Part 2: The shoot that took 4 months (NSFW Images within)
Hello again! Two posts in two days. Hell must’ve frozen over!
So where were we? Me stressing about my motivations I think. Enough of that.
Here’s a photo of how the helmet ended up looking after I finished it. Pretty slimy and gross. Makes you wonder what happened the all the test subjects who wore it before the girl in the photos eh?
The completed helmet
After the helmet, I had to think about how I would work it into the overall concept. I knew I could link the ends of the stainless steel braided hoses back into the sockets on the helmet, but that didn’t really give it any context…you know unless she was swapping brain juices from one side to the other. I mean, that might be cool. I’d be a lot better at maths if I could use the right or left side of my brain at will. Unfortunately that will never be.
I decided I needed to have the hoses connect to something. At first I wanted to use the 1920’s generator I rescued from my Father’s junk pile, but I shoot in my home in what can only be described as a second loungeroom (although, to make it sound a little more highbrow I prefer to call it The Studio). The ceiling already fell in last year and the last thing I wanted was to have to go through that nightmare again.
An old vacuum gauge I bought on Etsy and mossed up.
As a compromise, I decided I’d need something to give a nod to some kind of mechanical function, so I bought a nice old vacuum gauge on Etsy and once again aged it by applying paint to the face. It was old to begin with, but not crappy enough for me. The poor seller actually apologized that it was a bit rusty…little did she know. My Father nabbed an old brass cymbal from a scrap metal yard which he cut down for me and put holes the correct diameter around the edge. Ironically you can barely see the detail in the finished shots, but without it the whole thing just looked like one of those devices they used to milk cows on commercial dairies. Can you tell I grew up in rural Australia? No one else would think something like that!
Some people have asked about the pheasant capelet. I picked up the pheasant pelts at a good price from a fly fisherman who was selling them to people who wanted to make lures. They were actually purchased for me to steal the tail feathers for a headdress I made for the amazingly talented Burlesque artist Danica Lee. I’d removed most of the longest tail feathers, but I couldn’t bear to throw away the rest. The beautiful iridescent rust and gold plumage was just too amazing. I loved the way when I pinned them on one of my mannequins, it made me think of the 1980’s cartoon Battle of the Planets. I then fashioned a somewhat rudimentary harness from some of the leather I had, cut the dessicated pheasant heads from their bodies and attached the pelts with grommets and cord. Once again, not especially good for everyday wear, but excellent for a photoshoot.
Next onto the backdrop. I often use false walls as backdrops for my shoots. They’re incredibly practical. They can be painted again and again and you can add fixtures and shelves and fake windows and then just repaint or resheet when you want to do something else. Anyhow, I’d never been able to bring myself to strip the one I used for my cover shoot for Fiend Magazine. I loved it so much, at the time it was my most elaborate set from a time and money point of view.
One of my previous Steampunk shoots
Anyhow, in a vague attempt to be a bit thrifty, I stripped the pipes off the old backdrop and used another false wall to make the whole backdrop twice as wide. I knew this time I wanted the backdrop to be considerably more complex, so I used smaller pvc pipe which I lovingly gave a tarnished look with a combination of metallic gold, copper and brass spray paint and completed the effect by half depressing the nozzle with lime green and mint green spray paint. If you do this while the main colour is still wet, the greens bleed into the brassy colour giving an oxidized look to the pipe. Since posting the finished work on flickr someone has already asked me how I could afford all that copper pipe. I call that a result!
Prepping the set. Huge mess.
As you can see, I got rather familiar with my power tools…and Bunnings (local hardware superstore place). One of the door bitches …er, I mean Greeters sniggered at me, “Did hubby send you down here with a shopping list?”. I wouldn’t call myself a rampant Feminist but that shit just pisses me off. When my Husband and I first got married, we got a flat tire and I changed it because he didn’t know how. I didn’t pout and worry about chipping a nail. I just did it because it needed to be done. So what? He vacuums, I don’t. So what?
Anyhow, enough ranting. I did a few test shots after placing all the pipes and attaching the wonderful antique electrical master switch I got on ebay. I should say, the set was only completed the night before the actual shoot. Nothing like cutting things fine!
Lighting test
After this shot was taken, we cleared my sideboard of all the bad 80’s records it usually contains and dragged it into the studio. I filled it full of all of my favourite curiosities and collectables and as many cloth bound books as I could find in my book shelf. Don’t look too close, while the 1886 edition of The American Medical Instructor is a great addition to the feel of the shots (Did you know pimples are really flesh worms? So says the medical knowledge that was available back then!) The Coma by Alex Garland is possibly a little anachronistic.
Anyhow, if any of you are still reading, I’m just going to drop the resulting images down here, click em to make em biggerer. Feel free to ask any questions. I love talking about my work!
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