Chapter 17: 16

 

Tuesday of the second week, hard photo shoot. The model bus drove us to a huge car park.

"This is your shoot today," Jonathan said as he stood in front of the models to talk about the day's shoot, "Fashion is inspired by the little things in life, from Parisian fashion streets to car parks. Today we're going to mix it up, combining caravan culture with high fashion. You will now be allowed to pick your own partners, in order of your performance from last week."

"Brian," Jonathan turned his head to me, "you won best hard photo last week, you pick first."

Choosing your own partner was a tough choice, the first thing you had to consider was that your partner's modelling skills couldn't be at least as bad or they would just waste your energy during the shoot, Mike and Jamie were ruled out first.

Secondly, your partner can't catch all the photographer's eye or their own light will be overshadowed as the photographer will save the best angles for each other. Mike, who is most at Jonathan's heart, is ruled out.

The partner must be a bit different from your own style so that the overall diversity is reflected in the photos. Nina, who has the same hair colour and style as me, was also excluded.

Ashton, because he is not strong enough, would weaken the atmosphere between the two if paired with him, and I wasn't going to choose Ashton either.

Alice and Chris were both good options, so I turned my head to look at them both and asked, "Do we have to go with girls? Or is it both genders."

Jonathan smiled a little and replied, "Both are fine, there isn't a specific women's or men's brand for this hard photo shoot."

"I'll go with Chris then." I said with a smile as I hooked the neck of Chris' neck in front of me.

It seemed that because of my opening, starting with Ashton, everyone was raising their voices. Chris' ears flushed a little unnoticeably as he pulled the corners of his mouth up and smiled.

The reason for not choosing Alice was simple, as Alice was too professional and the photographer would have given the female model more of the main angle during the shoot. So, when both were male models, there would be no bias in the photographer's shots.

The second choice Mike chose Alyssa who he had been photographed with in the wedding photos. The third, Gianna, wisely chose Marvin, the strongest of the male models left.

Alyssa was fourth and had no choice but to finally choose Dan. It was Nina's turn she cruised through the boys for a while before finally choosing Jamie, at least Jamie wouldn't be frozen in front of the camera like Mike was, and the best body ever praised by Rob.

In the end it came down to Ashton, Rena and Konani, and with no choice between the three, it was Jonathan's decision to shoot the three of them together. Paired with the powerful Raina, Ashton was in a bad position, but with two female models and one male model it gave him a good advantage as he would be the centre of attention for the photographers.

After Tuesday's hard photo shoot and a day of waiting, the elimination phase took place on Wednesday night.

The hard photo shoot with Chris and I brought out the best of the chemistry between the two of us. One of the things that worked best for me in the outdoor photos was the dual effect of the sunlight and my hair colour, which seemed like a shaggy flame, and Chris' short platinum blonde hair, a gorgeous colour that would instantly grab the eye of anyone who saw the photos.

The caravan style is only used as a background theme, but the story line is mostly in the hands of the models themselves. The casual clothes required the models to show themselves relaxed and at home, but relaxed with a stunning sense of style.

Both Chris and I are stretched out, me sitting sideways on a chair at the picnic table towards my left, my hand resting lightly on Chris's leg, my gaze burning into the camera as if I were staring at someone watching out of a hard photo, Chris sitting sideways on the table behind me, his folded legs long and shapely from his shorts, his eyes not on the camera but on my hand on his leg.

Norma is clearly someone who really enjoys seeing the storyline in hard photos, and for that she gave Chris and I a 9 and an 8 respectively. Rob focused more on the development potential and posing skills of the male models than the others, with the only downside being that the lighting on Chris' face was weaker than mine, and Rob gave me and Chris the same 8.

Taylor, who is always the most generous of the judges, combined the opinions of both judges to give me a 9 and Chris a 9.

On the other hand, because I knew that for a show like America's Next Top Model, where the audience is largely female and gay, there is nothing more relevant to their preferences than two handsome men in a hardcore photo shoot, we ended up in second and third place respectively, thanks to a very strong social media vote, albeit below Alice.

Alice's modelling skills on location were spot on and the social media scores were never lower than the top three due to her pretty face, this time reaching a peak.

However, it seems to have been commercialised by being too professional on the outside, with Norma rated as not being able to see the story line in the photos. But the combined score still gave her the best hard photo for this one, coming in first.

The combination of Alice and Dan turned out, unsurprisingly, to be a female model who overpowered the male model with all her might, and I'm told that the photographer's attention fell on Alice throughout the shoot. Dan, who only served as a set dresser for once, finished in fifth place.

Nina's red hair in the sun and her slender stance were judged to be a tree siren, with impeccable modelling skills and expressions, not to mention the fashion sense brought out by her unique looks. Norma rated her as a perfect combination of character and skill, finishing in fourth place.

The rest of the rankings started after Dan's fifth place, with the faultless duo of Marvin and Gianna coming in sixth and seventh each, Ashton and Konani coming down in order to get eighth and ninth respectively, while Rena, who was out of her depth, was another place lower to get eleventh.

Mike and Alyssa were grouped together and both came up short, with Mike's unchanged pose throughout this outdoor photo being criticised and Jonathan seemingly finally disappointed with Mike's potential and losing patience in his coaching.

Alyssa's pose in the photo, on the other hand, was judged to be too much of a show-off and a loss of style, but she didn't pull her weight and had a beautiful expression to go with her lowest score at the challenge, taking 10th place.

The combination of Nina and Jamie also followed in the footsteps of Alice and Dan. Jamie was somewhat dwarfed by Nina, who became the main attraction, and his inability to keep his eyes open in the harsh sunlight and reflectors, his expression and lack of knowledge of his own perfect angles left him in the end to go head to head with Mike to decide the last place in the competition.

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In Rob's live commentary, Mike was deemed by him to be a fluke in the hard photo pose that came second last week, and this time no longer had the same swagger that he had at the beginning. In the end, Mike's journey to America's Next Top Model came to a screeching halt, with Jamie being the one to pass at the bottom.

When she returned to the Supermodel House after the competition, Jamie wandered around the house like a bewildered little puppy. Jamie had been hanging out with Mike until he was eliminated, and now that Mike was gone he was back to being disliked by Alice at the beginning.

 

Alice, who had been given the keys to the Taylor suite, invited Nina to share it with her. Chris was still a little awkward around me, and although he tried his best to act no different from before, I couldn't stop watching the micro-expressions of the people around me, and that feeling of unease Chris had felt since I moved back from the Taylor suite was even worse.

Thursday was still the challenge, which was hosted by Andy, the head of social media, and his friend a famous blogger, in which models had to interview passers-by as reporters for an online segment. The models were required to ask questions as requested by Andy and the blogger in their headsets, and would even be asked to ask strange questions and make malicious comments.

Passers-by stare at you for your strange behaviour, but for the challenge you have to do exactly what you are asked to do in your headset. I acted so unnaturally that not only did the judges see it, but also Ashton and Chris noticed the anomaly.

During the personal interview I sat in front of the camera and said, "I knew I had done badly this time and I had guessed the result when I heard what the competition was about. But I couldn't get used to talking while a lot of people were staring at me, it felt like being stripped naked in front of everyone."

"At the psychiatric sanatorium, the psychiatrist would form us into groups and each person would have to stand up and say everything that was on your mind in front of the group. That was my nightmare, and I don't want to go through it again."

This is the truth, and I don't include any showmanship in saying this. But there is a deeper reason for my disgust, because when everyone looks at me with a probing curiosity, or even at a monster, I panic. I am afraid of being seen as my true self underneath the shell at such times when I cannot control my own actions.

Being asked to act in a way that I wouldn't normally act is like having a layer of my disguise stripped away. I did a terrible job on my final interview, looking nervous and stiff and unnatural. In the end it only scored a seven.

Chris, however, was unexpectedly open-minded and he got a nine. Jamie, who was even less confident with the hard photo shoot, gave one hundred and twenty percent in the challenge and got a perfect ten, the highest score of all the models.

On the bus back after the competition, Ashton and Chris asked me about the reasons for my unusual performance. I still brushed it off with the same words I used in my personal interview.

......

On Friday, this time it wasn't a hard photo shoot.

America's Next Top Model had brought in a famous stage actor and the remaining twelve models, exactly six pairs of each gender, would be reversing each other's gender for a perfume commercial.

After Jonathan announced the shoot, the models were in an uproar, especially the male models. Ashton showed a smug look, clearly very confident about the reverse skewing.

"As the commercial will end with one of your passionate kisses, you will choose your own partners according to your ranking from the last hard photo shoot. Alice, you were the best hard photo last time, you choose first." Jonathan said finally.

Alice chose Jamie, who had a crush on her, witty choice. Even if Jamie didn't do well on his solo shoot again, because he had a crush on Alice, the two would end up working better together on that one than with other models who didn't like her.

Secondly it was my turn, and I decided to go for Gianna based on her strong performance at Lace's wedding that first week. Following on from that, Chris chose Nina, Marvin chose Rena and Ashton chose Alyssa. Finally Dan and Kernani were left as a group.

All the boys had to be trained beforehand on how to walk in heels before dresses, makeup and wigs.

To be honest, when I put on those 13cm heels, standing up felt like I was stepping on two thin chopsticks, I had to lean my weight forward and rely on my forefoot to support me, I couldn't get my balance right.

I couldn't stand at all at first, and if Ashton hadn't taken my hand and led me, I don't think I would have learned to walk in heels even if I had sprained my ankle. Almost all male models, except Ashton, were in this predicament.

As Ashton didn't have to learn how to walk in heels, he and Alyssa were the first group to do the shoot. Thanks to Ashton's experience as a drag queen, I was able to learn how to stand on heels quickly under his guidance, at least a little faster than all the other male models.

Gianna and I were the second group to be photographed. The designer dressed me in an unexpectedly idyllic outfit, a white chiffon dress and waist-length hair the same colour as my original hair, but without a hint of curl, as long and straight as the kind found in faerie lore.

The first time I saw Brian in the mirror with long, straight hair, although the hair colour was still the same, the lazy gentleness that Brian had originally brought with him was all but shattered and recreated, and the expressionless look on my face in the mirror was cold and discreet.

The grass green eye shadow with glitter added a touch of smut to the otherwise innocent look, and the pale pink, unobtrusive lip gloss made the lips look blown out.

"Wow! Brian, you look so beautiful in this!" Ashton, dressed in a femme fatale OL outfit, had just finished filming and came running towards me on her heels.

Before he could see, I turned my head with a fresh, harmless smile, "Really? It feels weird to see myself with straight hair for the first time."

Ashton walked up to me and cupped my cheek with a swooning look on his face, "Oh, you look like a real girl. Go on, go show Chris! He'll be stunned!"

I was pulled to my feet by Ashton and stumbled a few steps and broke away from Ashton's hand, "Wait... I thought he was practicing walking, so I'd better not bother him. Besides, I need to talk to Gianna about the kiss scene later."

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