Awamu Moja | China 2018

Here's another stunning video of a string of fashion shoots in southeastern Fujian (China) led by Awamu Moja (more details on him later in this post). During these photo shoots, the photographer wisely -from an aesthetic standpoint- chose to feature Chinese models, in contrast to Sails Chong's Chengdu Shining Blossoms which I wrote about in my last post.

All of the photo shoots were located in the mountainous region of Fujian, using the incredible backdrop of a number of different tulou (福建土樓) structures, or Fujian earthen buildings. These are Chinese rural dwellings unique to the Hakka of the areas, and were mostly built between the 12th and the 20th centuries. Other locations were Xichan temple, a Buddhist temple on the slope of Mount Yi, and West Lake. 

A tulou is a large, enclosed and fortified earth building, most commonly rectangular or circular in configuration, with thick load-bearing earth walls between three and five stories high and housing up to 800 people. Smaller interior buildings are often enclosed by these huge peripheral walls which can contain halls, storehouses, wells and living areas, the whole structure resembling a small fortified city.

These photo shoots must've been logistically demanding, since they included 9 shooting sites, and required 142 pages of mood boards, 133 boxes of props. The total duration of the photo shoots was 84 hours, involved 16 staff members, 6 models, 3 fashion designers and 38 outfits. 

Photo © Awamu Moja | All Rights Reserved

Based in Luxembourg, Awamy Moja is a fashion photographer who gathered a team of professionals passionate about aesthetics, fashion, performing arts, graphic design and plastic arts, architecture and decoration. In 2018, Moja writes on his blog that he came to China with his team and was deeply intrigued by Chinese history, culture and architecture. He tells us he had never before encountered such a vast and colorful country which, especially for  photographers, is a huge treasure house. The artistic culture of China impressed him to such an extent that he plans to spend more time there for work.

To ensure the picture quality, he only uses the Phase One medium format camera at 100 MP and 150 MP, together with the German Schneider Blue Ring lenses. His favorite is the 80mm LS f/2.8 lens, and often uses the 45mm LS f/3.5 and the 150mm LS f/2.8 IF lenses. He almost always shoot between f/11 and f/22, most often at f/16.