Friday, August 03, 2012

For some of you who may be somewhat regular readers of this blog you must know that I have a project, tentatively called Me&My Project which is based on a lifelong project by German photographer August Sander who photographed people from all the walk of life in Germany for over half a century.

Central to Sander’s portraiture was an almost incredible objective detachment from his subjects so they all seemed to shine with an inner humanity so rare in, in my opinion, in contemporary portraiture. Sander’s portraits ooze with a respect that he must have had for all his subjects.

In my project I add two variations. One is that I use my mother’s red rebozo (shawl) which she brought to Buenos Aires from a trip to Mexico in 1952. For me the rebozo is magical in its redness and rough texture. The other variation is that my subjects must write an essay on anything.

To date I have 23 and ten in the can but with the problem that I must keep nagging my subjects to send in their essays.

There has been an interesting wrinkle. One of my first subjects, Yuliya Kate, the professional dominatrix says I caught her in a day when she had a cold. She insisted on a re-shoot. I was a bit reluctant but she was willing to come to the house for her portrait. I relented so we took the pictures on Wednesday and also took a few more. I have not processed the film but here is the new Fuji Instant Film scan. I must agree that Yuliya looks much better and the photograph is more striking.

Besides, when a dominatrix wants something, we mere mortals must comply. I am glad I did.