This is the April edition of Playboy South Africa which I shot with Yolande Malherbe in my studio in Cape Town. It was a really fantastic shoot with beautiful lingerie brands and lots of gold and sparkly accessories.
The theme for the shoot was “selfies” and we used original Polaroid type film to shoot a series of selfies (some are shown in this post). We also incorporated a Polaroid camera in some of the images.
A TV crew joined the shoot and did some filming for an edition of Glambition,- Jo-Ann Strauss’s TV series at that time.
The shoot was all done with a sort of white-crumpled-sheets background, black lingerie, accessories and Polaroid’s. I really loved this shoot and had so much fun doing it.
Ive mixed in some behind the scenes shots below.
Below is a self portrait I shot, just for fun. It was the same set-up as the cover of the magazine.
Below are more behind the scenes shots and also my interview with Jo-ann.
In August 2012 I initiated a new series of work, using the Playboy South Africa Playmates, to go alongside a group exhibition called Nostalgia, which I was curating at Exposure Gallery.
A series of shots on the side for Yolandi to post on social media…
The approach for the shoot took a while for me to plan, I wanted the final images to really look like old originals and thus decided to layer the processing of the images.
I shot in studio against a mid-tone grey back-drop roll using two lights; a strip soft box creating rim light and a beauty-dish with a grid as the main light. After retouching and quite substantial colour manipulation (to adjust backgrounds and props appropriately) I overlaid the files with previously documented textures and then had them printed out onto cotton-based Hanhemulle.
I spent a couple of days staining, soaking, burning, crushing, folding and generally damaging these originals until they looked sufficiently handled and then re-documented them on a white background. These files were again re-worked before final exhibition prints were created , again on Hahnemulle.
Bubbles, hair, makeup, refernces, shooting, nails and friends popping in (thats Yolandi M. top middle, Mpho bottom middle and Leigh Van Den Berg bottom right)
For each of the playmates I worked with I produced a semi-nude final image for the exhibition and a nude for publication in Playboy magazine itself. We also shot one or two fun closer up shots for each Playmate to use on social media.
Great pinup-style makeup done on Yolandi Wiggett by Colleen Van Rensberg.
In October 2014 I worked on an advert for www.passionfruit.co.za as director of photography.
The online sex-toy retailer had cleverly decided to advertise during the launch and screening of the much anticipated cinema block-buster “50 Shades of Grey” (launching Friday 13th February, 2015, TODAY!).
We had 20 seconds of advertising space, the ad would be the last one screened before the movie showed across the country, a creative and fun project to be involved with.
Some behind the scenes moments captured during the making of www.passionfruit.co.za’s NuMetro cinema advert last year at Banksia Boutique Hotel.
Ross Campbell did a fab job of shooting all the video footage and managed the editing and sound while I co-ordinated location, styling, models, props, concept and dialogue, etc. We shot over one day at the beautiful Banksia Boutique Hotel in Rosebank, Mowbray with our male figure Daryn (not pictured here) and model Yolande Malherbe who I worked with at Playboy a few years previously.
The concept was simple, fun and clear: www.passionfruit.co.za is the place you’re going to find your inner 50-Shades as they don’t just stock the original range, designed with the author of the book, but also another 1000+ similar goodies to spice up your bedroom life-style in which ever way you choose.
The ad played loosley on the characters in the movies’ storyline as well as having a touch of a BDSM feel in a very low-key way.
I enjoyed the editing process which I’m not so familiar with since I only work with stills. The added elements of timing, movement and sound etc are so powerfully interpreted by a viewer…
I shot a few stills after the shoot for www.passionfruit.co.za to use as banner ads on their webpage or social media platforms if needed, and one or two pretty lingerie-ish ones just for Yolandi and myself.
Its the first time the negligee she’s wearing has ever been used from my lingerie collection….and its been in there for a good 10 years.
I mailed Yolandi these few pics a day ago and asked her what her thoughts were about the shoot we did together:
What did you think of the concept for the advert which was loosely based on the characters of the 50 Shades movie?
I thought it was a clever. I mean, selling sex toys is never subtle or discreet, but the way this ad was done, was brilliant! When I heard who all would be a part of the production team, I was totally at ease and knew it would be done super professionally.
Your thoughts on lip-biting “know-how” now that yours will be cinema screen size?
It’s all in the name of pulling off a great job. I had my shy moments on set and I blushed when I saw the final results, but everyone knows I’m not conservative and very open minded. People will probably be like “Of course Yolandi is in this ad. Wasn’t she a sex columnist at one point?”
How do you think the movie 50 Shades of Grey will be received in SA….do you think passionfruit is going to run out of stock? ;-)
I dont think SA is as conservative as before, so there will definitely be no protesters outside! Haha! People loved the book and now there’s a movie – recipe for success. And I most definitely think people are going to save the website link when they see the ad, just before they have to switch their phones off. And then when they get home….add to cart.
I reckon 50 Shades has done quite a bit for South African conservatism in the bedroom…which means passionfruit have probably hit the nail on the head with their ad space. This quote from the passionfruit press release:
Jörg Masche, Co-Founder of Passionfruit.co.za, believes that the global phenomenon of the 50 Shades trilogy has lifted taboos and shifted stigmas, allowing people to expand their sexual consciousness and unwrap their sexuality without fear of judgement.“Activities such as role-play and BDSM (Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission) have become acceptable thanks to 50 Shades,” adds Masche. “Kinky is in and, as a result, many couples who were playing around with the ideas of role play or something a bit saucier, can now experiment and have fun without any negativity attached to their sexual preferences.”
I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of press comes of the 50 Shades movie in SA media as well as hearing about how this advert effects www.passionfruit.co’s stock levels…
I’m so constantly aware of this pursuit for perfection in women around me. It appears in many different ways, be it eating disorders, aggressive beauty treatments, make-overs, insecurities, etc. It is the opposite of self-acceptance I think it is created by our overexposure to advertising with its polished images of what is so-called-perfect mixed also with the strange importance we give to fame and celebrity. The byproduct of this pre-occupation is uncertainty about ones own self-image and an obsession with it. Of course also living in a social media “era” has made it even more vivid as we’re bombarded with images that have all been curated to depict how we see ourselves and others.
A staged “selfie” I shot of Yolandi during our cover shoot, made to look authentically safe taken.
The “selfie”, self-photo phenomenon, is a prime example of our self-identifying-obsession. The word itself, which I recently read was chosen as “Word of the Year for the Oxford English Dictionary”, just goes to show the extent of our new self-depicting obsession. The selfie trend tells us so much about how we selectively choose to portray ourselves to others based on what we assume is beautiful, acceptable, cool. It also picks up on the demand for authenticity in the subject via the amateur camera holder as apposed to the overly perfected images we are saturated with.
It was such a relevant theme to pick up on for one of the cover shoots I was commissioned for earlier last year for magazine brand Playboy South Africa. The cover model, Yolandi Malherbe, is a past playmate and is very exposed to this issue through the social media she participates in, I liked the idea of playing with the irony of her self-mania on “her” cover, the look and concept of which were in my hands.
I photographed the Playboy South Africa April 2013 cover with Yolandi Malherbe as its cover “celebrity”, her nudity covered with Polaroid selfies.
I’ve been working with nudes, both commercially and in my own fine art based projects, since I started as a photographer. Many of the models I’ve worked with in the nude/swimwear etc genre now have their own self created Facebook “fan” pages. Its such a strange platform and in most ways is very narcissistic, inviting an over-inflated concept of “self”.
A selection of the 100 polaroids I shot of Yolandi Malherbe on her cover shoot for Playboy SA.
The models fill their pages with images of themselves; some professionally taken and the rest are often sexy selfies. The majority of the feedback and support they receive comes from anonymous followers (predominantly men from anywhere, often conservative countries) who enjoy the free “kick” thrown into their daily newsfeeds. I suppose that even though its 95% hot air it feeds a feeling of self-worth and therefore the behaviour is flourishing.
I styled my subject to reflect the self-within-the-self-within-the-self as a paradox, the twisted version we accept and create currently in a strange cycle between beauty and self identity.
An image from Yolandi’s pictorial where she poses taking her own selfies with a vintage Polaroid camera.
In my series of images with Yolandi, apart from depicting her beautifully and sexily as the brand expects, I played with this notion of the Selfie as a kind of reversed insecurity, a tool we have started to use to gain a kind of attention. The images thus try to depict the model in layers: she is (1) the subject of the images and article, (2) she is photographed by me, (3) photographing herself, (4) showing you herself within the image again and (5) incorporate photos of herself within polaroids of herself which coyly draw attention to (6) the object of the images which is her own nudity/sexuality.
