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).
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:
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.
