Jo Broughton’s Photos of Empty Porn Sets

Broughton, who left home at 17 because of a difficult family situation, got employed in a porn movie studio to pay for her studies and living in London. She got hired as a photographer’s assistant, but she was mostly bringing actors tea and cleaning after the shoot.

From 2001, for the entire three years she worked in the studio, the young woman was writing a diary. She wrote down conversations, words of sympathy to her colleagues, described lunches with naked actresses, mothers, who modeled for erotic magazines when they were young, and later brought their daughters to work in porn, and young men, who watched their girlfriends work.

After some time, Broughton got interested in decorations. The studio made both videos and photo series for magazines, so some of them were quite exotic. In her photos, viewers see the aftermath of the shoot and the set itself: mattresses piled up in the corner, a dildo, a tube with lube and napkins by the bed, a bag of dry ice.

“These are playgrounds of cheapish fantasy which are left like historical documents to the sex act, — she says. — At first they have the appearance of a show-home in questionable taste. <...> Then you look again and see the clues”.

Working as an assistant and photographing the sets, Broughton learned to work with light and composition. In 2010, her series was published in the Granta magazine issue, dedicated sex.