When I started this blog, I was very aware that my photography has split off into two directions, the Landscape and Models. What I hadn’t anticipated is the Landscapes becoming more individual and the Model photography losing focus. I’ve almost, but never fully, felt able to express something touching on the metaphysical with a model.
This loss of focus isn’t completely from a lack of trying. For my last shoot, I was determined in what I wanted to capture, removing everything that would give the vibe it’s a model photoshoot. The results are probably one of my strongest authentic portraits, in effect, I had pretty much nailed my intention. I just hadn’t sat down and really thought of what my overall intention was. As I’ve found with my Landscape work, I think I want to create Evocative wall art, “Wall art” meant in the most respectful way and hopefully with some deeper meanings.
The bigger issue I feel is vehemently aligning to Authenticity, removing anything inauthentic, I’ve narrowed the result down to a portrait with no room for other imaginations. A portrait is quite a specific thing, whilst it’s art, its also a portrait of a woman, an individual, not necessarily high art where there are concepts and universal truths.
At the weekend I started reading about portfolio reviews with Shutter Hub, you can pay to have a professional review your portfolio, or if you wish just look at your work and guide you. Perhaps im too scared but It got me thinking, I can't turn up with a portfolio of dreamy woman’s portraits and start talking about spirituality, metaphysics, or mysticism when there’s not been a single attempt made to put any of that quality into any recent image. I desperately need to get back to where I was pre-COVID. My determination for the straight shoot, for absolute authenticity to reality is killing me.
A question that’s always mildly worried me is why I don’t photograph Men?. My images are all about Women. Confronting this head-on has made me understand myself better. I don’t shoot sexualized imagery, and my work is just portraits. B&W moody portraiture also works for male models and I’m often asked if I will work with male models.
From an outsider’s perspective, it will probably broaden my photographic skills or thinking. There’s a school of thought that creatives can open a box to find random objects and learn to make art from them. The other school of thought, and more “Art” rather than outright creativity, is focusing on something specific and blocking out the rest, distilling it down, evolving it, narrowing focus.
I think my work is about trying to understand Women. This understanding mixed in with a sense of the female mind being some gateway to mysticism. I often wonder if it’s partly Cancerian thing, for those that believe in such things. Cancerians being a moody as fuck, often lost in the depths of their own minds. There’s been occasions I've almost felt the fall inside of it, a void of unimaginable size, headiness and darkness. There seems to be bugger all of use inside of it and I certainly don’t climb out with a greater understanding of the universe, but I feel its seriousness.
On a brief ‘nerd out’ to understand the photographer and teacher Minor White, I bumped into the book that inspired him, “Mysticism” by Evelyn Underhill. Whilst I’m not a huge Minor White fan, his teachings have become something sacred and hard to find. Mysticism captured my imagination, its grip never left me. I cling to some hope I will see it in others. For whatever reason I’m transfixed with representing it with Woman.
Trying to keep things actionable, my next plan is to stop adhering to absolute authenticity, it must be a photographer thing, honouring the straight shot. I think I need to refocus my attention to trying to make concepts look authentic and not outright reject anything that’s too conceptual. Ban myself from normal portraits – a bit hasty but I need to kick up my routine. It’s too much pressure to be creative on the day, I need a concepts that can be prepared at home that rely on my skills and the bag of tricks I brought along, no magical thinking of the perfect natural light and unexpected backdrop. The creativity on the day is just the variations, anything else is a bonus. Take more images! Even shoot stuff that won’t work, just keep shooting and trust my instincts to filter out the total junk. Plan my work as Wall Art from the beginning, its a specific thing, then reverse engineer it to a shoot plan.
