The odds are that upon hearing the term ‘superhero’ what comes to mind is a tall, handsome and well-built young Caucasian male clad in brightly coloured spandex. We owe this stereotype of the archetypal superhero to mainstream comic book companies (and to some extent Hollywood) who has long portrayed superheroes in this manner. But in reality, I think the concept of a hero is very abstract and subjective. Thus, I tried to bend this stereotype by casting a most unlikely superhero.

The model I chose was my grandmother, basically the antithesis of your usual comic book star- Asian, female and elderly. I made her wear a Supergirl uniform as the ‘S” shaped emblem is truly an icon that represents the concept of superheroes in its purest form. I think the photographs I took of her were interesting because while they are simple and minimal in props and effects, the resulting image is quite unexpected. My only intention was for it to be a light-hearted image that could make people smile, and so far, I think it’s been a pretty respectable attempt.





After several unsatisfactory attempts at creating a homemade superhero suit, I finally decided on renting one from a costume shop due to time constraint. Nevertheless, I am happy with the final outcome, as it looks more finished and professional.

While my grandmother was a most sporting and cooperative model, I had to take into consideration that she is an elderly person and needed to make sure she took short breaks every now and then an had a lunch break so she would not exhaust herself.

I tried to emulate and ‘spoof’ stereotypical superhero movie posters, with their heavily photoshopped sun and lens flares. To do this, I made my model stand directly in front of one light stand to create a ‘halo’ effect surrounding her, and shot at an angle where there would be a visible natural lens flare. I put a lights stand affixed with an umbrella at a 45 degree angle roughly 2 metres away from my model as a filler light to soften the shadows and contrast on her face. I chose a more yellowish tint to mimic natural sunlight, similar to most movie posters.

I dodged and burned the lines on her face to make them more obvious in contrast to her suit, but besides that the photo remains untouched.