for surfers. I showed the taxi driver there the address of the hotel’s location. Where the address led and where I would sleep, I did not know. Everything was unknown, as is usually the case with this type of travel. After two hours of driving, the taxi stopped outside the luxury resort of a renowned hotel chain, whose name I forgot. The clock was already in the morning, and I was still waiting at the reception to confirm my documents and to finally go to sleep. After twenty minutes, I just got a card of my accommodation, and the receptionist explained to me where. It was dark, but I soon found a place number, which, to my surprise, was not a room, but a luxury two-floor holiday house with a swimming pool, huge panaromatic glass, wooden and marble interiors and everything else necessary for the guest to feel maximum comfortable. All this just for me. At first, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was a real tropical house. I couldn’t leave the excitement over the house too much time as I was quite tired, and I also had an early wake-up call at six o’clock in the morning (an agent told me), which meant I would only have a good three hours of rest. A bedroom with a huge bed and two balconies covered the second floor, while the living area stretched over the entire first floor. Despite subconsciously knowing that the alarm on my mobile phone would ring very soon, I slept calmly.
A few minutes after the alarm, I was also woken up by someone knocking on the main door on the lower floor of the house. The whole team was waiting outside the door – a photographer with assistants, a hairdresser, a make up artist and finally the clients. The last held a simple breakfast, more precisely dumplings (包子), in their hands, with the apology that there is no other food offer in the surrounding area. I, as a dumpling lover, could not have wished for a better breakfast. Our “base” was right in the living room of “my” house, from where we then went to locations and shoot. The job, as I mentioned earlier, was for the brand of underwear, and some of the items also served as swimwear and for exercise. After finishing the makeup and hair, we were ready to get started.
The clock was seven in the morning. It was a perfect sunny morning. The sky was cloudless. Coming in the middle of the night, it was only now that I could be more aware of the place, which was a true tropical paradise. A light breeze played with the treetops of palm trees and pleasantly freshened us, so that the sun’s rays were almost not felt. The beautiful sandy beach, on which we later spent most of our time, was only a few dozen meters from the resort. We started. The beach was still alone at such an early hour. The photographer started taking pictures of me and looking for suitable light and locations, and I was posing and changing the underwear one by one. Once we shoot on the beach, in the water, by the trees, by the rocks, also in “my” house, by the pool, by the sailboat, with the surf, playing volleyball, etc. We worked very intensively. There was almost no pause.
From hour to hour, the beach was more and more crowded. There were many curious people who were interested in what we were doing – many kindly greeted us or waved to us, watched for a few minutes, and some also took photos. At noon, when the sun was at its strongest, the beach got empty again – only we kept going. All the thrill of the moment, the sea water and the refreshing breeze, did not make me think of using sunscreen, or covering myself with a piece of clothing or a towel during short breaks, when the photographer was looking for a suitable scene. I didn’t feel the burn of the sun’s rays at all; and the team that was with me also completely forgot to offer me some protection. While they’re well protected by clothes and hats, I myself spent in the sun only underwear from 7 in the morning to 7 o’clock in the evening, when we finished. I noticed the “result” of this later only in the mirror, when I was back in the apartment house. I was heavily sunburned all over my body, most notably on chest and shoulders. In my youth, I spent a lot of time in the sun and, I think, my skin is very susceptible to the sun’s rays, but as burned as this time, I haven’t been before in my entire life. Only now have I felt the effects of the all-day sun. My skin was burning. I didn’t have a moisturizer with me to relieve the pain a little. Fortunately, I found a fairly small tube of moisturizer in the room. After the shower, I rubbed the cream into red and sore skin and went to sleep. I knew it was going to be a short and tiring night, already looking with concern to the next day, when another whole day of shooting in the sun awaited me. I was “glowing”. I could have worked as a warning red light in the dark somewhere, like a lighthouse, it was so bad. I didn’t sleep almost the whole night, as my skin burned too much to find the right position and fall asleep peacefully.
I always strive for clients to be as satisfied as possible at the end of the job. More than thinking about my heavily burned skin, I had in mind them, the clients and the final results. What now, how will the pictures and videos look like, I wondered!? The pictures can be somehow edited, but what about the videos? To my surprise, when the team saw me in the morning, they didn’t look too worried, and comforted me a little. However, in the end, in my opinion, the results were not as good as they could have been. The redness in some images simply could not be hidden, and some videos were most likely useless.
The second day, for me, was one of the longest days since I started modeling. Despite hiding in the shade whenever possible, and being wrapped in a towel during breaks – we still didn’t have sunscreen – I had to spend many hours in the sun still. I had a rough time , I must say, but I did not want to show others that I am struggling. The fact that the girl artists in charge of my hair and makeup were constantly rubbing oil into my skin, to get a shiny effect on the pictures, didn’t help either – it was actually even worse, because rubbing, combined with dried salt on the skin, from shooting in water, and burns, was incredibly painful. I worked to the best of my ability, as always, to the end. I was never more happy about the photographer shout: “It is done, 结束了”. This time we finished at about 5 o’clock in the afternoon, a little earlier than yesterday, but we still spent 10 hours at the beach. The same day I had a flight back to Shanghai, we all had, so we were in a hurry to be on time at the airport.
I came home at 3 in the morning. Throughout the journey, as red as crab, I attracted many glances from passersby. I couldn’t have carried a backpack on my shoulders, because of pain, and I hardly waited until I ended up in my bed and started treatment. My skin then healed and peeled for at least another month. It was one special experience and I learned a lot from it. I got my lesson. Now I work smarter, I always take care of protection when shooting outside and most importantly, I always have sunscreen with me from then on. Despite all this, the memory of Wanning, the entire team, the work done and all the experiences is incredibly beautiful and I am glad I was part of it.
