Back in 2012, Babestation was visited by photographer Bronia Stewart.
On various nights within a 9 month period she would arrive at the studios and between the hours of 8pm and 1am she would observe the busyness, the banter and the bouncy backstage antics of a Babestation nightshow in full swing.
Having studied for an MA in Photography at London College of Communications, Bronia Stewart was chosen to take part in ‘FreshFaced + Wild Eyed’ an annual competition for photographers just coming out of MA and BA courses.
The aim of Bronia’s entry into the competition was to explore the reality behind the relationships between people who work within a hypersexualised industry. In a 2013 article for The Guardian Bronia Stewart says,
“I was interested in people’s career aspirations and work environments, and started looking at the adult entertainment industry.”
She goes on to say,
“I decided to focus on behind-the-scenes interactions. The channel is on Freeview, Sky and the internet, so it’s not hard to see the women perform. But I wanted to show the familiarity that existed between everybody who worked there. The shot also highlights the fact that our culture has become so sexualised that it’s fine for people to be chatting away in their underwear. Everyone at the studio was pretty relaxed about the nudity – in fact, I became comfortable with it, too. It didn’t matter who had clothes on and who didn’t.”
In order to gain such a range of candid, informal and naturalistic shots, it was important for Bronia Stewart to blend in to the atmosphere in which her subjects worked. To gain trust from them and engross herself within the babeshow environment – a challenge to say the least when you’re an outsider in a space where most of the people around you have no clothes on and can, in many respects have their guard up a bit more than in an average work place.
In an interview for anothermag.com Bronia says,
“It was quite hard at the beginning to get the sort of access I was hoping for. The girls took a while to understand what I was trying to do.”
Over time however she became almost like part of the furniture and from that ensconced position she was able to collate a series of images that opened the viewer’s scope to interpretation, rather than produce something that would pigeon hole a specific response.
In the 2013 Guardian article she says,
“Because of the trust we’d built up, I didn’t want to create photographs that forced a particular opinion on to the viewer. I want people to be able to critique the images themselves and have their own view of the industry.”
For Bronia Stewart, the reality of being backstage at Babestation was as eye opening for it’s fun loving atmosphere as for it’s scantily clad ladies. In the Guardian article she states,
“I love how relaxed it is. It’s playful, too – the whole atmosphere was, with good relationships between the girls and the producers. They didn’t take things too seriously, and were just always having fun.”
And another preconceived notion was turned around in terms of discovering how the model’s own attitudes towards the job they do and what it means to them.
In anothermag.com Bronia Stewart says,
“Initially I thought it was going to be all about fame for the girls, but what I found out was that it was more about a working life. So while some of them had 20,000 followers on Twitter, it was about being able to provide for their family and earn good money. Also, I want to differentiate between people working in the sex industry, and people working in adult entertainment. What prostitution and what these girls are doing has no crossover.”
You can view the full set of photographs that Bronia took here.
