From agony of Sichuan quake to acres of beefcake

Imagine thousands of bare backs, thighs and, most of all, hips and buttocks in every posture you can think of. That's the focus of Chen Qinggang's ongoing project.

The award-winning Chinese photographer has, over the past decade, shot the backsides of about 1,000 people. Now the 49-year-old has since set himself a more ambitious target: build up his collection to 10,000 cheeky portraits and seal it with an exhibition.

This is not the kind of material usually associated with Cheng, who made his name with evocative photos about the hardscrabble life of China's small farmers and migrant workers, and an earlier series on the country's former "comfort women" - forced into wartime sexual slavery by Japan's military. His coverage of the devastating 2008 earthquake in Sichuan and its aftermath earned him a World Press Photo award the following year.

After witnessing so much sorrow, however, he felt the need for a change of pace and became fired up about his portraits of naked rumps.

These began initially as occasional exercises involving close friends but Cheng took it up in earnest this March when he launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise a modest 10,000 yuan (HK$12,700) by the end of April to help finance his efforts. Conducted through Kaistart, a site run by a Hangzhou-based start-up, the campaign secured 26,786 yuan from 228 backers.

As an incentive for potential models, Cheng pledged to give every volunteer a full-sized photograph of their backside portrait, and that seems to have drawn interest - some from an unexpected quarter.

"A toilet manufactuer from Xian called me the other day and said he'd love to show his rump for my camera," Chen says, chuckling. "If he wasn't thinking about promoting his products, then he must be very curious about what I do and share my attitude to human buttocks."