An influencer who goes by the handle Qianqian being surrounded by people taking photos of her in Yuanyang Taikoo Li in Chengdu. - ST PHOTO: AW CHENG WEI
CHENGDU: Videographer Liu Riyong spends two to three evenings a week at Yuanyang Taikoo Li, Chengdu’s hip and upscale shopping area, filming young, fashionable women.
The clips are uploaded to his two Douyin – the Chinese TikTok – accounts, and the collection has amassed close to 540 million likes since he started the accounts last year.
“About half the women I feature are influencers, and they will inform me in advance that they are going to visit Taikoo Li,” said Mr Liu, 49, who has a total of 459,000 followers on both his Douyin accounts.
“The others I feature may have arrangements with other shooters,” he added. “After all, people from all over China come to Taikoo Li to be seen by others.”
Street photography, or “jie pai”, is a burgeoning business in China’s busiest cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, where even the most seemingly casual photo seen on social media is, in all likelihood, staged.
In recent years, these cities’ trendiest shopping enclaves have seen an explosion of videographers and photographers who ply the area capturing fashionistas and influencers, and making good money from it.
Videographer Liu Riyong (in green shirt) shooting influencer Zhu Xiaoqi in Yuanyang Taikoo Li. - ST PHOTO: AW CHENG WEI
When The Straits Times visited Yuanyang Taikoo Li – home to luxury brands like Dior, Louis Vuitton and Versace – over two evenings in June, shutterbugs in Sichuan’s provincial capital and south-western China’s most developed city went into a frenzy after they spotted at least two influencers.
The two influencers, who go by the handles Zhu Xiaoqi and Qianqian, have 2.6 million followers each on Douyin.
Mr Liu said Zhu Xiaoqi, who is based in south-eastern Zhejiang province, had told him to look out for her in Yuanyang Taikoo Li that Friday night.
“Obviously, she would not need to pay me to film her. I know of hotpot companies that pay tens of thousands of yuan just to have her show up at their restaurants to eat and live-stream. Having her on my feed boosts my views and helps me attract more followers,” he added.
Ms Olivia Plotnick, who runs social media marketing agency Wai Social in Shanghai, said influencers need to keep being captured by photographers and featured on social media to stay relevant and increase exposure.
Social media platforms like Douyin pay between three yuan (60 Singapore cents) and eight yuan for every 10,000 views, street photographers told ST.
Less popular or aspiring influencers who may need Mr Liu’s “liu liang” or traffic on Douyin pay him as much as 600 yuan an hour for his videography services.
Each booking is about two hours, including post-production work, and the end result is an eight- to 20-second clip on Mr Liu’s two Douyin accounts.
Qianqian, the second influencer who appeared during ST’s visit on a Saturday evening, took along her own videographer to live-stream her walking around Yuanyang Taikoo Li on her Douyin account.
Ms Plotnick said fashionable hangout spots like Yuanyang Taikoo Li resemble “an open-air catwalk for everyday people”, and for influencers, it is even more important that they are seen out and about town to increase their exposure.
“Professional photographers may even pursue (them), providing a taste of the red-carpet experience,” she added. “Some people even attain overnight fame, amassing a significant following and gaining numerous job opportunities.”
Another street photographer, who wanted to be known only as Mr Yang, said he is hired by a media company to shoot “beautiful women” in Yuanyang Taikoo Li.
A sign in Beijing’s Sanlitun Taikoo Li telling shoppers that they have the right to say no to street snappers taking their photos. ST PHOTO: AW CHENG WEI
“Sometimes, my boss will tell me to watch out for certain influencers or up-and-coming celebrities. Otherwise, I’m free to shoot whoever I think is pretty,” he said.
Mr Liu declined to say how much he makes from his social media accounts and the bookings he gets from the influencers.
“What I get from street photography is only a fraction of what I make from my main job shooting corporate videos and promotional films like for hotpot openings,” he said.
In Zhengzhou, in central Henan province, photographers are paid between 2,400 yuan and 3,500 yuan a month to shoot for companies that manage social media accounts featuring street photography, according to a job advertisement.
Applicants must have their own DSLR cameras and shoot between 25 and 30 people within four hours each day for 20 days a month, with a minimum of two photos per person.
But it is not just photographers who are in demand.
Fashion brands in Shenzhen are also hiring models to walk around trendy shopping districts for 6,000 yuan to 11,000 yuan a month, job advertisements showed.
Mr Liu said: “Some women will feel disappointed if they don’t get photographed when they come to Taikoo Li.
“Women may joke among themselves and say to one another: If you want to know whether you are pretty or not today, go walk around Taikoo Li. Find your answer among the street snappers there,” he added.
Jie pai came under the spotlight in China in June when a videographer shot a woman dressed in a pink spaghetti strap dress with floral prints walking in Yuanyang Taikoo Li while holding hands with a man.
Netizens identified the man as Mr Hu Jiyong, who was then an executive director and general manager at Beijing Huanqiu Engineering Project Management, a subsidiary of China Petroleum, a state-owned enterprise.
They also identified him as married, and the woman, Ms Dong Sijin, as his co-worker. A related hashtag drew 1.2 billion views on micro-blogging site Weibo when the scandal erupted. The duo were fired from their jobs.
In an editorial, state media Global Times said “street fashion photography must have (a) moral, legal red line”.
Photographers have to be careful that the content they post online does not cross certain boundaries. ST PHOTO: AW CHENG WEI
The editorial warned photographers and videographers that they must obtain the consent of the people they are shooting, otherwise they may run afoul of the law, especially if the footage is used for commercial purposes. It added that some street snappers would go as far as to take photos of the private parts of young women.
A spokesman for Swire Properties, which runs both the Taikoo Li shopping areas in Chengdu and Beijing, said its longstanding practice has been to place signs in its shopping malls that remind customers to protect their portrait rights, as well as reminders on Taikoo Li’s social media channels.
“Should any activity affect our malls’ normal operations, our property management and customer service staff will take the necessary action,” the spokesman added.
This includes helping shoppers to report any incidents to the authorities, he said.
Street photographers in Chengdu and Beijing’s Sanlitun Taikoo Li told ST that they will stop shooting and delete the photos if the women are uncomfortable.
“I would assume consent if they saw me shooting but didn’t stop me. It is not like I’m taking sneaky shots of them, which would be quite hard to do with a DSLR,” said a street snapper in Beijing who declined to be named.
Jie pai started in China with hobbyists, according to local media reports, but videographers and photographers said it has become an avenue for them to make money, given the proliferation of social media in recent years.
But photographers also have to be careful that the content they post online does not cross certain boundaries, said Mr Liu, adding that his video of Zhu Xiaoqi was initially banned on Douyin for “being too sexy”.
Still, street snappers expect the industry to be even more competitive and crowded in time, given the low barriers to entry.
Mr Yang said: “I might quit my job and do street photography as a sideline. It’s not like I need a company to manage social media accounts. I can do it, while juggling other jobs.”
Mr Liu said there are definitely more people interested in becoming a street snapper today, compared with 2021 when he first started coming to Yuanyang Taikoo Li.
“More and more Chinese are shopping online and spending so much time on their phones. The hunger for content is definitely there, and it is up to us to provide it,” he added. - The Straits Times/ANN
