Genur.art

A vertical studio photograph, camera on a tripod set at about her hip height and slightly low, 85mm at f/2.8, holding the whole figure in frame from her hair to her bare feet with generous space on both sides and the seamless paper running off past her on the left and right. In the middle of the studio floor, in front of a wide roll of pale grey seamless, an adult Japanese woman in her mid twenties stands facing the camera and holds an exposing pose, legs spread well apart with her feet planted wide and turned out, knees bent into a shallow half-squat so her hips have dropped and her thighs have taken the weight, the seat of her not yet low enough to be sitting — suspended at the bottom of a squat she is not committing to, held there with the muscles of both thighs flexed and standing out. Both hands are clasped behind her head with the elbows spread wide, chin dropped and eyes cast down and away from the lens, cheeks flushed hot pink, lips pressed together, shoulders drawn in a little — the whole body language of someone who would rather not be seen, held in position anyway. She is very tall and built extremely: broad shoulders over a narrow ribcage, a chest so heavy it pulls and hangs, a sharply cinched waist, hips flaring much wider than the waist with the iliac crest freestanding, full thighs spread wide and long straight legs, and very short cropped black hair cut close at the nape and sides with a soft fringe and a few short strands across her cheek. She is wearing almost nothing, and it is blue. The bikini top is now no more than two tiny triangular patches of glossy cobalt-blue fabric, each one cut down to barely the span of a thumb across and set so high that it covers only the very tip of each nipple, the entire areola, the whole underside and outer weight of both breasts hanging completely bare and pressing out around the edges of the patches; the patches are held by thin sliding cords tied up over each shoulder and a single thin strap across, the ties cutting thin lines into the skin. The bikini bottoms are a narrow blue band at the hips with a fabric front reduced to a thin strip that sits vertical between her labia and covers only the cleft line itself, leaving the incised crease of her groin, the outer lips and the tops of both thighs entirely bare, the strip pulling tight and faintly indenting the skin, with thin side ties and one small gold ring on the hip. The studio around her is mid-shoot rather than set dressing: the seamless paper curling off its heavy stand at the left, a large white umbrella softbox on a C-stand at the left front throwing a clean wrap across her body, a tall strip light on a boom at the right rimming her hip and shoulder, silver reflectors leaning against their stands, sandbags, taped-down cables across the concrete floor, a stepladder and a fan lying pushed aside, a padded stool and a robe left on it out of the way at the far right, and a tether monitor on a stand turned toward the camera with a shoot slate taped beside it reading「3rd set — 12 frames」. The photographer is only partly in the frame at the bottom right corner: one hand on a tripod head, the rest of the body out of shot. Light is clean commercial studio light, 5500K, the big umbrella key from the front left at a slight downward angle giving soft modelling across her torso and a broad even highlight on the skin, the strip light hard on her right edge carving her hip and the line of her arm, and a white bounce low at the front filling the underside of her chin and chest; the paper drops off gently into grey at the frame edges. The palette is held to pale grey paper, warm skin, hot cobalt blue and the small gold of the hip ring. Because her legs are wide and her knees bent, both thigh tops and the long inner line of each leg catch the key in one continuous plane down to her feet. Focus is on her face, the patches at her nipples and the strip at her groin, with the stands and the back of the studio already softened; visible skin texture, fine down catching the key light, glossy swim fabric with a small hard specular and a crease where it indents, the thin cords of the ties pressing narrow lines into her shoulders and hips, faint impression lines from the side ties, and a still, exposing, quietly mortified silence held under the lights.