Photographing a mother and tiny brand new baby is and always will be very special and memorable. Within the first day of their lives together one already sees magic happening: Motherhood.
I photographed these portraits of Lynette and baby Liam at the Cape Medi Clinic were he was born in September. Every tiny detail is in place and perfect and the parents are in a strange state of awe, shock, emotion, joy and pride (or it at least this is my interpretation of these moments!).
I had photographed a series of nude pregnancy images of Lynette just a short time before and was aiming to create a kind of parallel version depending on what scenario I found when I arrived, or, how possible it would be to shoot her and the new babe from above.
These are the beautiful and very foetal images I documented in studio while she was still pregnant…
I love the image which incorporated the environment around the bed (above). It emphasises the foetal quality of the image and also creates a relationship between subject and documentor.
The images are so soft and she looks like the epitomy of a pregnant women.
When I arrived in the hospital and walked into their room Lynette was standing square in the centre of the room and looked like a subject from a Rineke Dijkstra portrait (images of women immediately after they had given birth, standing up against a clinical hospital environment and holding their babies).
On the left is one of Rineke Dijksra’s portraits of a new mother and on the left is exactly how I found Lynette when I walked into her hospital room. It was like déjavu.
I photographed a series of portraits but this one I also really like for its imitation and parallel to the studio portraits I shot of her.
(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 shot Lauren in 2007, it was at a time when many of the nude commissions I was doing were linked to the graduate body of work I completed at the end of 2005,- themes such as the French Main, the Bride etc were often therefore requested by my clients who had seen the grad work on exhibition.
“The Bride” – one of the images from my graduate body of work completed in 2005 which later inspired many of my clients private commissions…“The Kinky French Maid” – one of the images from my graduate body of work completed in 2005 which later inspired many of my clients private commissions…
Laurens shoot was done (if I remember correctly) at her Grans house one afternoon in January. We shot a series of different looks including a bridal themed series and many various B&W images utilizing interesting props I had collected – from lengths of strung pearls to body cinches.
I was definitely still in the relatively inexperienced zone of my career and there are so many things now that I would have done differently, but then I suppose that is the value of trial ‘n error/experience…
For example (if you were a student reading this it could be helpful):
I am now pretty much obsessed with getting my backgrounds perfect, I steam them, iron them etc so that there is not a crease in sight as they are a pain to retouch out later. Also creases and folds show up in high contrast when shooting against satin.
I stayed in touch with Lauren and messaged her to ask her if she’s be fine with me adding her images to this archive, what see said made me super happy…after all this time…
I absolutely LOVED doing this shoot with you. It was like a discovery of my womanhood. I felt sexy without ever feeling overexposed. I was comfortable at all times.
Its been probably 8yrs since that shoot and I look at the pics quite regularly still and can’t get over how amazing they are. It shows me that I am a beautiful, sexy woman. I would do them again in a heart beat!
Lauren was 21 or 22 when I worked with her and was by far the youngest commercial commission I had ever shot. It was a quirky and fun experience, and in the French maid themed series I used the great location to add depth to the look.
I think her Gran was having tea in the sun room at the time we were shooting this in her lounge, I wondered what she thought…
I properly met and first photographed artist Lynette Bester in 2008 while she was preparing to print her entire body with printers ink for an art work to be showed at the Association for Visual Arts in Cape Town.
A detail from my visual diary of the time. A working page with test strips created while I was processing “Shooting Godiva” images of Lynette Bester.
Lynette tells the story…
I had just come out of a long abusive relationship that had left me questioning my own body confidence and self acceptance. Serendipitously Leah, who had been a student of mine was now my colleague and for the first time we found ourselves in the little staff room talking about art, body politics and our up-coming bodies of work. I knew Leah had for a long time explored, quite successfully, the photographing of the erotic female body and most importantly I understood that she sought to empower the women in her photographs. Her photographs were meant for the women who posed for her to cherish and not for any implied male viewer. Leah and I were not friends yet, that was still to come.
Lynette Bester’s whole body print titled “Godiva”, 2008 for the Association of Visual Arts group show “Baring”
I had been invited onto a show at the AVA, Church Street, Cape Town, called Baring curated by Eunice Geustyn. For the show I wanted to do a nude body print of myself on a single sheet of paper. An aggressive act: dirty, naked, confident. My sister was going to roll me up with printer’s ink and print me onto a single large ream of cotton paper.
Leah was interested: she wanted to photograph the process. That was the first time she came to my home, meeting my mother and sister, and the first time I was able to be naked in front of anyone for the better part of a year. My body print was called Godiva – a nick-name my father had for me because as a child I enjoyed being naked so much. My father had passed away in the previous year. Leah’s photographs were called Shooting Godiva, there close up details revealed an ambiguous sexuality and tautological strength. Leah was also curated on to the exhibition Baring with three photographs of my body covered in ink and in the process of printing.
I hadn’t looked at these images for years and found the negatives again the other day. Below are a selection that I had rescanned.
It was a new experience from two perspectives: It’s not often you get to witness somebody acting out such a scenario, including all the logistics that go with actually landing on a giant sheet of (expensive) paper to make a perfect print first time (which Lynette did) but also because the way the light hit the printers ink and highlighted the details of her skin and shape was remarkable and very very beautiful.
The element of nudity is played down by the ink coverage but the tactile nature of the images is highlighted….
I photographed dear friend and fellow artist Lynette with her fiancé Stephen early one morning on Camps Bay beach. She was eight months into a difficult pregnancy and these images seemed to come like a ray of sunshine before their tiny son Liam would arrive. We spent an hour or so in the sun and sand, it was a perfect morning, the beginning of Spring and felt to me like a positive premonition of what was soon to come.
We had discussed a playful and sweet, 50’s inspired feel and Lynette brought along some simple single coloured items which leant themselves to the look perfectly. The images come across like happy treasures, nostalgic and warm.
I love the simplicity of the approach we had on this shoot; the linear elements of the background contrasted with the round, organic shapes of her body. We left the beach feeling happy and inspired and headed to my studio in Woodstock for the second half of the shoot which was intended to be more of a nude portrait of Lynette on a bed of white linen, photographed from above. More on these images later.
