Photographer's 16 Dec gangrape inspired photo-shoot sparks outrage

A photographer’s recent photo-shoot, allegedly depicting rape using models draped in clothes that easily qualify as haute couture, has sparked off a Twitter storm. In the three photos, which were put up on the website Behance, were later taken down. One of them depicted a woman (picture below) in the clutches of two men in a bus, a severely distressed look on her face. People pointed out the eerie similarities to the Delhi gangrape, despite the photographers’ insistence that he hasn’t depicted what happened on night of 16 December, 2012 has revived the anger outrage around how we talk about rape. The series of photos by Mumbai-based Raj Shetye has left social media fuming. While talking to BuzzFeed, Shetye said, “It is not based on Nirbhaya. But being a part of society and being a photographer, that topic moves me from inside.” Though he said that he was not ‘glamourising’ the incident, he admitted that the photoshoot was a way of ’throwing light’ on the December 16 gangrape, which left the victim dead eventually. Justifying the similarities, Shetye told BuzzFeed, “It doesn’t depend on which class she belonged in – it can happen to anyone.” While it is completely impossible to decipher why the photographer would use models in a fashion glossy wardrobe and with a dead-pan expression usually associated with the ramp, to underline the horrors of rape, his tags on his post are probably more appalling than the photoshoot itself. Shetye, who claims to have been deeply moved by the incident, decided to use the words “sexy” and “love” to describe what is obviously a disturbing visual parallel of rape – multiple men groping, grappling with women in a bus. Not sexy at all. [caption id=“attachment_1650635” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Screengrab of one of the photos Shetye uploaded.[/caption] But for someone who claims to care about the issue, Shetye has done a fabulous job of getting everything wrong. In his moment of “this-is-how-I-know-to-express-myself,” what he seems to have missed is the sheer distaste in glamourising, and recreating the scene of the reprehensible assault. Shetye fails on several levels–aside from the tags, the self-fulfilling prophecy for a title–“The Wrong Turn”–the photos themselves do a shockingly poor job of conveying what he was spelled out to BuzzFeed: “We stay in a society where rich people roam in cars, and poor people who roam in public transport are in danger. It was my intent to mix these two things which are pretty apart from each other and make aesthetically strong images about it.” The problem with Shetye’s project is not essentially the subject or the medium he has chosen to explore the former with. There is nothing wrong with allowing a discussion around any issue using various media. Not only was his execution shockingly wrong, he even failed to understand how the recreation may be insensitive towards the loved ones of the 23-year-old girl or anyone who has had to face any form of sexual assault. Let’s not even speak of how the photoshoot insults the girl’s memory in the way the details of a heinous moment has been recreated with such blatant disregard for context. That is definitely not the purpose of art as we know it. To add insult to injury, Shetye titled the photo shoot “The Wrong Turn”–which in hindsight seems rather appropriate considering he took the page down as Twitter raged.