Tuesday 29 March 2016

The Mummy

The Mummy. Simple, right? Just get a model, wrap 'em in bandages, job done. Right? Wrong! I wanted my Mummy to look ancient and scary, which meant using filthy old white rags torn to strips, after they had been made as disgusting as possible. It meant attaching a fake rib cage, and performing an extensive makeup on the model's face to show rot and decay. It was fun, it was creative, it was pretty awesome. But it wasn't simple.

The model, Jo, was great. She tolerated what was an uncomfortable "costume" (if you can call it that) and performed some great poses. It wasn't the easiest thing to wear and around the back, out of sight, there was a lot of clips, staples, and sticky tape holding various parts together.








The Angry Princess

13 Ghosts. I can't honestly say I'm a huge fan of the film, even though it is an enjoyable little flick, but the thirteen supernatural characters are fascinating. Of them all, the Angry Princess seems to be one of the most iconic and striking characters. I have no doubt that this is because she is fully nude, wearing nothing but hideous scars on her breasts and face. Notably, she even has a nasty slash right through one of her nipples, a design feature that is guaranteed to send a chill.

The "blood bath" shoot seems to be a popular theme among people who create horror photos, and before this shoot, I'd never done one. For one thing, my bathroom is too small, but I had to include a blood bath to match a scene from 13 Ghosts. So I got hold of a bath tub and set up a scene in the studio, complete with a tiled wall. With no plumbing, water had to be put in and taken out with a bucket!

The model, Phoenix, was an incredibly professional art nude. We applied prosthetic scars and a silicone nipple facade which could be sliced through. The effect was pretty disturbing.

The story of the Angry Princess is tragic and contemporary. With a history full of abusive boyfriends, low self esteem, plastic surgery, and eventually extreme self harm and suicide, the character seems to embody a complex modern female anxiety. Although she isn't in the film much (after all, the ghosts are really just an assortment of supernatural villains, each with a backstory to justify their bizarre designs), there is something particularly upsetting about the Angry Princess.

We attempted to capture some of the sadness of the character and showed a scene of her self harm, something not seen in the film. But despite how grim the photos might be, shooting it was actually great fun and we kept our usual lighthearted mood in the studio.












Behind the scenes video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U7AzFGofBY