Cape Town Polaroid – The Softer Sex

I started shooting PolaroidWomen in October 2014, I still had one pack left of original Polaroid film hanging-out in the depths of our fridge which I’d bought in 2009 (expired 2007) and went and emptied a big portion of my bank account on another stack of Impossible film (the miraculous company that have managed to re-produce instant film for Polaroid after Polaroid stopped manufacturing film in 2008).

The-Begining-of-the-PolaroidWomen-project-by-Leah-Hawker-2014

I picked up my snap-shot Polaroid camera at Orms in 2006 I think and had only ever passed about 8-9 packs of film through it by 2013. I planned to use the project for OpenStudios 2014, one of the first few creative and art based projects I’ve re-involved with for the last 6 years (!).

The project resulted in a selected series of 35 framed instant images for the exhibition,- the images take a voyeuristic peek into a fantasy world of women in dreamy, nondescript natural spaces…..tiny portholes to a place where the ethereal is momentarily a reality.
Below are some snaps from the OpenStudios event:

Some of the images from the series below:

PolaroidWomen-9 Instant Images of Nudes by Leah Hawker Cape Town Photographer

PolaroidWomen-8 Instant Images of Nudes by Leah Hawker Cape Town Photographer

PolaroidWomen-7 Instant Images of Nudes by Leah Hawker Cape Town Photographer

PolaroidWomen-6 Instant Images of Nudes by Leah Hawker Cape Town Photographer

I aimed to approach the image taking process differently to my norm. Where I usually control and stage my work quite particularly, here I asked my models to be natural, carefree, awkward, real and just playful. I guided some more than others, depending on the location and woman I was working with.

I shot in about six different locations for the series, ranging from swimming pools in Franschoek, orchids, rivers, shooting ranges, forests and beaches,- all with a sort of anonymous composition which leaves the environment and the women to be anyone, anywhere, a slice of time, a dream.

I plan to continue the series into 2015. For now the remaining framed pieces left over after the Open Studios show are hanging at Exposure Gallery in the Old Biscuit Mill, Woodstock.

(Note: “The Housewives” was a term I fondly coined in 2006 after I started getting shoot requests from private, individual women who became my clients. Many of the women who contacted me were married and in their mid 30’s and were doing the shoots as gifts to their husbands. The folder in my archives is still called this and so I’ve stuck to it, in part just for the irony: most of these women are not “housewives” at all, but strong independent and forward thinking women who I have had the honour of documenting.

All are private commissions and the demographic has changed substantially over the years. Some I’m still in contact with, others I’ve totally lost contact with, some have become friends, some may wish not to have their real names used, others don’t mind, some may have their faces obscured for privacy reasons, others have generously shared their experiences of being photographed.)

I photographed gorgeous Nicky in her sister-in-laws spare bedroom one afternoon in early 2006.

The shoot was planned as her one year anniversary gift to her husband. Traditionally each year of marriage has a different symbol item or medium associated to it (Like gold, or wood, or tin etc) and the first is paper, so romantic!

The images were all shot Polaroid and put into an album for him after the shoot. I only have the cropped versions of the images which is what Ive added here. It was so lovely to shoot an entire project on Polaroid!