Melbourne duo take on Sleaze Ball artwork

Long-running annual gay dance party Sleaze Ball is a Sydney institution. So when Melbourne photographic duo Travis de Jonk and Ross Brownsdon -“ the men behind the popular Bad Behaviour calendars, and both scene photographers for SSO’s Melbourne paper Southern Star -“ were commissioned to photograph the event’s official poster, it was bound to cause something of a stir.

I think it has ruffled a few feathers, de Jonk said.

I know just from speaking with the people I’ve been involved with at Mardi Gras that there have been a few questions along the lines of -˜Why are you using these two guys from Melbourne?’ I’m as shocked as anybody, because Sydney does have some amazing talent. But I think it’s really nice, even if we hadn’t gotten the job, that the work would have stayed in Australia.

De Jonk said it was he and Brownsdon’s sexy Bad Behaviour calendar that brought them to the attention of Sleaze Ball organisers.

Ross and I were working on our 2009 calendar, and people from Mardi Gras (which runs Sleaze Ball) saw some images from it -“ in Sydney Star Observer, actually.

It’s been satisfying, because the calendars have become a great way for us to express ourselves and do that we can’t always do when we’re doing commercial work. Stuff that’s theatrical, left-of-centre, and a bit sexy as well. So it’s nice to know that people are paying attention to that.

The resulting images are a hot take on this year’s -˜Game On’ theme.

The -˜Game On’ idea started out as a toss-up between a video games theme and a sporting theme. They settled on sport, gave us a brief, and let us get creative, de Jonk said.

Those drooling over the gorgeous models in the images will no doubt be pleased to know that all but one are gay.

All the girls in the shoot are gay and so are all but one of the boys. It was tough sourcing models for the girls shoot actually; we wanted to create something authentically lesbian, and that was the tricky part, de Jonk said.

Boys are a lot more used to putting themselves out there, I think girls are a little bit more wary about what they get involved in.

I’m really happy to say the girls had the best time, and I was really happy to be involved in a shoot that was authentically lesbian.

info: Game On, Sleaze Ball 2009 is on Saturday, October 3 at the Entertainment Quarter. Bookings on 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au.