The Asian Male: Photography by Norm Yip
It's a mark of confidence that Asia's ethnically diverse societies have been turning away from Anglo-European images expression and increasingly celebrating and drawing inspiration from the beauty around them.  Advertising has turned from a reliance on western faces and bodies to sell luxury. South Korea's fashion and lifestyle magazines feature Koreans. Japan's are Japanese. Chinese models, both men and women, are increasingly and beautifully on show. The look of the 21st-century will be Asian - more precisely, Eurasian. In serious photography, the male icon, such as captured by the late American artist Robert Mapplethorpe, is often confused with gay erotica, so confronting is the image is the naked male to some people. That will probably be an obstacle these two Hong Kong photographers will need to overcome if they're to reach a wider audience, so rarely has the distinct beauty of the Chinese male form been presented. Yip is very much the contemplative artist, all careful poses and precise lighting in black-and white, colour and sepia. Details of camera, lens and film used for each shot are given in an index, along with notes about what the photographer was dying to capture of the model through the lens. His use of film rather than digital would seem to reflect a growing consensus among serious photographers that pixels lack the subtlety and flexibility of emulsion sharp but ultimately unforgiving and lacking in depth. Yip's models are Chinese from Hong Kong. Singapore, Taiwan. the mainland and the US, as well as a Thai-Chinese, Japanese and Korean. He says in the introduction that he wanted his models to show themselves, to let the camera shoot beyond the facade or skin and muscle torso and chest. The best images in The Asian Male, the ones that stretch beyond the private portrait, have an air of gentleness and innocence about them, but also a sense of confidence and independence that illustrate the emergence of new type of man. --Tim Cribb, South China Morning Post, November 13, 2005The Asian female as long been extolled as the perfect beauty in the world, a mixture of elegance, purity of line, and mystery of appearance. The popularity of the book and film 'Memoirs of a Geisha' is but one example of this appreciation. And now photographer Norm Yip opens the other side of the physical panorama to place the Asian male on the art platform. This book of beautifully sculpted male nudes from Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea and Malaysia is not only an artistically successful presentation of a photographer's gifts, it is also an example of just how fine photography books can be made. The quality of the reproductions is near perfect with both black and white and richly full color images on the finest of paper. The models are not only beautiful; they also appear to be in complete communication with Yip's concepts. The result is a group of forty sensuous, erotically charged photographs that stand with the finest of portfolios of the male nude. Norm Yip is a refreshing new talent who here shares his work from 1999 to 2004. Let's hope there is more! Recommended. --Grady Harp, Amazon Hall of Fame & Top 50 Reviewer, December 05The word hot leaps to mind when leafing through Hong Kong-based photographer Norm Yip's debut volume of Asian nudes... --Out Magazine, USA, September 2005