This small body of work which I produced in 2008 is inspired in part by iconic images of religious saints, martyrs and images of women from myth and legend as rendered in 19th Century academic paintings.
The photographs deal, superficially, with purity and innocence associated with age old perceptions of the virgin/maiden/bride, although at heart lie concepts of the truth about assumed and chosen identity, the crux of being individual and alike in our society.
The Debut Girls comments on changing views of gender perception; here utilising the archetypes of innocence and stereotype through the use of certain symbols and objects in the picture space.
The subjects and objects are documented so as to communicate a sense of isolation and the duality between beauty and restriction, perception and reality.
To see the rest of the series you can look here. Below are pages and details from my visual diary from the time.
The images from these pages reflect the process of thinking and creation to some extent. The main portrait shoot took place in a beautiful nectarine orchard and on a stud farm in Paarl where I brought my models (family members and friend) along with specially selected “props”. I shot the series on my twin lens Mamiya C3.
I exhibited the series as part of the Month of Photography in 2008.
