Tag: cape town studio photography

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Women I've Shot

Corporate Commission: Alan Walt Architects & Ass.
The Client Christmas Card 2013/4

Alan-Walt-Puzzle-A4

This was Alan Walt and my 4th collaboration together.

Alan is a South African architect based in Cape Town who I met around 2007 when he approached me to shoot one of his end-of-year/Christmas cards which he sends out to his clients, usually late, but none the less around the December/January mark.

The end of year client card is a space for him to collaborate with artists and to create a thought provoking and generally provocative (when working with me) product of some kind to share with the people he has worked with during a year.

Alan usually comes to me with a starting point of some kind from which we grow an idea which I shoot. The 2013/4 collaboration intended to incorporate the “AWA” (Alan Walt Architects) logo into the cut out wedge of the models high heels. A play on power and rather reminiscent of Helmut Newtons nudes,- the model stands strong and dominantly. She stands on the clients brand (via the logo cut wedges in the heels) at the same time she’s incapacitated by wearing the heels as well as the blindfold.

This image by Newton comes to mind...the disabled yet powerful woman.
This image by Newton comes to mind…the disabled yet powerful woman.

The project morphed so that by the end we produced a 48 or 72 piece A4 puzzle from the image which would be delivered or sent out to his clients.

The below images show the camera RAW files in Bridge (Photoshops editing software) as the images get edited down to a final selection for the project.

AWA-2013-Editing-Process-Alan messed around with some of the images (below). He printed out the above files and cut them up to resemble the beginning of a collage shaped as a “W”. I  like this idea better in hindsight and maybe we’ll still put it together one day as a print for his office.

Regerence-to-AWA-2013

Below is the first proof printed puzzle and lastly, I gave the model (a friend and also a photographic assistant in our space) a copy. I left the piece stacked up in a little mysterious pile on her desk for her to find and assemble when she came in to work.

The-Puzzle-AWA-2013

The-AWA-Puzzle-snaps

Categories
Women I've Shot

Pregnancy Portrait: This is Ursula

Pregnancy-Portrait-Cape-Town-Maternity-Photography-002-by-Leah-Hawker

I met Ursula a number of years ago and was thrilled to be commissioned to shoot a series of pregnancy portraits of her as well as capture some family moments afterwards with herself, her daughter and her husband.

Ursula was pregnant with her second child, and in her third trimester when we worked together. The pregnancy portraits we shot were very simple but bold. I lit her with one light, set back, to just highlight her silhouette plus  a little bit more detail created by a poly board on her other side.

Pregnancy-Portrait-Cape-Town-Maternity-Photography-001-by-Leah-Hawker

There is a decadence in the profile of a pregnant women which I love. The shapes are so beautifully abundant. Every line of the female body becomes enhanced so that a series of interconnected spheres take over the body.

Heavily pregnant women, especially when shot in this style, remind me of the Venus of Willendorf, a paleolithic sculpture associated with fertility and childbearing (picture below).

venusofwillendorf

Ursula and I also shot a few images with her young daughter in an embrace, the  resulting image I find to be a special reflection of motherhood.
Together their bodies become a knot of warmth, love and nurturing.

Pregnancy-Portrait-Cape-Town-Maternity-Photography-004-by-Leah-Hawker

Categories
Women I've Shot

An Impromptu Portrait of Bernadette Basson

I met Bernadette briefly twice at the end of last year.

She came into my studio two weeks ago with a friend of mine who I was shooting a portrait of that day. Towards the end of my shoot the friend who I was documenting asked if I’d shoot a portrait of Bernie as well.

I can’t quite figure out if she’s just super quiet or shy but she was surprisingly self-assured in front of the camera for those brief minutes I shot with her.

Her dress had left an imprint around her ribs where the elastic had been and I liked how the lines of her ribs, taught and so close to the skin, and the marks from her clothing left a sort of contradicting parallel message on her body at that moment.

A-Portrait-of-Bernadette Basson-by-Leah-Hawker- Cape Town Photographer

Categories
Women I've Shot

“The Housewives”, Private Commissions:
This is Simone

(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.)Pilates-Poses-by-Leah-Hawker-13Simone’s shoot was a little different, it was a private commission but non-nude, her idea was to shoot a series of quite symmetrical pilates poses. The images would be used both as gift in the form of a calendar for her partner and a series of beautifully framed prints for her home workout space.
Pilates-Poses-by-Leah-Hawker-11After a meeting about the shoot to discuss Simone’s ideas and the variable possibilities we decided on clean B&W-only garments, a soft lighting style with a mild shadow presence and lots of white space which meant shooting in a studio with a super broad built in infinity curve (thanks Roodebloem Studios).Pilates-Poses-by-Leah-Hawker-15Simone was amazing to shoot with her beautifully toned body (from pilates training of course) and the images look exactly the way I had imagined they should. Maybe we should publish a Cape Town Pilates book Simone?
Pilates-Poses-by-Leah-Hawker-18

Pilates-Poses-by-Leah-Hawker-05The simplicity of her bodys’ shape in the space, her serenity and the atmosphere of the photographs is a great reflection on the principles of the practice: concentration, control, center, flow, precision, and breathing.

A brief description, thanks to Wikipedia:

In his book Return to Life through Contrology, Joseph Pilates presents his method as the art of controlled movements, which should look and feel like a workout (not a therapy) when properly manifested.

If practiced with consistency, Pilates improves flexibility, builds strength and develops control and endurance in the whole human body. It puts emphasis on alignment, breathing, developing a strong powerhouse, and improving coordination and balance. Pilates’ system allows for different exercises to be modified in range of difficulty from beginner to advanced or to any other level, and also in terms of the instructor and practitioner’s specific goals and/or limitations. Intensity can be increased over time as the body conditions and adapts to the exercises.

Pilates-Poses-by-Leah-Hawker-10