Category: Projects

Self Portrait Project: #1

Post author By Leah
Post date August 20, 2014
No Comments on Self Portrait Project: #1

Here is the first of the completed images from my self portraiture project, shot on Monday 28th July. Artist and friend, Barbara Wildenboer, popped into the studio after work to press the shutter release for me.

I lit the image so as to highlight the form and detail on my back (the focus of the image), there is a snoot lighting the middle area behind me to create a natural vignette around my body. There is also a narrow fill light on the left of the frame which gives the highlights on my shins and arm.

I had planned to crop the chair out of the image but later realised it added a nice sense of context. I picked up the detail in my hair and face a little in post production stage but apart from very minor tweaking I left it as it was.

Its was surprising to be the subjects of my own demands in terms of posing. I know I often push my models quite hard to achieve my ideas and I could feel it in my back for the following two days!

Tags self portrait, self portrait project, studio shoot

Projects Women I've Shot

The Origin Nudes 2004

This small series of B&W photographs were probably the first nudes I ever shot.

It was a project assignment which one could choose to handle the nude in one of a selection of different genres (political, erotic, medical, abstract, documentary etc). Below are some of my darkroom test strips from the time as well as sketches/plans for my studio shoot (also a first at that time).

A double page spread from one of my first visual diaries, back in 2004. A culmination of planning, project briefs, test strips and doodling of the best kind.

My approach was very simplistic: the body + erotisised or fetishises objects/articles of clothing etc. I used honey, stockings, classic black lace lingerie, wire, oil, a series of butterflies I had photographed and cut out.

The images were exhibited in the Cape Town Month of Photography 2005.

“Working here with feminine paraphernalia, motifs of desire and gender binaries, the photographer weaves them into her photographic process to produce aesthetically alluring depictions of undercurrent themes such as constraint and seduction.

This series of black and white nudes was based on using simple carnal devices and incorporating the power of body language to answer the brief requirements of a series of images relating to the nude canon for exhibition at the Cape Town Month of Photography”

Detail from one of the darkroom contact prints from the series.

Tags B&W nudes, cape town photographer, contact sheets, darkroom prints, erotic nude, leah hawker, nude with butterflies, Nude with honey, nude with oil, nude with panties, nude with stockings

Projects

A Self-portrature Project: Week Two

Post author By Leah
Post date August 11, 2014
No Comments on A Self-portrature Project: Week Two

So the self portrait project has continued and is evolving. Last week I again shot a pic per day and on Thursday also invited twenty friends to join in for their own portrait in the same lighting set-up.

The invitation was open ended, they could bring anything they wanted, would have some privacy, about 8 minutes in front of the camera and could chill and drink in our studio lounge and socialise during the waiting periods.

It is now Monday again and I didn’t feel like stopping so I’ve decided to continue, I’m not sure for how long. I’ll have to better co-ordinate my “button-pressers” though and make sure to have a good supply of wine in my studio for them!

Here are screen shots from my working folder of each day in order that I shot them last week:

Monday’s project was very personal, I suppose it’s a portrait of grief. On Tuesday I took all the Asian bondage rope I’ve used over the years for a number of projects and commissions and made myself into a rope sausage. The lighting is really classical and pretty. On Wednesday I’ll admit I was in a rush and had wanted to shoot a sweet candid portrait in one of my all-time-favorite dresses. The balloons were already in the studio for another shoot and I grabbed them. Thursday became my interactive shoot eve with friends and I dressed like my idea of a “female profession photographer”.

And lastly, I’d wanted to shoot a portrait covered in soap suds, the portrait idea had evolved when I remembered those shampoo hair style photos so many kids have taken of themselves when they’re sitting in the bath being laughed at (lovingly) by a parent mid way through a bath-time-hair-wash session. I lit the image to look totally 50’s advertorial, I should almost be selling butter….

Tags leah hawker, portrait as a professional, portrait crying, portrait in rope, portrait with balloons, Portrait with bubbles, self portrait, self portrait project

Projects

A Self-portraiture Project: The Beginning

Post author By Leah
Post date August 3, 2014
No Comments on A Self-portraiture Project: The Beginning

Half way through a self initiated project, the idea is to shoot a self portrait every week day for two weeks (or at least thats the plan for right now). It has already been both educational and compelling in ways I find surprising and expected.

Screen grab from my working folder of day 1 & 2.

Each day I must come up with an idea which I can shoot in my own studio with the help of a friend as my “button-presser”. The resulting ideas, images and experience have been insightful: to feel what it is like to be the subject of my camera with the demands I outlay on my models and how it feels to my body, the comparison of the images side by side and also how some ideas have been more intuitive while others are based on approaches to shoots I may have had in the past with a distinctly more commercial beauty aesthetic tied to them.

Screen grabs from shoot days 3, 4 & 5. These come from my working folder and the images still appear in their raw state.

I think that the series will reflect the way I see myself in different contexts (the Professional, the Wacky Creative, the Woman, The Conceptualizer etc) as well as the way I’ve experienced societies take on women as the “sexy sex” and what I’ve learned about how my female subjects often feel about their own body identity. Somehow all these things are apparent to me in these five very different sets of images so far.

The demands on the body to pose and my feelings of self awareness are also heightened.

The questions I have about how much to effect or change the images in order to present the final “polished” versions remains unanswered.

Tags cape town photographer, nudes, self portrait project, selfportraits, studio portraits, the body