Deeper into gravure with Tablante's 'A Weekend with Ellen'

You don’t see Ellen Adarna, the sexy model. 

 

In simplest terms, you see Ellen Adarna your cute, imaginary girlfriend. You see her casually lying down on the couch, then teasing you from behind curtains. You see the tattoo on her back as she puts on her top. She looks at you intently while eating grapes, and bites her lip after trying to scrape the meat off a coconut.

 

If spending an intimate weekend with Kapuso star Ellen Adarna has always been your secret fantasy, then photographer Jay Tablante's treat for you is more than 160 photos on 100 pages of the chinita charmer's various faces and playful phases of undress, sans the trademark raunchiness of men's magazines.

   

“A Weekend with Ellen,” the country’s 2nd gravure photo book after “The Jinri Experience” (also by the Tablante), sets a relatively new genre of Philippine adult photography. Relative, since gravure has been teasing the world for a long time from the Land of the Rising Sun, yet it has not been explored locally or commercialy, until Tablante's work.

 

“Gravure is something very candid and natural. Nothing is contrived, or posed and we see our girl in a totally relaxed setting,” Tablante told GMA News Online. “It's through a frame of somebody close to her, so to speak.”

 

From being barely covered on men’s magazine covers to ruling the runway with Princess Leia’s iconic slave wear, the Cebuana “Bubble Gang” mainstay has always been a charmer on various levels. Gravure is no exception.

 

The photo book has no introduction and brings the reader straight to the photos. Warm images of Ellen abound in the thick, matte, book-paper pages. Pages which might not appeal to all but works fine to present the photographer’s probable desired tone in print.  She basks not in studio lights but under the sun’s natural radiance, a lighting setup which Tablante pulls off just fine.

 

There’s no text to break your “bonding” with Ellen. You progress gradually from having coffee to spending an afternoon with her in a bikini, or barely clothed at all. It's sensual, no doubt, but innocent just the same. It’s just you, her, and your imagination at a picturesque Philippine location. It is gravure served with a Pinoy twist.

 

“Gravure always has that element of travel in most of the shoots, and I guess incorporating local scenery would help shift the look and feel into something more Pinoy,” said Tablante.
 

In an interview, Ellen said that  the gravure photoshoot was “freestyle” and that she found it “more conservative.” She also commented on her poses, saying that “I’m just acting—it’s just acting.” But the photos blur that acting, presenting an Ellen that seems candid. In that sense, both the model and photographer succeed in presenting what is quintessentially gravure.

 

Folks new to gravure consumption should understand that this type of modelling is more playful and teasing than outright sexual. The photos are sexy, no doubt, but it aims to tickle your senses all throughout the book without giving everything away. Gravure IS daring, but its lack of outright frontal nudity leaves more to be imagined. 

 

If you’re after more scandalous material, the internet is one click away.

 

Original Japanese gravure, you see,  involved pre-teens in school girl uniforms and bikinis. While there are also more daring of-legal-age models who leave little to almost-nothing on, this is gravure pushing its boundaries rather than its comfort zone. Innocence is a recurring theme, and imagining the mystery underneath the image is probably the sexiest thought of all. 

 

It's there, in that aspect, that Jay Tablante’s photos succeed.

 

What I'd like to know is, after Jinri Park and Ellen Adarna, who’s the next subject for the Pinoy gravure photo book series?

 

“Now that's the challenge!” said Tablante, who would like to keep his next step  a secret. “It's not easy looking for the next gravure idol in the Philippines.” – KDM, GMA News 

All photos courtesy of Jay Tablante