Mr. International Rubber: The Visual Texture of Fetish

The Warch Gallery, across from Somerset.

For my final project, I tried to go full-circle and incorporate my interest in erotic portraiture with my abstract rubber video project from earlier in the term. I knew I would be attending and volunteering for Mr. International Rubber, an annual rubber fetishist conference and contest held annually in Chicago, IL., and I thought it would provide an excellent opportunity to create a final project based on the visual texture of rubber. The Saturday-night portion of the weekend-long contest was held afterhours in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, IL., with a pre-show cocktail hour held in the first floor gallery. Using a Sony NEX-f5 camera, I went around to various patrons and asked if I could take photos of their gear, both candidly and posed.

While over half of my photos ended up blurry (rubber achieves its shine from silicone lube, which smudges easily onto your hands and then whatever you're touching, such as a camera which already struggles in low-light), I'm incredibly happy with how my final prints turned out.

I tried to pay attention to how I framed the shots, although I'm sure I could benefit from more professional photography training. My edits were somewhat labored yet unobtrusive-- mostly involving tonal contrast on the latex itself and using the dodge tool to highlight the rim-lighting on curves and creases)

Direct Link to Flickr (embedded version below):