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Projects

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.
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.
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.

Categories
Projects

The Debut Girls

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.

"Girl Hiding With Horse, from The Debut Girls 2008
“Girl Hiding With Horse”, from The Debut Girls 2008
"Blossoms", from The Debut Girls 2008
“Blossoms”, from The Debut Girls 2008

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.

"Blossom Bride", from The Debut Girls 2008
“Blossom Bride”, from The Debut Girls 2008
"Gloves", from The Debut Girls 2008
“Gloves”, from The Debut Girls 2008

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.

Pages from my visual diary of the time shows the reference images I begin this process from.
Pages from my visual diary of the time shows the reference images I begin this process from.

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.

Images from my visual diary of the time show contact sheets, test strips, notes and sketches.
Images from my visual diary of the time show contact sheets, test strips, notes and sketches.

I exhibited the series as part of the Month of Photography in 2008.

Details from my visual diary during The Debut Girls production.
Details from my visual diary during The Debut Girls production.