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China. Beijing. A young boy in a hutong near Tiananmen Square. 2005

I first came to China in the autumn of 2005. I had just finished a 1-year paid internship at Magnum Photos in London and upon the completion of the internship, Magnum gave me and my fellow interns a grant in order to help begin our work as photographers. The grant basically enabled us to afford a plane ticket to anywhere in the world. I decided to go to China.

For 6 weeks, I walked the traditional alleways, or  hutongs, that make up the old part of the center of Beijing working on a story about the disappearance and destruction of these traditional neighborhoods. One evening I came across this young boy, standing, watching the world pass him by in a hutong to the south of Tiananmen Square. At this point, I spoke virtually no Chinese which presented the challenge of trying to capture a portrait without being able to communicate with my subject. So, how do you do it?

Any photographer who has photographed in other countries to their own, where they do not speak the language, face this challenge. There is no hard and fast way to achieve a natural shot, however I have always found that your body language in these situations is the most important thing. Making eye contact is number one. You must be able to speak through your posture, your smile and your nature with the camera so that you project a feeling that is completely unthreatening to the subject. If you can achieve this, you don’t actually need any words at all to approach a subject and take their picture. This process and method takes time, practice and patience. Inevitably sometimes people will not want to have their photo taken and in these situation you should always just smile, respect their wishes and move on. The vast majority of the time though, people will open up to you with little or no effort on your part.

Children, or people of a younger age, tend to be easier to photograph like this in my personal opinion. They are less threatened or wary of you taking their picture. To begin practising this method, of photographing without talking, they are the best age group to begin with to build up your confidence. Once you start to feel more confident, try photographing other age groups with exactly the same approach.

At the end of the day, it’s all about your body language. Stay confident, project an unthreatening demeanor and most important of all, treat your subjects with respect.