2ndchances 9: Blue Bird Photoshoot Theme 2

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Chapter 9: Blue Bird Photoshoot Theme 2

In Chen Yijun’s opinion, the greatest difference between Rong Yan and the two young artists was sex appeal.

It wasn’t because Ann·Xia and Du Lingyu weren’t, or couldn’t be, sexy, it’s because they were being marketed as ‘fresh, young, and innocent’ by their agents.

And so, take two of the group shots started out with Rong Yan’s costume being mussed with and the makeup artist redoing her makeup from a minimal, natural look to a sultrier look.

Her waistcoat was left open, her dress shirt unbuttoned to the top of her vest, and her tie was completely undone, barely tucked underneath the vest.

“It’s a scene where Rong-laoshi is seducing the resisting ladies,” Wei Mingxin joked as he explained the next shot.

The three ladies positioned themselves on the Victorian (to Chen Yijun) styled chaise lounge, with Rong Yan on one end and the two younger artists on the other.

Wei Mingxin’s finger hovered over the trigger button, but he didn’t take the picture as his brows wrinkled in dissatisfaction.

Chen Yijun was also frowning as he looked at the scene.

It was all wrong; although it was a lot more visually interesting than the previous concepts, it also felt a lot more awkward than the previous concepts.

Well, of course.

With Rong Yan trying to appear like she’s seducing Ann·Xia and Du Lingyu, and Ann·Xia and Du Lingyu trying to appear like they’re rejecting her, the energy of the scene is flowing away from Rong Yan towards Ann·Xia and Du Lingyu.

But Rong Yan is the most visually interesting part of the scenario.

It would be weirder for there not to be a sense of discomfort when the photographer was trying to flatter the more passive party with the lens!

Glancing at Wei Mingxin, Chen Yijun saw that he looked reluctant to completely dismiss the concept, but if the image wasn’t good, there was no reason to keep it.

He opened his mouth to say something, but Chen Yijun suddenly spoke up instead.

“I think… perhaps instead of straight seduction, Yan-laoshi, perhaps it would be better to think of it like tempting someone to come with you to a brand new world. And Ann-laoshi, Ling-laoshi, maybe rejection is the wrong way to think about it. Instead, think that Yan-laoshi has told you that if you come with her to eat, she will give you your favorite food that you’re not allowed to eat while on your diets.”

A couple people in the studio snorted in laughter at that, and even Wei Mingxin’s moustache tilted upwards as he quirked a grin despite his frustration.

“Alright, let’s try that,” he said.

Chen Yijun was lucky that Wei Mingxin wanted him to succeed; if it was someone else butting in without being asked, Wei Mingxin was usually much less forgiving.

Well, if this still didn’t work… Wei Mingxin shrugged inside. If it Chen Yijun turned out not to have whatever Wei Mingxin thought he saw in him, then he just wasn’t fated to be his photo assistant.

Wei Mingxin turned back to the models – then froze.

For a split second.

Just a split second.

The next second, he was happily pushing the shutter, directing the camera to fly around at different angles as he manually adjusted it.

“Hey, lights!” he barked sharply.

“ “!” “

The lighting staff shook themselves out of their stupor, turning their minds back to controlling their light bots.

It wasn’t just them. A lot of the studio members had been shocked.

What the heck!

It wasn’t like the models changed poses, nor was the setting or costumes different, but why did it suddenly become much more alluring?

Heck, it even made some of the female staff members want to scream, ‘Yan-jie, if they won’t go with you, we will-!’

Chen Yijun, on the other hand, is very happy.

Yes! Now the energy is flowing back towards Rong Yan!

Since the most prominent person has to be Rong Yan, both for her status and seniority in the circle, it was a blatant disaster for the flow of the scene to go towards Ann·Xia and Du Lingyu.

Pleased with the scene, he quickly gestures towards one of the lighting guys.

“Li-ge, can you put a warm backlight on Rong-laoshi?”

The lighting guy stares apprehensively at Wei Mingxin, but Wei Mingxin just gave him a glare that clearly read, ‘Get it done.’

Whaaaat. A warm backlight on Rong-laoshi? Throwing the main model into shadows? And a warm backlight!? They’re using cooler lighting schemes – is he trying to wash the models out?

But Li-ge obediently listens and directs another lightbot to give a warm light from behind Rong Yan. Anyway, Wei Mingxin seems to have already took shots that he was pleased with, so let’s get this trainwreck going so the models don’t have to sit there forever…

Is what he thought, but … …

Li-ge sucked in a breath, then went to work on balancing the lighting, and when he was done…

It was Wei Mingxin who sucked in a breath.

Honestly, this photo shoot had gone all sorts of off kilter already, so although he also had his doubts about Chen Yijun’s lighting suggestions, he was already feeling reckless and threw his weight behind Chen Yijun’s ideas.

And when the lighting guys finally got into it and fine-tuned Little Yi’s suggestions – fuck if it wasn’t a good idea.

Even while Wei Mingxin snapped his shots, his mind was racing.

Damn, this wasn’t your normal fashion shot anymore, it was a full blown art shot.

The faint lights gave the two girls a ‘pure’ halo, being slowly corrupted by the top supermodel’s presence, the slightly warm-tinged backlight behind Rong Yan giving an irresistible feeling.

This… it wasn’t really a drastic change like some photo filters would give, it was very subtle. If someone showed the before and after, many people might not be able to say exactly what the difference was. Really inobservant people might even wonder if there WAS a difference.

But the change was effective, pulling the viewer’s attention fully onto Rong Yan.

In fact, it really looked like two pure ‘blank slates’ were being drawn into the enticing warmth that was being offered by a temptress.

“A-alright.”

Wei Mingxin quickly signaled that he was done with this scene before quickly scrolling back through the photos.

Gods, this could actually be a two-page spread, it was so good.

The intensity of Rong Yan’s eyes, the yearning and slight hesitation in Ann·Xia and Du Lingyu’s faces and postures – the models’ abilities to display these things were obviously what made the picture, but Chen Yijun’s suggestions had enhanced their charm by more than one level.

The group shots became much more dynamic as Wei Mingxin finally grasped the direction he truly wanted but had been unable to conceptualize until now.

He didn’t hesitate to fully explore the ‘disheveled’ suit look anymore, and Rong Yan had posed with her coat slung over one shoulder, vest undone, shirt sleeves rolled up… all sorts of various ways that looked delightfully mussed.

Du Lingyu and Ann·Xia’s looks weren’t rearranged quite as much, since Wei Mingxin didn’t think he could alter their strictly controlled images without their companies jumping on him in anger, but just changing Rong Yan’s side made things much more dynamic from shot to shot.

Of course, because of the change in concept they ended up having to redo some of Rong Yan’s solo shots, but thankfully the top supermodel and her agent didn’t have any problems.

Rather… Miss Agent was very insistent on retaking the solo shots.

She seemed to be salivating like a fangirl and insisting for Rong Yan to retake the pictures. Although it seemed like Agent Fu Xinyi was just messing around with Rong Yan, she was also serious to some degree.

The disheveled suit look really suited Rong Yan, after all, and an agent was nothing if not sensitive to what will make their artist shine.

“I think the jacket over the shoulder is a great image. What do you think, Little Yi?” Wei Mingxin looks like he’s on a high from the shooting just now, and he slaps Chen Yijun’s back happily.

“O-ouch. Um, an action shot of slinging the jacket over her shoulder would be cool.”

“Now that’s certainly an idea.”

Wei Mingxin organized the shots he wanted in his head.

Since they were technically going to ‘change’ costumes due to the amount Rong Yan had on and unbuttoned, it was wise to arrange shots so that they only had to do the minimum amount of fussing with the suit in between.

As the other studio employees were scrambling, Chen Yijun remembered a black and white ad he’d seen in his past life.

Was it perfume or something? – he didn’t really remember what the ad was for, but the image of the female model in a blazer had gotten stuck in his head to the point where he was remembering it in a completely different lifetime and era.

All you could see was the model’s torso facing straight forward, from the bottom of her lips to the top of her hips, but the tantalizing sight of what she had been wearing – or not wearing – was eyecatching even in black and white.

“… Shirtless blazer is pretty good…” Chen Yijun muttered absentmindedly, pinching his chin lightly as he imagined the honeyed skin peaking out from beneath the suit jacket.

“You mean, having nothing but the suit jacket on?” Fu Xinyi asked.

It wasn’t like Rong Yan hadn’t done racy shoots before, but it was a bit shocking that this young man was being so bold.

Then again, it seemed like he was thinking too deeply to notice his audience looking at him in surprise.

Chen Yijun was definitely not paying attention to the others, since he was thinking about the logistics of the ‘sexy blazer’ look in this particular shoot.

Absolutely nothing underneath the blazer was sexy in its own way, but for Rong Yan, having a bikini or bra underneath felt much more sophisticatedly sexy and would suit her more, in his opinion.

It was also more in line with the rest of the photoshoot.

“Is that something you would like to see?”

“En… …”

… …. Wait a second, did he just say all of that outloud? And did he just respond to Rong Yan herself like it was nothing?!

Chen Yijun looked up in a panic to see Rong Yan smirking at him.

“Then would you prefer a black bra or a red one?” she asked, a light teasing tone betraying her rather good attempt at keeping a straight face.

Chen Yijun immediately flushed bright red.

“Th-th-that’s, um, excuse me, that was just – I mean, in the first place the clothing brand might not appreciate – um… I’m going to go see if Li-ge needs any help!”

Wei Mingxin felt the embarrassment rippling off the young man like a heat wave. It would have been better if the boy had just responded as if it was a simple question about the shoot instead of becoming flustered and running off.

Then again, it seems to have greatly amused all the women who had just been involved in the conversation, including Rong Yan, her agent, and the makeup artist, so there didn’t seem to have been any harm done.

Tch. Pretty people had all the luck.

If it had been Wei Mingxin mentioning something like a shirtless blazer out of nowhere, especially back in the day when he was still a young man and not yet an honored photographer, he was sure he would have gotten slapped instead of giggled at.

He wondered if he should chalk that up to Chen Yijun’s ability to socialize as well … or if this was another thing entirely.

“Photographer Wei, where did you find this assistant of yours?”

Wei Mingxin was surprised when Rong Yan suddenly spoke up as Agent Fu was helping her redo her tie and un-rolled her shirt sleeves.

“Ah, Little Yi? It was a complete coincidence, but I found him out on a shoot. He seemed like a bright kid, so I brought him onboard. He’s raising that niece, right? Seems like it’s hard for him to work a normal job.”

“Ai, he might as well be a single father… How old is he, anyway?” The makeup artist asked, retouching Rong Yan’s slick-backed hair and combing through the snarls.

“37,” Wei Mingxin said after calculating against the birthdate he remembered seeing on Chen Yijun’s profile.

“Haa… just came of age, and already looking after a child like that,” Agent Fu shook her head. If he had raised her from birth, did that mean he was raising her even before becoming an adult at the age of 35? This uncle and niece pair seemed to have it hard.

No, in the first place, if there was no one to help him take care of little Lanlan, did that mean Chen Yijun didn’t have anyone to rely on even as a minor?

What about Lanlan’s parents? One of them should be Chen Yijun’s relative…?

As Fu Xinyi thoughts churned inside her brain, she noticed Rong Yan giving her ‘the look’.

Right, she should stop trying to put her nose where it doesn’t belong before Yan docks her pay again…

“Xinyi,” Rong Yan suddenly said, causing Agent Fu to freeze, worried about her monthly salary, “I think I brought a black bra.”

Oh, so … Yan actually was interested in doing the shirtless blazer look?

Fu Xinyi knew Rong Yan would look good doing it, but this wasn’t really a shoot focused on sexy and sensual … still, “I’ll check,” Agent Fu said, quickly walking back towards the changing rooms.

A nude bra was the opposite of sexy, after all. If Rong Yan didn’t bring something else, then they’d have to forget about it…

… There was a black strapless.

Wei Mingxin couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. It was one thing if the shirtless blazer look worked perfectly with the rest of the shoot’s concepts, but although it wasn’t directly against the concept, it felt sort of extraneous. Even … unrelated, in a way.

But Rong Yan still expressed an interest in doing it.

He had to be wrong, but Wei Mingxin almost felt like this international top supermodel was wanting to humor his little assistant.

… Nah, he had to be imagining things.

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<a/n: 2/2
Yes, 35 is coming of age. People live a lot longer and take a bit longer to develop the time between our ages of 5-20.>