Pretty Boy Shooter?

Not very long ago, I was hired to shoot for a small clothing company. It was for a new men's underwear line they were coming out with and they picked me because, according to them, I was more experienced shooting skin than the fashion shooters they were considering.

I had never shot this sort of stuff before. When I asked what they were looking for, the designer simply said, "A bit dark and edgy."

How dark and how edgy I did not know. After all, "dark and edgy" covers a lot of ground. But I didn't want to sound like we--the designer and I--weren't on the same page so I nodded and intelligently replied. "Aaaah. Okay." Synergy is an important thing, especially between a designer and the person who will photograph their designs.

I did some homework before the shoot. This mostly consisted of combing the internet for images of men in underwear. I put concerns about my heterosexuality (remaining intact) on the back-burner as I Googled with key-words like, "men" and "male" and "underwear." This took me to plenty of sites with examples of good-looking, scantily-clad men with lean, muscular bodies, primping in their skivvies. I also Googled for "Calvin Klein" and "underwear ads" and those results were fairly helpful altho I knew the designer wasn't really looking to emulate Calvin Klein's ads. (Although the last image I'm posting with this entry sort of steals from that well-known Calvin Klein undie-ad featuring Marky Mark.)

Since the fashion folks wanted the images shot on a seamless, my biggest concern was posing the models. I was confident I could do something that qualified as "dark and edgy" lighting-wise without too much of a problem. Most of my experience, however, is with women: Posing them in provocative, sensual ways. I figured "provocative" should remain somewhat in the equation but I wasn't sure "sensuous" was what I should be going for. At least, not from the perspective of my personal definition of "sensuous."

I went to the forums and asked for advice. One forum contributor wrote that, instead of making an "S" with the models' bodies, I should make a "C." It seems "C's" are more masculine than "S's" which, I suppose, is a little-known quirk of the Roman alphabet. I thought about asking someone I know--someone who happens to be an English teacher--if that were true, i.e., if "S's" were feminine and "C's" masculine. But I tossed that idea out. After all, what do English teachers know about photographing people in the buff or near-buff, right? (Well, most English teachers, that is. I'm sure there might be a few who do.)

In the end, the shoot went fine. The models were easy to work with. They were very macho guys! Interestingly, the models were more concerned with me shooting them in a masculine manner than I was. The designer and the "fashion marketing consultant" he brought along with him seemed satisfied with the images. The MUA, Davia, was noticeably more happy working with these "hunks" than with the usual pretty girls.

Sorry, but I don't recall the names of the models. Images were captured with a Canon 20D w/ 85mm prime, ISO 100, f/4 @ 125th. As I recall, I used two light sources: A Mola beauty dish camera right and a little behind the models and a small softbox, boomed overhead, from behind. I also set a 3' x 5', white, reflective panel to bounce fill back in from the front.