I’ve continued shooting my self-portraiture project but let it evolve in terms of timing (so I no longer shoot it daily but rather when I have an idea I want to work with, etc).
Self portrait No.11 is a kind of sporty hero. I often end up spending the whole day in my gym gear just because I’m too lazy to go home and change. I asked Bryan to shoot these pics, resplendent with squeezey water bottle and fake exercisey-ness. I like the tone and colors, the lighting style has also become a favorite.
Portraits No. 12, 13 & 14 were shot on one evening in the studio with three friends. I invited them for wine and a shoot and then we went out for dinner. The results of the evening are fantastic (more on that later), I asked each individual to bring interesting items with them for using and the shoot was reasonably open ended with two lighting changes.
Here are screen shots from my working folder of the last three self-portraits in the order that they were shot:
I properly met and first photographed artist Lynette Bester in 2008 while she was preparing to print her entire body with printers ink for an art work to be showed at the Association for Visual Arts in Cape Town.
A detail from my visual diary of the time. A working page with test strips created while I was processing “Shooting Godiva” images of Lynette Bester.
Lynette tells the story…
I had just come out of a long abusive relationship that had left me questioning my own body confidence and self acceptance. Serendipitously Leah, who had been a student of mine was now my colleague and for the first time we found ourselves in the little staff room talking about art, body politics and our up-coming bodies of work. I knew Leah had for a long time explored, quite successfully, the photographing of the erotic female body and most importantly I understood that she sought to empower the women in her photographs. Her photographs were meant for the women who posed for her to cherish and not for any implied male viewer. Leah and I were not friends yet, that was still to come.
Lynette Bester’s whole body print titled “Godiva”, 2008 for the Association of Visual Arts group show “Baring”
I had been invited onto a show at the AVA, Church Street, Cape Town, called Baring curated by Eunice Geustyn. For the show I wanted to do a nude body print of myself on a single sheet of paper. An aggressive act: dirty, naked, confident. My sister was going to roll me up with printer’s ink and print me onto a single large ream of cotton paper.
Leah was interested: she wanted to photograph the process. That was the first time she came to my home, meeting my mother and sister, and the first time I was able to be naked in front of anyone for the better part of a year. My body print was called Godiva – a nick-name my father had for me because as a child I enjoyed being naked so much. My father had passed away in the previous year. Leah’s photographs were called Shooting Godiva, there close up details revealed an ambiguous sexuality and tautological strength. Leah was also curated on to the exhibition Baring with three photographs of my body covered in ink and in the process of printing.
I hadn’t looked at these images for years and found the negatives again the other day. Below are a selection that I had rescanned.
It was a new experience from two perspectives: It’s not often you get to witness somebody acting out such a scenario, including all the logistics that go with actually landing on a giant sheet of (expensive) paper to make a perfect print first time (which Lynette did) but also because the way the light hit the printers ink and highlighted the details of her skin and shape was remarkable and very very beautiful.
The element of nudity is played down by the ink coverage but the tactile nature of the images is highlighted….
We have this crazy “Buttercup” colour backdrop roll in our studio which I was dying to use. I combined it with my soap suds inspiration (combination of the idea of shooting with foam and those punk-bath-time-kiddie-hair-styles one gets photographed with when still little) to create portrait #10.
Using three lights to get this 1950’s pinup kitschnesss1o match the foam and sitting in a giant tub in my studio with shampoo and a glass of wine on a Friday afternoon, I posed for this pic. I suppose the variety of colours and tones in all 10 images so far is also what appeals to me about this image.
There are elements about this portrait which are masculine, also, to me, this is the “photographic professional” look I kind of have in my head. It was the evening, appropriately, where I invited 20 friends to join me in the project. The friends could bring whatever they wanted to use in their own portrait (which I would shoot in the same lighting set-up I planned to use on the day) and drinks.
I made the shoot area partially private from the social space where people gathered waiting and chatting.
After the one and a half hours I spent shooting my guests (some images to come in a later post), I dressed and had many of them stand behind my camera and shoot me.
I like the quietness and composure of the image, it’s very simple.
