(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 met and photographed this client in March 2008 at both Llandudno beach and the Ruth Prowse photo studio while I was still still part time lecturing there.
Our studio shoot was based mostly on ideas of body symmetry, movement, dramatic lighting and form. Her body, which to this day is one of the most lean and toned ones I’ve ever worked with, definitely leant itself to this and many of the images came out very beautifully.
I remember that this was one of those shoots where I was still grappling with lighting even though I got it right, I was frustrated.
The shoot we did on the beach was fantastic: early morning light, rough gigantic granite boulders and the lithe sculptural shapes of her athletic body which were even more defined with oil.
(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 met and photographed Janine in December 2012, I already can’t believe it was that long ago. Colleen joined me to do her hair and makeup in Noordehoek and we drove through to Witsands beach between Kommetjie and Scarborough for the shoot. I remember that she felt a bit self conscious about her body (as most women do) and expressed concerns about areas she felt uncomfortable about at that time.
She is uniquely and has beautiful dark hair and yes and I was amazed how incredibly femininely her body photographed. The beach was (almost) deserted and we trod up into the sand dune area in the wind to prepare the last details and styling before I began shooting.
We shot a series of images up against the windbreaks, the still quite early morning light was diffused by thin clouds and the reflection of the sand around her. The wind picked up substantially during the hour or two we were there and by the time we were shooting the last images it was blowing up a mini-sand-storm over the dunes and looked magical. I asked her if she would run up into it for some pics which she did. The images were beautiful, aerie and dramatic and afterwards she and I and my camera were caked in sand!
I really loved how natural these images are. There is also a strong tactile element due to the sand on her skin and the movement caused by the wind. She was thrilled with the images (as was her partner) when he received them for Christmas. I had the feeling that for both of them it was very powerful to see her body from this different perspective. They are images I still really love.
And behind the scenes on this shoot day…..
Behind the scenes on a private nude commission photo shoot on Witsands Beach in Cape Town South Africa. Photo taken by Colleen who was doing hair & makeup for me on this shoot. You can see the wind is howling!
I photographed Elloise at 8.5 months pregnant which was approximately two and a half weeks before her son Daniel was born. She arrived in the studio just as Sabian Ransome, one of my Playboy Playmates and also a fitness model was changing to leave from a shoot with me. The comparison at that moment, Elloise pointed out, of their two bodies was quite something.
The shoot was very simple and natural. I shot some images of her in her clothes with the natural light that was coming into our studio and then this series (shown here) which I lit to highlight her shape. It’s a lighting style I’ve used before with pregnant women but I positioned the lights on both sides of her and not so far back as I wanted to capture more detail in her face and on her body as apposed to just a very fine line of silhouette.
Just a few weeks later and about 9 hours after her natural home birth I photographed this portrait which I find very special… Daniel, just a few hours old with his Mother on the left and Grandmother on the right. Three generations, so much love and pride… Photographing women at this changing point in their lives is repeatedly inspirational and moving.
I’m so constantly aware of this pursuit for perfection in women around me. It appears in many different ways, be it eating disorders, aggressive beauty treatments, make-overs, insecurities, etc. It is the opposite of self-acceptance I think it is created by our overexposure to advertising with its polished images of what is so-called-perfect mixed also with the strange importance we give to fame and celebrity. The byproduct of this pre-occupation is uncertainty about ones own self-image and an obsession with it. Of course also living in a social media “era” has made it even more vivid as we’re bombarded with images that have all been curated to depict how we see ourselves and others.
A staged “selfie” I shot of Yolandi during our cover shoot, made to look authentically safe taken.
The “selfie”, self-photo phenomenon, is a prime example of our self-identifying-obsession. The word itself, which I recently read was chosen as “Word of the Year for the Oxford English Dictionary”, just goes to show the extent of our new self-depicting obsession. The selfie trend tells us so much about how we selectively choose to portray ourselves to others based on what we assume is beautiful, acceptable, cool. It also picks up on the demand for authenticity in the subject via the amateur camera holder as apposed to the overly perfected images we are saturated with.
It was such a relevant theme to pick up on for one of the cover shoots I was commissioned for earlier last year for magazine brand Playboy South Africa. The cover model, Yolandi Malherbe, is a past playmate and is very exposed to this issue through the social media she participates in, I liked the idea of playing with the irony of her self-mania on “her” cover, the look and concept of which were in my hands.
I photographed the Playboy South Africa April 2013 cover with Yolandi Malherbe as its cover “celebrity”, her nudity covered with Polaroid selfies.
I’ve been working with nudes, both commercially and in my own fine art based projects, since I started as a photographer. Many of the models I’ve worked with in the nude/swimwear etc genre now have their own self created Facebook “fan” pages. Its such a strange platform and in most ways is very narcissistic, inviting an over-inflated concept of “self”.
A selection of the 100 polaroids I shot of Yolandi Malherbe on her cover shoot for Playboy SA.
The models fill their pages with images of themselves; some professionally taken and the rest are often sexy selfies. The majority of the feedback and support they receive comes from anonymous followers (predominantly men from anywhere, often conservative countries) who enjoy the free “kick” thrown into their daily newsfeeds. I suppose that even though its 95% hot air it feeds a feeling of self-worth and therefore the behaviour is flourishing.
I styled my subject to reflect the self-within-the-self-within-the-self as a paradox, the twisted version we accept and create currently in a strange cycle between beauty and self identity.
An image from Yolandi’s pictorial where she poses taking her own selfies with a vintage Polaroid camera.
In my series of images with Yolandi, apart from depicting her beautifully and sexily as the brand expects, I played with this notion of the Selfie as a kind of reversed insecurity, a tool we have started to use to gain a kind of attention. The images thus try to depict the model in layers: she is (1) the subject of the images and article, (2) she is photographed by me, (3) photographing herself, (4) showing you herself within the image again and (5) incorporate photos of herself within polaroids of herself which coyly draw attention to (6) the object of the images which is her own nudity/sexuality.
