Shoot (Contact Sheets) GIF

I had very clear intentions of what I would be doing for this shoot and researched different lighting styles and setups that would work best for my intended outcome and what equipment was available. I had not done studio work for 6 months so there was anxiety around being able to correctly light my model with soft lighting on top of never using this type of set-up before this shoot. Luckily, I had a good rapport with my model and set half an hour to prepare the area and lighting set up. Before shooting, I showed some examples from my mood board to my model so she knew my intended outcome so we could work together to achieve the final outcome. While I was setting up, I had her read over the model consent form and had her sign it, then she got dressed into jeans that I embodied ‘Did I say yes?’ with red thread and red underwear; she painted her nails red earlier that morning. I chose to go with red, for the nails, underwear and thread as it connotes a sexual and provocative mood since I wanted to play on the assumption that sexual violence survivors are ‘asking for it’ depending on how they dress.

As you can see in the lighting diagram above, I set up two Broncolor studio lights, both with umbrellas with a white diffusion layer inside, pointed at a 45-degree angle pointing down towards the model. I wanted to have the light bounce onto my model as I was aiming for soft lighting as you see in commercial fashion shoots similar to Levi’s. I did want to use a shim to diffuse the light even further, but unfortunately, there wasn’t one available in the stores and I didn’t have time to make one myself. For the first few shots, I captured there was a shadow appearing on the left side of the frame, which I fixed by adjusting the intensity of the lights and the positioning, but it was still visible so I had my model move further away from the backdrop and used a reflector behind on the left side of the frame so the light would bounce back and fill in the shadow. It minimised it by a significant amount, but didn’t go away so I intend to fix it in Lightroom with the brush tool and increase the exposure.

For the posing and movement, I wanted to carry along the idea of victim blaming by having the model unzip her pants in a seductive manner, which I considered when I bought the jeans, as I wanted to communicate to the viewer that even if someone unzips their pants that it still is not considered as consent. Only when she gives verbal consent that, they have been given consent can proceed. I wanted to flip the viewer’s assumptions back onto them to show how little we as a society are uneducated about consent. There are huge gaps in educating the viewer about consent such as informed consent, but I had to consider the short attention span of the viewer and the duration of the GIF.

To create a complete loop I had her rezip her pants after unzipping them after my signal and slowly pulling down the right side of the jeans to reveal the embroidered text. The downside to shooting the GIF in a studio was that I could not use too fast of a shutter speed as part of the image would turn out black and the studio lights would not communicate with the camera fast enough. So I had my model very slowly unzip them so I could capture the transitional movement, directing her by saying to move as if you are in slow motion. To help with any awkwardness, I had her play the music that she felt most comfortable and powerful to keep the energy high whenever I was adjusting lighting or the camera.

I kept the composition quite simple, as I was intending to go for a simple and clean look, by using a central composition focusing on the model’s midriff and embroidery on the zipper line. While currently looking at the contacts, I will most likely crop the photos so there is a tighter focus on the embroidered phrase and less negative space surrounding the model since I need to consider that I need to keep the viewer’s attention as long as possible.