With Empty Porn Sets, photographer Jo Broughton brings us backstage of adult film shoots. In a disembodied setting, the British photographer showcases the settings that host the fantasies of art directors and spectators.
As we all know, image making is an art that requires technique and talent. In photographic studios, teams set up the conditions to create these images, with an emphasis on staging and set design. Often used in commercial productions, these sets are a figurative representation of the environment where the action takes place. With Empty Porn Sets, they become a central subject. Jo Broughton drew on her experience as the assistant to a photographer specialising in pornography.
“Like most things in my life, it started by accident. Let’s just say I was in the wrong place at the right time.” That’s how the Brit sums up her arrival in a world she knew nothing about. “I was very young, she recalls, I was doing an art course at Thurrock College Essex. I was actually skipping class a lot. One day, perhaps out of desperation, a teacher offered me an internship at a studio in London. I accepted straight away. I thought that my talent would finally dazzle the world.” It was also an opportunity for her to leave a dull suburb in which she was suffocating. Armed with a certain carefreeness and thinking of joining a glamorous fashion studio, she left for the English capital. And thus, an adventure began that she could have never imagined.
A fanny up close
“I turned up at the door of a large building,
continues Jo Broughton. A rather brusque Scotsman opened the door and asked me if I had ever seen a fanny up close. Surprised and naive, I told him I hadn’t. He just said “Well, it’s your lucky day!” That’s how my training started.” Destitute and not wanting to return to a family home that she felt was harmful to her, the young student moved into the studio. There she found an unexpected form of security and an alternative family. Like many inexperienced assistants, her tasks were often thankless: maintaining the equipment, testing the lighting, preparing tea and lunch, accompanying the models… But above all, she was bored.
It was during these quiet periods that the Empty Porn Sets series was born. When the studio became Student Jo‘s playground, as her boss calls her. “After a while, she explains, the studio manager allowed me to use the premises for my own projects. My time started at the end of the day, when the dust shone in the skylights and the fading sun hit parts of the room that only I knew.” So, Jo Broughton took possession of the set without it being dismantled and the premises cleaned. She captured the artificial landscapes that, not long before, were home to adult fantasies.
The hidden side
The result is astonishing. In varied settings such as a military camp, a birthday party, a hospital or a classroom, you have to look for the traces of the initial scenario to understand what was going on. The important thing for Jo Broughton is not to distort anything and to limit her intervention to the shooting. “I included elements that allowed for the whole story to be guessed, leaving the lights on, not moving any objects. The whole thing had to be intact and the scene had to be exciting.” After hours of work, everyone went home and didn’t pay attention to Student Jo. She was alone, she was free.
With obvious sensitivity, the photographer also discovered the hidden side. There to validate her diploma, she saw the reality that many models lived. And in an economy that reaps income whose distribution is sometimes opaque, many are exploited. Among them, students who, in order to meet their basic needs, have made this choice. One story left a lasting impression on her and expressed well the way pornographic actors are perceived: “A student had gone to her prom. Someone had got hold of a magazine she was in. He thought it was funny to put pictures of her all over the room. Can you imagine? “
Now it’s hardcore
This unfortunate anecdote, as Jo Broughton points out, should not obscure the fact that many actresses and actors enter the industry voluntarily. Moreover, the photographer also struggled from negative preconceptions of the porn industry. “For a long time, people rejected Empty Porn Sets, the artist regrets. They associated me with the industry in disgust. It took years before this work was accepted, understood. At the time, I had to lie and hide what I was doing. Somewhere along the line, those who judge have forgotten that we share the same humanity.” They also forget, certainly out of convenience, that in view of the figures for the distribution of these images, many of these high-profile moralists must also be consumers of these pictures.
Today, times have changed. The magazines that generations of teenagers bought and hid under their mattresses have given way to free streaming. Although she affirms the importance of fantasy and what it can bring to the table over and above reality, Jo Broughton is aware of this. “In the old days, the rules for shoots were strict. There was to be no erection, no penetration. Now it’s hardcore, she admits. And the images are spread on smartphones without anyone really paying attention. At least magazines used to have a form of intimacy.” This is why the photographer insists on the importance of consent and asks those who want to enter the pornographic industry to be careful about the diffusion of their image. Because yes, these pictures remain.
© Jo Broughton
