What you are looking at and will continue to look at in this post is the fruit of our labour (pun fully intended). It started off with Michelle volunteering to do a shoot for me in a pink outfit and pink gloves, as inspired by @uuanjie. But the concept slowly evolved over two really productive planning sessions in the middle of the night, and we started including more and more things. We used reference photos from @kingvuddha, @jhfxxng, and @xenia.lau to further plan out this concept.
Obviously, this was a shoot that had to be done indoors. We came to this conclusion at the end of our first planning session. We had too many props we wanted to use. But we obviously don't have money to rent a studio, or an airbnb. Michelle is after all, only a student. Luckily for us, my boss allowed us to use the second floor of Chug Chug as our "studio" space.
We bought ourselves strawberries, dragonfruits, grapefruits, strawberry milk from Meiji (please sponsor us), a pink shower curtain from Daiso to act as our backdrop, heart shaped stickers from Daiso, and a huge pink cloth from Joo Chiat to be the tablecloth. We borrowed wine glasses from my bartender as well.
Now, I'm sure most of you reading this would know this, but I have no sense of aesthetics or DIY. You see, the original idea was to use the shower curtain as the table cloth and the cloth as the backdrop. But the cloth was way too heavy, so Michelle thought it would be a better idea to swap them around.
Our original idea was to draw red hearts on her cheeks, but we couldn't figure out what to use to draw without staining her cheeks, and we were lucky that Daiso sold such big heart stickers. Which was perfect for our shoot. Sticking it on her cheeks on the other hand, was tougher than I thought. Because these stickers weren't the thin kind that can bend to any shape they're pasted on. These ones had to be stuck delicately on her cheekbone and then pray that they don't drop off.
The shoot quickly evolved from posing with fruits and milk to "killing" them. I just went "Michelle, hold the knife and stab that dragonfruit". From there, the 'sweet but psycho' mood took over, with Michelle digging her fingers into the dragonfruit like she was murdering a heart.
She was afraid of staining her fingers at first, so she wore the gloves to dig inside the meat of the dragonfruit. But after a few minutes, she felt ready to use her bare hands. The results were instantly ten fold better, you could really feel that "don't you dare cheat on me" vibe. The dragonfruit juice dripping down her hands made it all a bit more horrifically aesthetic. But it ultimately led to her saying "I hate you Sean, my hands are stained pink." And because she couldn't be the only one stained, she poked my face with her finger that was still dripping with dragonfruit juice. Thanks Michelle.
Our all pink set-up got the attention of my boss, Xinde, when he came back to Chug for his own shoot. He was so amazed he came over to compliment it. And the best part? Dee Kosh saw our set up and actually wanted to borrow it for their shoot LIKE SIS. The both of us were so damn happy about it I swear. Getting noticed by such a huge Singapore public figure is definitely something to be proud of, and would be placed in my resume if it's allowed.
Overall, I am just so proud, ecstatic, and obsessed with how the photos turned out. This was really a dream shoot for me. Pink backdrop, pink outfit, pink everything. I was kinda worried about lighting issues but the window light was more than enough to light up Michelle's face and the whole setup. While Michelle's concern was if a pink outfit would be too much with all that pink in the setup, but it turned out pretty amazing. So our worries were for nothing. I have never been so in love with my own photos, but this set is easily my favourite. I've always wanted to try shooting with a backdrop like this, with an elaborate setup, and they have all come true in one shoot. Huge thanks to my iconic strawberry girl for helping make this dream come true. (My only regret is that we didn't take any selfies with our setup SIGH)
Model:
@michelle.emmanuelle
"Studio":
@chugchugsg
Photographer:
@dustyrobe aka me
Inspirations:
@jhfxxng (main inspiration for the setup)
@kingvuddha (for his exceptional use of strawberries)
@xenia.lau (makeup idea)
@uuanjie (original inspiration regarding the pink gloves)
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