After graduating in 2000 with a degree in International Business, Lin adopted the moniker “No. 223” from the lovelorn cop played by Takeshi Kaneshiro in Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express. He soon decided that the world of finance was not for him and took a job in Guangzhou at the entertainment tabloid Modern Weekly. Since then he has worked his way up the ranks of China’s media world and, until its recent demise, helmed Guangzhou’s youth culture magazine Neway.

His work with fashion magazines led No. 223 to begin snapping portraits of his circle of friends. Their friendship and desire to see themselves as a part of a global youth culture allowed Lin to capture images that would have been difficult to imagine coming out of China in the not-too-distant past. “People [in China today] are more open and more creative,” he suggests. “A lot of my friends do creative things, so they are probably more open than most. This allows me to photograph them the way I do. They understand what I’m doing.”

But what he is doing is not, Lin maintains, an attempt to make a statement for or about the youth of China. “I seldom think about what my photos might give people,” he claims, “I just take photos for my own interest.” That interest, it seems, is rooted in an appreciation for contemporary fashion photography and the sexed-up lifestyles portrayed there in. Somewhat surprisingly, Lin’s flirtation with lifestyles at the borders of Chinese social mores has never been a source of contention. “Government censorship is not as strict as some foreigners think. Anti-government themes, excessive violence and obscenity are forbidden, but the conditions for creation are quite open in China.”

No. 223 was given his first shot at fashion photography when his work came to the attention of the Guangzhou-based shoe label United Nude. Lin arrived at the job with no idea what he wanted to shoot. He simply looked at the shoes, scrounged up some props and “let the models lead.” This laissez faire approach has become a working methodology for Lin. “Most photographers have some idea of what they want to shoot, what topic to start with. But I have no idea. I just follow the models or my friends. Then I follow my mind.”

One of the images that came out of the United Nude shoot ended up gracing the cover of 3030: New Photography in China, which, as the title suggests, profiles 30 young photographers breaking ground in China. The cover photo, portraying a young woman clad in fishnets and lurid pink tights squatting on the street while emitting a mouthful of soymilk, has become No. 223’s calling card. This sexually charged, yet playful aesthetic is something he hopes to contribute as newly appointed editor-in-chief at Beijing-based culture magazine 1626.