Towards the end of the previous module I began looking at the work of Robert Maplethorpe after having produced a series of studio shots for a close friend of mine wearing his fetish leather and rubber gear. After showing these images during a webinar and talking about the link between the fetish and the uncanny, and my previous experiences of having worked in fetish bars and sex clubs, it was suggested that I deeper into the sexual narratives in my work. This shoot, is inspired by the Dark Rooms found at the back of many mens fetish clubs across the western world. These clubs are come in the form of Bars on the gay scene, with loud dance music and quite often an illicit men only entrance rule, the bars themselves are often darkly lit. The Dark Room, is usually a separate room either at the back of the bar or perhaps in the basement. In the UK, they are often hidden behind doors that might say "Staff Only" in order for the management to claim ignorance should there ever be a raid by police. In some other countries this is not necessary. The Dark Rooms themselves, usually come in the form of a maze, with cubicles and corridors of varying sizes, though usually cramped spaces. Sometimes there are smaller rooms with lockable doors, sometimes there are stools, slings and harnesses, sometimes there are holes in the walls, or the mazes are made up of pallets and old fencing, allowing hands and other parts of the body to reach through, or for people to watch from the other side. There is usually little or no lighting, and of there is lighting it is often very low red light. Sometimes these rooms are filled with smoke as well. The key thing is that they are Dark, and the patrons of the bar often go to stand and wait to find someone to have "fun" with, or to watch others.
In this shoot, I recreated the feel of a darkroom by shooting up close to a black backdrop and used smoke and a red gelled back light to light my subjects who were simulating a sexual act. Initial however I was looking to create portraits, side on like the one above. The intention was to capture the look of someone waiting in the dark to find another. I continued to use my model from previous shoots and there is good reason for this. he is of a more masculine build, stockier and with a full beard, more mature. young slim and muscular men are not so often found in these rooms, the denizens of these spaces tend to be more mature, there are different shapes and sizes of men in these rooms, different ages, but often in their 30's onwards (not always, but certainly in my own experience).
Moving on from this I proceeded to use wood pallets to shoot through in order to create the concept of watching someone else from another part of the dark room while also experimenting with blue gells and well as the red, wich I have seen in some bars.
The combination of the smoke, the back lighting and the gobo effect began to introduce a very cinematic feel to the work. Stylistically I am very pleased about this, I feel it helps to merge these studio photos with the style of my location shots, which are also very cinematic in presentation.
Towards the end of the shoot, I brought in another figure in order to simulate the acts watched and engaged in within these spaces. These two images are from a similar angle, with and without the pallet acting as a gobo, as if the voyeur is moving in on the act to become a part of it, like the voyeurs in Yoshiyuki's "The Park" as they moved towards the couple arms outstretched. I stuck with the red light for these shots, it seemed more real to me, but also red is the colour of passion and violence, this may be basic colour psychology but the aggressive connotations of the colour are very real, and to some degree are why the colour is used in the rooms in the first place.
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