The Beauty and the Beast.
Botswana, Gaborone. Regular photography assignment for the day, shooting beauty/spa commercial pictures. Lots of girls, splashy pool pictures, facials, humidifiers, massages, etc. the whole deal. We were well passed the half of the shoot and start preparing the massages beds’ .I went outside for a ciggie as my assistant was preparing the lights and the cameras, when I came back I found this girl on the bed with a towel wrapped around her. The owner was quick to tell me “not this girl” ,I asked why….the girl slide down the towel and showed me the scars on her back, I jokingly asked her how is going the bondage thing, she smiled softly and said was some sort of accident. I ask her to stay for the massage shoot. I kept on shooting all those glamorous pictures what look good on advertising, but those scars could not go out of my head; the pattern was so beautiful. I was feeling sorry about the bondage joke and I was wondering what happen. I asked her if she will come to the studio to take some pictures of the scars. She smiled and simply asked why? I replied that I find them beautiful. I never met this girl in my life but was something behind that vivacious laugh and the smiles, when not posing her eyes showed sadness but not that sadness caused by pain, was kind of sadness mixed with peace. I asked her to go against the wall to take few portraits. I know is not the typical Botswana portrait where almost all clients just want to “see themselves “and that with an “entire face”. I just shoot few for me. Such a tight crop on half face and a 100mm macro is kind of unusual for a portrait. Many will say that the top pic is glamour shot, ring flash soft shadows, but when you look in her eye that peace and despondency pop out. I switched off all strobes and lighted a torch for a more dramatic look. Came on ,who mixes Rembrandt light with Butterfly lighting; that breaks all rules of photography is way too harsh on a close up. Well this is how I saw her when all the smiles fall, a mixture of beauty and hardness…who knows maybe I am wrong. Photography mortua est, vivat advertising I guess the top picture will do.
