Rhian Ramos as Rogue for Jay Tablante's “Les Femmes Fatales”

MANILA, Philippines – GMA-7 talents Rhian Ramos, Solenn Heusaff, Barbie Forteza and Bianca King dressed up as comic book characters Rogue, X-23 and Zatanna and had their pictures taken for the cosplay themed exhibit “Les Femmes Fatales” of Jay Tablante, which opened Feb. 22 at the Crucible Gallery in Megamall.

According to the lensman, he picked the four for their facial features, particularly “their strong, squarish mandible,” which convey bravery and sexy. Each of the four stars posed for Tablante for about six hours and are immortalized in 20” x 30” and 30” x 45” pictures that are being sold at the exhibit from P20,000 to P30,000.

The exhibit proceeds will go to the Vincentian Missionaries Social Development Foundation. The stars were given a smaller-sized copy of the picture---the only other copies there are as the negatives have been destroyed by Tablante himself.  

Tablante revealed that Dingdong Dantes, another Kapuso talent, would’ve joined the cosplay as Cyclops if only his schedule permitted. Tablante said he plans to hold another exhibit which will feature male subjects, too, including Paolo Paraiso, who agreed to pose as Gambit.

Although Tablante could’ve approached other big stars to pose for him, he went for those that have striking resemblance to comic book heroes so that he would just “enhance” rather than “salvage” a photo.

Tablante, for all his efforts, has been featured on marvel.com a few weeks back. Two Marvel illustrators attended his latest exhibit which runs up to March 6, 2011.

Asked what makes for a good photographer of cosplay, Tabalante quipped, “A pair of eyes and the imagination of a 10 year old.” 

Professionally shooting for the last 15 years, Tablante was quoted to have said about his exhibit, “All creative directors in ad agencies are bonafide comic book geeks. Getting them into the creative loop during their spare time was like preaching to the choir. It was that fascination of getting to see real-life versions of our favorite characters in photographs that made us push the possibilities of production value.

“Mixed with some industry help (make-up artists, stylists, production designers), the current body of work is nothing short of a collaboration between people obsessed with the genre. It's basically getting your typical cosplay shoot and subjecting them to the best efforts of what the local photography industry could do."        

Wikipedia defines cosplay or “costume play” as a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Characters are drawn from popular fiction in Japan, but recent trends have included American cartoons and Sci-Fi as well as other pop-culture.