These portraits depict sex workers in other realms of their lives

In Belladonna Project, an ongoing photographic collaboration from Lexi Hide and Emily Anjelika, you’ll see Dasha stretching on a yoga mat in a studio, cables and props scattered around her; a doctor in cobalt scrubs preparing a syringe in a clinical room; a ballerina named Kiki posing in a mirrored rehearsal room; a boxer named Von leaning against a locker-room bench. There’s Maia lying on her bed, a cat curled beside her; an artist named Faye in her studio; Spitfire, relaxing on a bubblegum-pink sofa with a guitar across her lap, surrounded by framed portraits of Dolly Parton; and Plain Jane, a tennis player lit by the glow of court floodlights. 

Each scene sits somewhere between candid and controlled, almost like a moment that’s both happening in real time and being performed. And then you notice something: every subject is wearing a pair of platformed, clear high heels – a subtle cue hinting that, beyond these everyday spaces, they’re also all sex workers. “Someone you love is probably a sex worker and you don’t even know it,” says Hide. “Belladonna Project illuminates the quiet truth that adult entertainers are woven into the fabric of every community. Rather than reinforcing a voyeuristic gaze, we collaborate with sex workers on these portraits, balancing the line between staged and documentary with humour and softness.”

Hide grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, and started her photography journey by taking playful, unserious pictures of her friends. “I am drawn to mischief,” she says. “I want the viewer to consider or imagine what went on behind the frame, as the fictional scenes depicted become somewhat real in the process of making of the images.” Her earlier work was built on that tension, featuring hazy, carefully composed scenes that look candid, with characters who seem unaware of the camera but are in fact entirely constructed. “While the environment I am creating in order to make the pictures is lighthearted, absurdist and playful, it exists in a dichotomy with how controlled my pictures actually are. There is no chance or luck in my photographs. It is all pre-planned whimsy.”

When she moved to New York, Hide’s practice broached new terrain. She found herself among a community of strippers, cam-girls, sugar babies and full-service sex workers – a world she hadn’t previously had proximity to. Amongst them was Anjelika, a dancer she met at a party on the Lower East Side. They immediately bonded over their love of Hello Kitty and kitsch aesthetics, leading Anjelika to suggest that they work on a project together. “The inspiration for the project at large came from reflections within my own meditative practice and interactions with erotic entertainers over the years,” explains Anjelika. “At some point, the images were just popping into my head. I thought, ‘What if I introduced Belladonna Project through a photo project?’ And then I met Lexi.”

There’s a certain level of intimacy in the visuals that can only be achieved from the mutual trust between subject and photographer. To achieve this, Anjelika drew from her close network of women for the casting. “The way in which I came to know these women is part of what speaks the truth of this project,” she says. She met Spitfire while on a music video job where Anjelika was hired as a hairstylist. She met Von on Hinge after recognising the locker room in her photos. She met Jane while swimming at a nightclub in New York, and Knives in a club. “These women aren’t just part of my community as a dancer, they’re part of my greater community in New York City and beyond,” she explains. “There are women who inspired this project that we’ll never get to photograph, some that would never show their face, some I’ve lost contact with, and some who have passed on. And we’re not done photographing. We also really want to photograph my beloved house mum.”

While shooting, representation became an active conversation on set. “We really wanted to depict who the subjects are in their private time, what they enjoy, and how this relates to their position in the world outside of their sex work,” says Hide. From that starting point, they built scenes around real routines and interests. They brought in books, paintbrushes, ballet shoes and musical instruments. Some subjects chose to foreground their non-work selves, while others wanted to embrace their identities as sex workers, on their terms. There was one subject – the doctor – who opted for anonymity, her face shielded from the camera’s lens. “The project is not about diminishing sex work; rather, it aims to challenge the one-dimensionality that people often project onto the sex worker identity,” explains Hide. “As sex workers are a highly objectified demographic by design, I was very careful not to make the subjects feel like dolls in the often dramatic visual environments of the photos, focusing on capturing their posture and facial expressions in the moments between directions.”

Anjelika felt the emotional weight of this responsibility. “I felt myself developing a sort of mama bear syndrome as we were shooting. I wanted to make sure that everyone felt comfortable, that no one felt exploited or objectified in any way. And this reflected my own desire to feel protected in an industry that so often doesn’t consider our feelings and needs.”

Before meeting Anjelika, Hide didn’t know anyone close to her who was a sex worker. She has been honest about how the project has reframed her own understanding. “There was a defining moment I can recall when my shifted perspective was made clear to me. We had just completed one of the portraits, and two of the subjects and I were at a cafe. They were discussing prices for clients, what was worth what and so on. I felt completely detached from the moral panic that surrounds the one-dimensional and taboo ideas that people have about sex work. I fully saw it as it ultimately is: a way to make capital.”

Belladonna Project is ongoing, and now that it’s public, both Hide and Anjelika hope the work can challenge the stereotypes and stigma that still shape the public’s understanding of sex work, especially the assumption that it exists only on the edges of society. The project makes visible how sex workers move through the same cities, studios, bars, night shifts, hobbies and communities as everyone else. And that’s also part of Anjelika’s own reckoning too. “To be honest, I found myself having this desire to completely disconnect from any sex related work through the course of this project. I think in part because of the vulnerability I was feeling in really coming out about my experience so publicly. There’s so much that comes with that… but it’s felt important for me to do it. I feel both for my own self-expression and hopefully as a voice for the community.”