

What she didn’t expect, though, was for those fateful 10 minutes to come back and bite her. It was a verbal agreement, but she had no reason to worry that he would go back on his word, since nothing untoward had happened with photos she had taken with him before. He also assured her it was “just for a collection, meaning he won’t share it around, he won’t publish it and all that,” she said. So I just endured it, got it over and done with, and then rushed to the toilet to get my clothes back on,” she added. “It’s like lighting up a cigarette and waiting till it finishes burning - it’s that kind of time frame, 10 minutes. It was awkward, she said, but she told herself to endure it, reminding herself that it was just 10 minutes. She was desperate for the money at that time, too as two ex-boyfriends had cheated her of her savings, and a former employer had not paid her more than $1,500 from a previous part-time job she did.

“Honestly, $200 for 10 minutes - to a student (like me), that’s really a lot.” “At the end of the shoot, he said, ‘Why don’t you just do 10 minutes of nude shoots, and I’ll pay you $200 more’,” she said, opening up about her story for the first time to Yahoo Singapore. That shoot in 2009 was different, though, as the result was she joined the ranks of models in Singapore with nude photographs leaked online. Having started modelling roughly a year earlier, the then-Institute of Technical Education electronics student found it an easy way to earn pocket money and save for her studies. She had become accustomed to his style and had grown to trust him - after all, he called her often, dangling the offer of “spare cash” to pose for his camera. It was a routine affair, and it was already her fifth time working with this particular photographer. Elaine (not her real name) was 18 when she posed for her last lingerie-clad photo shoot.
