All About My Caprica Six Photo Shoot With Gina Barbara (2020)

One of the things that got me through the pandemic-iest part of the pandemic was working on some fun creative projects. First of all, in the days before everything shut down I had my first shoot with Shannon Brooke, which gave me lots to look forward to as I waited to see the photos. During the pandemic, I was able to do a few photo shoots, mainly with Gina Barbara, who lived in town and was also being COVID-cautious to a degree that felt good for me.

During the early days of the pandemic I binge-watched a lot. I watched Tiger King like the rest of us. I caught up on shows that I had been meaning to watch for years like Six Feet Under. I also watched Battlestar Galactica for the first time! I absolutely love shows, books, and movies that deal with the topic of what makes someone human or not. I’m a pretty big fan of Blade Runner (and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick), Ex-Machina, and the like.

So, I really loved that aspect of Battlestar Galactica. It’s full of lovable and complex characters, despite being based on Mormon theology. One of the characters that I ended up loving by the end is Caprica Six. She’s a blonde Cylon (the show’s version of replicants, sentient and conscious robots, basically.) Her story line deals with the human definitions of love, comraderie, and allyship, and whether or not she, as a Cylon, can do those things. She starts off as one of the biggest villains and turns into a potential ally to the humans.

Played by the gorgeous Tricia Helfer, Caprica Six sports a strappy red dress and blonde coif throughout the show. She’s generally seen as seductive and has multiple sexual encounters throughout the show, both to get what she wants, and as an exploration of human relating. So, I thought she would be such a fun cosplay!

I hired a friend at Rich Love make me a leather copy of Caprica Six’s iconic dress. I wasn’t able to find anything similar and I thought this would be a fun way to do it. We made it with some changes to work with the different material and make it something unique. I found the perfect blonde wig, and then I went to the shoot! By this time in the pandemic, I had figured out how to do my own makeup for photo shoots, thankfully. I didn’t need to do my hair due to the wig. We shot outdoors in Gina’s covered parking spot. The cement walls were a perfect background for the industrial look I was going for.