Tag: Leah Hawker photography

Possibly The Birth of my Inspiration

Post author By Leah
Post date February 11, 2015
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I lived in Stuttgart for a period of months when I was 17. I was going to school there and living with a friend and her family who stayed in a picturesque village out of town.
I had a cheap-as-hell 35mm film camera and shot a lot of film while on the trip. There were three occasions however on which I took photos that have since inspired my work….

The images are haphazard; they were randomly and spontaneously captured and seem reminiscent of portholes into moments one can nostalgically never quite return to. They represent a sort of iconic state of femininity and abandon.

Maybe it has something to do with the dreaminess that is European light? Maybe it was the nondescript spaces? And maybe it was the naive innocence and carefree joy of those Summer days and the freedom that came with the times…I don’t know.

There was a small sort of wilderness directly behind the family home where some of these images were taken on a funny day between the four of us. I think we’d just gone for a walk and had ended up messing about doing gymnastics and sunbathing in the long grass and flowers.

A second occasion was an excavated dam on the border of France on a day trip around Easter and the third was out and about during a spontaneous afternoon of paddle-boating on a lake on day after school.

I suppose these images represent the moments that come between naivety and self-awareness, and in this I find beauty and inspiration.

Sadly, I posted some of the negatives to Germany years later and never got them back. Jojo, if you ever find them, please return them to me!

In first year photography, about 5 years later, I tried to re-create the atmosphere of these original images shot in 2000 as one of my personally motivated projects.

These new images, shot on Holga, have a certain energy but I felt like it was impossible to capture again the fleeting moments of those perfectly naive years before…

Tags 35mm film, cape town photography, carefree images of girls, girls dancing in the forest, girls in a field of grass, girls in cape town, girls in stuttgart, girls on a paddleboat, girls playing by a dam, holga photography, images of women, leah hawker, Leah Hawker cape town photographer, Leah Hawker photography, naive girls, nostalgia, playful images

Women I've Shot

Pregnancy & Birth: This is Jacky

Post author By Leah
Post date February 2, 2015
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My beautiful sister Jacky fell pregnant with her first daughter in 2008. She was one of the first pregnant figures I worked with and I documented her a total of about seven times during her two pregnancies.

I shot a small series of images of her in our Grandmothers shawl (below and above pictures), as well as a series of silhouettes, images with her husband and with her daughters (during pregnancy & after birth). Here are a selection of the ones I find most special.

My Sister is the second oldest of the younger tier of our (female dominated) family on my Mothers side and was the first to have children, two daughters, confirming a recent comment about our family as “A Coven of Women” (which makes me smile).

I regret not documenting her first daughters “birth-day” but was terribly sick at the time and only got to photograph her a while later.

During Jacky’s second pregnancy I documented her in studio and on the beach with her little girl.

They stood on the beach for me, early one morning, when Jacky was about eight months pregnant.
Windswept on a beautiful Cape Town day these images are memorable for the sweet moments they shared talking about the soon-to-be new member of their family.

We shot a series of the two in studio, all soft natural light. I’ve realised how much I prefer a more “honest” and natural approach to documenting this kind of subject matter, thus I will almost always use available light and or outdoor spaces.

Her second babe arrived in June 2011 and I photographed their first moments together just hours after birth. Jacky stared at each perfect little piece of her while I captured these moments.

Tags cape town photography, cape town pregnancy photo, leah hawker, Leah Hawker cape town photographer, Leah Hawker photography, maternity photographer, newborn, newborn photography cape town, pregnancy, pregnancy and new born photography cape town, Pregnancy photoshoot

Women I've Shot

“The Housewives”, Private Commissions:
This is Simone

Post author By Leah
Post date January 25, 2015
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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.)Simone’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.
After 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).Simone 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?

The 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.

Tags beautiful portraits of women, cape town photography, cape town pilates, cape town studio photography, leah hawker, Leah Hawker cape town photographer, Leah Hawker photography, photography by leah hawker, pilates, pilates cape town, pilates photo shoot, pilates poses, pilates studio cape town

Women I've Shot

A Portrait of Elize Vossgatter: Artist & Mother

Post author By Leah
Post date November 28, 2014
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I shot this portrait of Elize in my studio this week. She needed a profile for a collaborative exhibition she is involved with for Infecting The City, an event held in Cape Town.

Tags cape town photography, elize vossgatter, leah hawker, Leah Hawker cape town photographer, Leah Hawker photography, photograph by leah hawker, portrait of cape town artist elize vossgatter, portrait photography cape town, studio portrait