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Finals

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Prints on Gallery Wall

For millennia people have altered the way people perceive the body. Now we have platforms where we show our everyday lives and technology that has brought us stronger together as a world. The purpose of this shot was to capture the action shots of what happens on videos when creating Only Fans content. How it makes the viewer want to grab into the photograph and touch the seductive body. I purposely selected the hand image to give an idea of the viewers hand grabbing into the whispering eye or onto the necklace.

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Opinion of OF

I decided to create a segment in which I share my own opinion of the site. As a woman, I think it is necessary for the photographer to offer an insight on the subject and to explain the influence of only fans. It's a pro female option to make our own money, and we're creating our own roads with the help of ourselves, not men. Women are under less pressure to share something more than what they are satisfied with, and continue to own their content.  Advantages are attached to Only Fans as it helps women to establish their own rights and distribute consensual material while owning the whole method. How we view ourselves has been determined by the Partiarchate for too long. Women can finally stand on their two feet and say I am independent and have the total freedom to do what I want to do, not based on someone else's judgement or opinion.

The real definition of feminism is the freedom of women to make their own decisions. The dilemma right now is that women, whether they wish to be or not, are sexualized and mistreated to meet the "needs" of a man. But that doesn't mean that women don't/don't want to be sexual creatures at all. 

We have the right to want sex, to feel beautiful, to seek affirmation.

And I've seen girls on social media being branded whores and sluts because they have an account, so allow me just to tell you, these girls make some real money and you know what... good for them! 

Why do people care too much about what another human does about their bodies?

Women have been sexually exploited particularly for years and are now dominated. After they started sexting and posting nude shots to your partner or anyone, people have had to worry about revealing their private photos, which shouldn't even cross peoples minds but because of the rise of social media, we have seen peoples true colours. Men in particular love to show nudes to their friends, and for what? To boost your ego that you can get girls to send you nudes? When in the context of women, they just want to feel empowered by the bodies and pleasure the opposite sex. It’s just disheartening that there are a lot of people out there that do leak nudes and completely crossing the boundaries for women. 

I HATE THAT MEN THINK THEY CAN TREAT US LIKE OBJECTS.

Men face all the drawbacks as the notion of women becoming their own entrepreneurs does not appeal to them. There is a stigma about only fans oand how those  post it are viewed, but I don't think our society likes the fact that women are their own entrepreneurs. Could it mean that men are intimidated by Only Fans?

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Edited Photographs

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Contact Sheet

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Social Experiment/What Next

With the pandemic interrupting shoots for myself with other people, I decided to take a different route. I wanted to do a type of “social experiment” meaning have myself as the subject and direct my friend on where to shoot/angles etc. The reason I did this is because I wanted to step into the shoes of Only Fans Creators and feel what it’s like to take pictures for content and for male attention. I purposely chose my male house mate to shoot these to see what his reaction was as a male because I wanted to have that reaction that the Only Fans creator girls would have. 

The point of convergence of this shoot is to catch the developments of the "performance show" that gets fans aroused and induced. I need the subject to be tantalizing and to catch a feeling of allurement and enticement in the atmosphere of the photographs. The fundamental selling point is to have the watcher stimulated to see more and purchase more.

I am going to use black and white film to have more intimate shots and to create shadows and energetic fields of lust. 

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Inspiration

Lucien Clergue was a French photographer most popular for his photos of graceful female nudes. Clergue attentiveness in various masterful media, in various styles and techniques is something that has denoted his profession. The artist typically shot black and white, and the figures are caught in various circumstances. His creations are described by a significant provocative play with shadows and exposed female bodies.

It would be very hard to decide if Clergue's photos of bare female bodies could be considered as erotica. There is no portrayal of sex or frontal bareness in his piece. All things considered, his photos do have a specific level of sexiness. By impeccably portraying the magnificence of stripped female body, Lucien Clergue had guaranteed his spot in the rundown of the best photographers of nakedness.

These images have inspired me to develop more silhouettes and eloquent to my future images because I want to shoot with the intention of how you are so lucky to be your spiritual self in this physical body, like its your temple. We have to incorporate these artistic expressions in these shoots, it is the purpose for these images. We as human beings have to use our visual form to appreciate everyones beauty and emotional power.

This image speaks to me as I love the lining of this piece. The fact that when you first glance at the image, you question what it is but as you focus more you see the enchanting features and highlights. I really want to do a black and white shoot next to focus purely on the lines, shadows and expression of the body. I have bought black and white film for my fish eye camera so I want to do another shoot for my “Only Cams” project.

I think as a photographer you have a certain style you go for, and personally I subconsciously lean towards shadows and things outwardly. Things that are never seen before. Weirdly, I have things thing about hands and the structure, power that comes with it. I think as a viewer it catches the eye as the artistic form of it is beautiful. I love this image so much, and would love to do something like this in the future. The body is a complete art form and I want to showcase all the art in the world.

I have selected this photograph because I love that the colour is aquamarine as it possesses “protective qualities and and instils fearlessness” It reconnects the channel of meaningful communication and spirituality in a person. I always love incorporating spirituality and my subjects. And I would love to represent this colour in a way that the subject meets with her soul.

Maybe use one tone in a photograph?

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Nudes4Sale Documentary

This is a BBC 3 documentary about only fans that featured cases of young women posting to earn money to avoid homelessness. 

Onlyfans has developed to an estimated 450,000 creators and 30 million clients. The platoform owner Thomas Stokley disclosed to BuzzFeed News in May that the site developed quickly since the beginning of the pandemic with 7,000 to 8,000 new creators joining each day. Episodically a portion of this development is by all accounts fuelled by those in other sex ventures moving solely on the web. In any case, a significant sum is because of new females were pulled in by the venture to bring in some cash during COVID-19 due to the fact that they were battling to pay for rent and basic bills as a lot of people were on furlough getting only 80% of their pay or others simply lost their jobs during the crisis. A lot of students were in this category of having financial difficulties due to the government not supporting students during the pandemic. People in university would of survived on weekend jobs to survive or dipped into their savings. However, for students who don't want to go home after university, where do they stand now?

Its a stage that carries adult work into the social media age. Presently with a great deal of the populace longing for the 'influencer' life of having large houses, going on holidays consistently, Only Fans has expanded like never before previously.

A key point to understanding onlyfans is recognising how heavily this site is being promoted to young women. There are masses of articles and videos giving step by step advice on how to create an onlyfans account and start earning money, including on well-known media such as Metro and Pink News. I have watched multiple young women say on video how they saw everyone talking about onlyfans, became intrigued, and decided to set up an account.As a radical feminist, you will understand the harms of porn to all women. But why does this new site matter? After all, pornhub has existed for many years?The reason it matters is that the design of onlyfans draws in many more young women to the sex industry, many of whom would have been unlikely to access it through other methods. Everything from its name, the terms of content creators and subscribers, the referral scheme which encourages posts about exaggerated earnings, to the many how-to guides, encourages women who are attracted by earning some extra cash and are misled into thinking that all they have to do is post a few photos of them in lingerie to see the money rolling in.

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Black and White

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Top Images

I love the one at the top, however I wish I was more aware about how much of unwanted things were in the shot. If I were to go back again and reshoot I would of took away the chair, stuff on the desk, wash basket and scarf. In a way it looks more untouched and more candid whereas I wanted to go for the minimalistic route.

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Contact Sheets

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Plan

For my next shoot, I wanted to take inspiration from Susan Meiseles because she portrayed the lives of the women that carried a temporary world to the public and also related back to the movement of feminism. Which fits my practice of the OF series. I also liked the aesthetic of her photos with rawness and candidness feel to the photographs. I was more attracted that the photographs were black and white as it becomes a striking image and essentially assembles a gateway to the inner life of things.

So, I want to have my images in a similar way of historical distance because the platform Only Fans is a historical age in our postmodern world. I think it has been a massive change for sex workers as in patriarchy terms men would be in power of the sex workers and feed off their hard work. Whereas now, they're is a real change for equality here as the roles have reversed and now females are they're own bosses. 

The aesthetic and style I am going for is minimalistic and to have the subject be the main focus of the photographs. So white plain bed with nothing on the walls. The camera that I am going to use is my fish eye film camera as I wanted to shape the photograph as a bubble like the bubble the female is in when she uses OF and how she feels like she has an own temporary world she lives in. 

I want the shoot to have more sex appeal to the photographs, like she is posing for a photo for her content. But I also want to capture a mixture of artsy photos like double exposure as the way Antonia describes only fans is its like a “different dimension” due to her playing a role that is opposite to her. 

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Documentary on OF

Why are people suddenly willing to pay for porn on Only Fans when they can get the same thing for free on PornHub?

This documentary informs you that most porn stars get paid next to nothing. An actor from deep throat; one of the first hardcore mainstream pornos (1972) and was only paid $100. By 2014 people weren’t buying DVDs like deep throat anymore, they were watching them for free on one of the hundreds of porn sites that are on the internet. Because of this, performers started getting paid more per scene. 

As social media began to rise such as Snapchat a lot of people were putting their lives on the internet more frequently. Snapchat an app where pictures and videos are posted to a story and then disappear after 24 hours. This allowed you to post and distribute video on mobile, message people and accept payment, who could that possibly appeal to?

Adult performers then started to cancel their contracts to Porn sites and moved over to Snapchat. They would create an account and tell followers to subscribe to their premium. Snapchat doesn’t officially allow this content on their app, it was just a way for adult performers hacked together so that they could sell porn, they create a private Snapchat account and if people wanted to see the porn they posted they had to pay a subscription through Paypal or Bank.

It probably seems like this was a small scale operation like the porn version of a lemonade stand but turns out performers were making a lot.  One of the interviewers girlfriends made 30,000 in just one week creating content on Snapchat. Eventually girls were making so much money that established mainstream porn stars like Lana Rhodes and Leela Star left their contracts to focus on Snapchat. Porn stars are only getting a tiny percentage of the money that clip will ever make whereas on Snapchat you are getting 90% of the money.

Then Only Fans was made in 2016 and instead of having to create private under the table accounts like they did on Snapchat that constantly got shut down, only fans officially allowed adult performers to post and charge Porn.

But why are willing to pay for porn on Only Fans when they can get the same thing on Pornhub for free?

 In the video they use Starbucks as an example. In the 1970s coffee in America was disgusting, it came in a can and was cheap but when Howard Schultz (founder of Starbucks) went on a trip to Italy, he fell in love with the coffee bars there as the coffee was good and the atmosphere was so comfortable that people hang out for hours. When he came back to America his vision for Starbucks was to replicate that amazing experience he’d had by selling European coffee in a amazing atmosphere, Starbucks was able to transform coffee from a cheap commodity into a luxury that sold for double the price. 

So the answer to the question is people are willing to pay for the thing that’s better as its premium just like Starbucks coffee.

Howard found the middle ground between work and home and that’s exactly what adult performers did they turned premium snapchat into a middle ground between porn and girlfriend. Which can be seen as the “virtual girlfriend experience”.

Unlike a cam girl site where performers are in a chatroom full of 500 guys, performers on Only Fans send porn privately to their clients. At Starbucks they write your name on the cup as it is more personalised and on OF girls say their clients name privately.

The girlfriend experience is all about intimacy without the attachments of being in a long-term relationships, so, OF girls don’t just strip for their clients they talk to them by saying ‘Good morning’ ‘Good night’. They learn their kids names, pets and when their birthdays are. Its almost like they are part therapists, part friend.

In the traditional porn the performers were employees and not happy ones. But now that they have jilted they have became small business owners. Performers now get to perform in the comfort of their own bedrooms instead of being on set and in studios and not exploited by the owner of the sites. 

Comments

Intimacy means a lot to people, even if it is a service. A lot of people, mostly men can feel alone but not communicate with anyone physical as it takes their ‘masculine title’ away from them. However, with OF they have almost like a virtual therapist girlfriend, where they can physically, emotionally, mentally and sexually please them and accept them. It’s just crazy to me that technology can give you the power to not feel alone anymore?!?!?

Only fans as more advantages as say for instance, Cam girls require both the model and their fans to be on at the same time at the live event. However, OF offers the service 24/7 as the content is always on their page unless the owner takes it down. Onlyfans doesn't rely on livestreaming. This fundamentally changes the way Onlyfans can generate revenue: a model never needs to go live and their subscribers never need to tune in at a certain time in order to give them money.

Onlyfans turns that on its head: you can work as much or as little as you like and you can also set the price based on what you believe the market will pay. You could in theory shoot pictures and videos for a month straight and slowly post them over the following year providing the illusion that you are generating fresh content to your subscribers. It's essentially a social/content distribution network that generates passive income with the option to set your own price for custom content.

Technology has reached a point where girls can produce decent porn with their phones and macbooks. Ten years ago, plenty of cam girls were making fine money, but they couldn’t compete with studios on basic video quality. Today they can record from their iphones at a resolution acceptable to more viewers.

It’s the same way your average travel vlogger on youtube now has drone shots of things only studios could capture with helicopters a decade ago. Everyday technology is giving power to the everyman.

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Susan Meiselas on shooting Carnival Strippers

Carnival Strippers is an extremist in the background look into the world of smalltown fair striptease. From 1972 to 1975, Susan Meiselas spent her summers shooting and talking ladies who performed striptease for smalltown jamborees in New England, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. As she followed the young lady shows from town to town, she depicted the artists in front of an audience, shooting their performances as well as the behind the scenes.

Susans portrayal of the lives of these ladies carried a secret world to public consideration. Delivered during the early years of the ladies development and the movement for feminist, this series mirrors the battle for confidence and identification that distinguished a intricate time of change. 

I love the above photograph because it shows an intimate moment between the subject and the viewer as it is an insight into the subjects world. I like the fact that you don't have to see the subjects face to get a sense of their character. The way she is holding the cigarettes connotes the feeling of tiredness but comfortability at the same time. She owns her body but it gets tired that the fact that people are staring at her constantly and judging her. 

This photograph indicates a youthful regal women presenting herself on a stand, she looks unmindful of the gazes of the men encompassing her whilst she looks articulate in the way she carries her self by looking ahead with confidence. This is an extremely powerful moment as she looks so strong willed with herself.

These images provides visual substance and depthless. In the words of Susan Sontag, the status of black and white is authentic as it is judged in relation to past time being captured properly. It's a sense of age, historical distance and aura. 

The behind the scenes photos are one of my favourites because it is an understanding into their transitory world. How they are normal human beings who craves a lil “pick me up” like everyone else do. 

Throughout her article in Another Magazine she quoted “The idea of projecting a self to attract a male gaze was completely counter to my sense of culture – to what I wanted for myself – so I was fascinated by women who were choosing to do that... The feminists of that period were perceiving the girls shows as exploitative institutions that should be closed down so I was actually positioned in the place of feeling these voices should be heard, they should self-define as to who they are and what their economic realities are.”

I admire that the photographer took the time to live with these people to fully understand and have knowledge of the systems that these woman goes through. These portraits have probably helped the strippers to own themselves without having a crowd look at your very soul. Being asked to be a subject in a photo is liberating and empowering and you can see that on the looks of the women's faces.

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Scratching the magazine idea

After my work review, I had a lot of things to think about. 

I thought about the journey of my work and I was really rushing my final product. The whole lockdown tier 2.0 made me question a lot of things about my project as I didn't feel fulfilled about my mini series I did to fit the project “Young people in the Pandemic”. I was happy about my photographs, yes, however I just feel like they were all so incomplete that my first thought was just to throw all of them in a magazine so they all compliment each other and the project would be fulfilled. Because the project means so much to me and how I want to represent it I think I got caught in the overthinking process and was stressing about protecting the project that I lost a bit of faith along the way.

I would say that my favourite mini series that I did was the ‘Only Cams’ because out of all of them it felt more intimate and deep. I have the most connections for this as well and it represents “Young people in the Pandemic” as I want to portray that young people (mostly students) are struggling to survive out in this world as students rely on jobs to earn a living and in this covid-19 world they can't access that. A lot of people cant pull through on just student loan, most of the time it just covers rent so where does that leave for food???

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Youth Culture Images I took