Model Photography

Sometimes there are occasions in photography when your  projects make your family really worry about you.

Such was the occasion recently when I had an idea for the latest club competition. Recently competitions have become  a bit of a grind due to a  combination of poor weather, lack of opportunity and just just mental tiredness.  However I had been looking forward to this particular club competition. The competition was "Album or book covers" and the brief was for a photo that could be used for existing book or albums.

Obviously the first reaction is to go through in your cycle through all your album and book back catalogue and think of existing photos that might fit. However I also wanted to take the opportunity to do something new. The question was what?  Again the initial thought is to do one of the books or albums you love.  However in the end my choice may seem a bit surprising.

I chose......

Barbie Girl by Aqua

Now firstly let me state I loath this record with all my heart.

Firstly is the tune which sticks in your head like a 6 inch nail (It is in your head now isn't it? I am so sorry)

My second issue are the lyrics

"I'm a blond bimbo girl in a fantasy world

Dress me up, make it tight, I'm your dolly

You're my doll, rock'n'roll, feel the glamour in pink

Kiss me here, touch me there, hanky panky

You can touch

You can play

If you say "I'm always yours"

Not so "Me Too" generation more a Harvey Weinstein wet dream.

Then there is the whole concept of Barbie itself. Bringing up two daughters I have been bombarded with Barbie memes and items while they grew up. The whole concept is for Barbie to that a girl should have no greater ambition than to just use her phone or hang out on the beach. My youngest daughter really loved the Barbie movies, and although it showed Barbie with a bit more spunk (Not literally, we know Barbie would never do that), it was all prefaced by the need for Barbie to marry a prince.

So not exactly an obvious choice. The reason I chose it however was that I thought taht it would be great to turn the Barbie metaphor around. Not a submissive play thing, but a strong character in control of her own life.
 r on the plus side I had courtesy of my daughters access to a lot of raw material and I  had already been playing with them for another project.(Any Mattel executives reading this may want to look away now)

 

 Lets go Barbie

Raiding my daughters cupboards I already had some of raw materials. However I needed a male doll, so it was onto eBay to get a cheap "Ken". I also needed to Barbie attire which was let us say less wholesome than  is usually provided. So it was again to the internet, although I would not recmmend googling  "Barbie sexy lingerie" to anyone with a sensitive disposition.
 
When I received my "Ken" I realised I had a problem. I had in mind a specific pose for Ken, but I was found that unlike Barbie,  Ken comes with no knees or elbows. Basically he appears to be designed to stand around while letting Barbie get on with the household chores, look after the dog and the baby etc. One solution would be to use photoshop to bend Ken's limbs as required, but that would of made getting my montage correct. Therefore more drastic action was required via the use of a hacksaw and superglue.  

We can rebuild him, we have the technology

The rest of the setup was relatively simple. A false wall was built out of card and decorated with suitable wallpaper and placed on a old floor tile.  The figures were positioned in various poses and photos taken with a single flash on a diffuser.  The biggest problem was the looks I got from both my Wife and Daughter when they stumbled over what I was doing. . However they have long ago accepted my foibles although I did feel a little guilty besmirching my daughters childhood despite good my intentions

Barbie does glamour model.

Life in plastic, it's fantastic

This was the result. My concept was not the usual Stepford wives Barbie, but an anti-barbie who was in control and was not going to be submissive to anyone and I was quite pleased how it turned out.

50 shades of pink

I must admit however I had some of misgivings about entering it since I don't know what the reaction would be from the judge or the other club members.

Fortunately in a judge we had Ashley Franklin. Apart from being one of the nicest and best Judges on the circuit, Ashley in his past lives had been a DJ for Radio Derby and had a nice sideline in doing images for book covers.  He was the perfect judge for the evening and really got into the spirit of the event.

The audience reaction was also pleasing, with a lot of laughter when it came up. I also think it is an image that people will remember for a while, which I think should always be one of the aims of any art.  

I didn't put the image in to win, and in that I was not disappointed (although it did score 19). In fact the whole competition was a success, with a lot of imagination from members and any club who are looking for competition ideas I would thoroughly recommend it  as a theme.

However its not really an image that I imagine I will show again, but at least it was a lot more fun than my recent output.  So if you are in a rut, take my advice and try and plan something new, it might just get you going again.