Frank had that effect, though. She was shorter than me but not short, she was slim and flat-chested, with solid, boyish shoulders. Very butch — not Stone Butch Blues butch, but getting there. She looked a bit like James Dean, and she leant into it hard. Always in Levi’s and biker boots and a leather jacket. I always thought she was too pretty to properly pull it off, though. She had these huge eyes, big and blue, with eyelashes so long they looked fake, like a doll. I’d try and get her to wear makeup, sometimes, but she’d always get annoyed with me. Frank is the only woman I regularly photographed.
She started it.
I went in for this tutorial. I remember it being first thing on a Tuesday morning, and I’d gotten up at seven a.m. to do my hair and makeup. She looked me up and down and said, ‘Christ, you’re tarted up for this, aren’t you?’
I was wearing this baby-blue summer dress, and a beehive, with my hair loose and curled. I had on that heavy sixties eye makeup I was obsessed with at the time. I was mortified – men don’t usually clock this shit, do they? But she did.
I told her I had a date that afternoon, and she told me I looked like Priscilla Presley on her wedding day, if she was ginger. I think I’d been aiming for more of a Brigitte Bardot thing, but I told her I’d take that.
She sort of negged me. She looked at What would you do to be my boyfriend? and told me it was an incredibly cruel piece of work. She said my other photographs had a pervy feel, and she was almost impressed that such a young woman would come out with something this nasty. She said, based on both the work and my writing around it, I had a contemptuous attitude towards my models. I clearly saw them as interchangeable, disposable objects. She asked me if I hated men, or if I liked men and hated that I liked them so much.
‘At the end of the day, Irene,’ she’d said, ‘and stop me if this is too personal… you’re not making art here; you’re making porn. And you know what? I think it’s interesting to see this kind of work from a young woman. But you could be so much better than this. Fresher. The world doesn’t need more nasty, voyeuristic photography, does it?’ And she went off on one for a bit about empathy – had I looked at Arbus or Mapplethorpe? Or any other photographers who looked at sexuality and strangers with a sensitive lens. Did I exclusively consume the photography of heterosexual men? Because that’s what it looked like to Frank.
‘Have you ever modelled, Irene?’ And then she snorted at herself. ‘I mean, look at you. Of course you have.’
I told her I hadn’t. She looked genuinely surprised. To this day, I have no idea if she was pulling my dick or not. I told her I’d done it casually, for friends, but no agencies would take me, that I was too big to be a normal model, but too skinny for plus size. There was probably glamour and fetish stuff I could do, but…
She waved her hand to stop me, apologising if she’d touched a nerve. I felt stupid.
‘I think it’d really help you empathise with your subjects if you did some more modelling yourself. In fact…’
I have her business card glued into my sketchbook. She took one out of her wallet and handed it to me. She told me about her latest project – photographing LGBT northerners transplanted to London. She needed more femmes. She assumed I was straight, from my photos, but told me with a wink, ‘What the gays don’t know won’t hurt them.’
I stuttered; I’d been with women, I just didn’t make a big deal about it. Frank cut me off and told me not to pull a muscle.
So, I turn up at her studio in Hackney about a week later, after bragging about it to anyone who’d listen. She told me to bring makeup but arrive barefaced. Bring a couple of my favourite outfits, but come in something basic. So, I did. I wore the only pair of jeans I owned at the time and a plain T-shirt. I felt like an absolute fucking clip, and rode the Overground with my head down. I didn’t turn heads, or get cat-called at all, and that put me in a foul mood. It’s annoying when it happens, but when you get used to it and it doesn’t happen – that feels worse.
When you’re that age, it takes a lot to make you feel young – or to realise how young you are – and I spent the whole journey, the whole walk to her studio, feeling silly, trying to impress my fucking teacher. My nails and thumbs were bitten bloody by the time I actually got to Frank’s studio, and I had a face like a smacked arse. That’s what Frank said, when she let me in. She asked me if I was okay, and I snapped something about how I hate being dressed down, and I hate going out without makeup on.
She laughed at me, and said I looked fine.
The first set of pictures in this box are pictures Frank took of me. I made her give me copies, and I bought this scrapbook with black pages to glue them into. First picture, I’m just standing in the jeans, the T-shirt, no makeup. My hands are by my sides, and I’m staring down the lens, trying to look anything but uncomfortable. I think I was aiming for defiant, but I landed on stiff and weird. Jesus. That face. I trace the line of my skull with a long, acrylic fingernail. I still have puppy fat on my cheeks. I hadn’t quite filled out around the hips, either, so I’m all limbs, all legs and arms and ribs with these disproportionately large tits that look like someone stuck them on with an ice cream scoop.
Frank had me get changed, and watched me while I dressed, and told me I looked like something a little boy drew in the back of his notebook.
I finally flip the page. The next shot I’m wearing this dress I used to love. This horrible nylon, A-line mini dress. Vintage, bright pink – it clashed with my hair and squashed my chest. I’m all legs in it, with these nasty white platform boots, plasticky and skintight. Frank asked me, ‘Do you only wear this retro shit?’ so I’m sneering at her in the next picture. Frank was dry. I’ve never had much of a sense of humour. I took the dress off. I shrugged at her, and asked her if she was happy, like a child snapping at her mother.
‘I was just joking, Irene,’ she said. And then she fired off a self-deprecating quip about how she goes to Topman with a photo of Marlon Brando for reference, her big white teeth flashing like her camera. On the next page I’m pouting in my conspicuously matching underwear, arms folded over my chest, my mouth half open because I was in the middle of telling her my name was Irina, not Irene.
The next picture ended up in a gallery when she showed. Underwear and boots, hair almost hanging down to my waist, brows raised, hands on hips, left foot in front of right, eyes rolled back, lips twisted. I’m sucking my stomach in hard, so you can see my whole ribcage. Breathe, sis, is what little cunts on Instagram drop on each other’s pictures now — breathe, sis, when you’ve spotted someone sucking their stomach in like that.
I take a picture of Frank’s picture on my phone and upload it to Instagram. I caption it: RARE FACE PIC. This is me by Frank Steel, circa 2011? In b4 ‘Breathe Sis’ because I’m literally 21 here. Still have the waistline, still have the bra, lost the pants and the boots moving, gained about 5 inches on the hips.
I have over fifty thousand followers on Instagram. I don’t really use it that much, as I can barely post any of my shit on there on account of ‘community guidelines’。