Premium Japanese sportswear brand Descente is gearing up for the summer launch of its highly anticipated 2026 Spring/Summer Golf Collection campaign, fronted by global ambassador and Chinese PGA TOUR professional Haotong Li.
The upcoming digital and social media push spotlights the label’s new Pro Series apparel and cutting-edge techwear upgrades, including Schematech Sky Knit fabrics and moisture-wicking compression layers engineered for the international tour.
Behind the camera, Los Angeles-based Director of Photography Honglin Zhu was tapped to helm the campaign’s visual identity, translating Descente’s high-performance tour apparel into a sleek, striking lifestyle narrative.
Zhu has built a reputation for navigating complex cross-cultural production frameworks; managing the visual pipeline from principal photography to the final color grade. His portfolio spans award-winning festival shorts like Mingling to viral, high-traffic 9:16 vertical series for platforms like TikTok Shop, ReelShort, and DramaBox—a specialized expertise that earned him a feature in The Wall Street Journal in March. For this brand rollout, Zhu leverages his unique dual-track mastery of high-end commercial polish and digital efficiency to give the campaign a distinct global appeal.
Lensing a global sports icon who has anchored Descente’s roster since 2020 requires looking beyond athleticism. Li is more than just an athlete, he is a sports legend and a cultural icon. For Zhu, the visual goal for this new Descente commercial was to translate Li’s on-course reputation into an aspirational campaign asset.
“For this commercial, I really wanted to look past the technicality of the swing and focus on his profound respect and raw passion for the game,” Zhu says. “Haotong is an incredibly expressive and emotional competitor on the course. He carries this intense fire, and you can see this deep, unwavering hunger for victory right in his eyes. That’s exactly what I wanted to amplify through the lens.”
The creative brief required showcasing the collection’s technical silhouette—including structured, ultra-stretch Pro Series pants and athletic perforated jackets—without rendering the content clinical. “It’s about capturing those quiet, high-stakes moments of focus—the grit, the determination, and the spirit of a true athlete,” Zhu notes. “To me, that emotional drive is the perfect reflection of what a premium brand like Descente stands for.”
Having shot major commercial campaigns for VOGUE China, FILA, and TikTok’s Super Brand Day, Zhu tailored the Descente campaign’s grammar to how modern global audiences digest digital content.
“Because China is so technologically and digitally integrated, the Chinese audience processes visual information at an incredibly high velocity,” said Zhu. “This directly shapes the commercial aesthetic. When I approach a Chinese commercial, the visual language needs to be highly kinetic and visually dense.”
He explains: “The camera movements are sharper, transitions are seamless, and there’s a strong embrace of a glossy, futuristic aesthetic—think clean, high-key lighting, vibrant color palettes, and a flawless digital polish that instantly pops on a screen. It’s also inherently mobile-first, so the framing often maximizes vertical space and blends mixed media or UI elements organically into the cinematography.”
Domestic campaigns generally pull from a different visual tradition. “An American commercial often leans into cinematic realism and texture,” he explains. “Western audiences still heavily sub-consciously crave that legacy film look.”
His cinematic approach in the US involves more textured lighting, leveraging natural shadows, richer contrast and a slower, more grounded camera pacing “that allows the narrative to breathe,” said Zhu. “For commercials in China, I’m capturing a hyper-efficient, polished future; for the US, I’m often chasing an organic, character-driven intimacy.”
Whether operating as a gaffer on vertical dramas like Vicious (65 million views) or serving as DP for commercials starring sports icons like Ying Ruoning and Lily He, Zhu anchors his commercial methodology in what he defines as “polished authenticity.”
“Absolute realism can sometimes look flat or unpolished on screen,” Zhu says. “My approach is to find the sweet spot where truth meets beauty. I keep the logic of the lighting natural and organic—so the audience believes the world we’ve built—but I wrap the light to make the skin tones pop, clean up the backgrounds, and ensure the overall image feels bright, premium, and aspirational. It’s about elevating everyday life into something captivating without losing its soul.”
Zhu, an alumnus of Hong Kong Baptist University and Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, recently won awards for his gangster-themed gritty short film Mingling, which screened at Mumbai Shorts International Film Fest, FIRST Fantastic Film Festival, and won the Remi Award at the WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival.
To execute his aesthetic to realism across tight commercial schedules, Zhu relies on exhaustive technical preparation long before arriving on location.
“The fashion and commercial worlds move incredibly fast, and to stay sharp, you have to be a lifelong student,” Zhu explains. “My approach to staying versatile is simply being the most prepared person in the room. Pre-production is where the real work happens.”
He spends a lot of time in research mode; digging for visual references online to align with the director’s vision, and then backing that up with concrete tech preparation. “For example, I will run lens tests to see how the glass behaves, do lighting tests to perfect the contrast, and make sure the entire package is dialed in,” said Zhu. “When you do your homework, you can handle any curveball a major fashion shoot that Descente or a VOGUE China shoot throws at you.”
