Tag: young photographer

‘Boys’ by Jemma Rose

Jemma Rose is an 18-year-old photographer based in Johannesburg. I met up with Jemma about two weeks ago to photograph her for a series I am currently working on. The session took on the tone of a social visit and we chatted about a variety of topics ranging from boys, girls, high school and our individual practices. It slowly took on an interview tone and we discussed her latest body of work, Boys.

Still being in high school, Jemma does not have formal training but her eagerness to learn urged her to ask photographers she knew questions about photography. In addition to this she attended free workshops and lectures that helped her groom her photographic eye and technique.

When asked about analogue vs. digital she responds, “I can hear the hipster mob outside right now, screaming ‘film is not dead!’ Like, yeah man, it never was, chill.” Jemma tells me that she started playing around with film a number of years ago just for fun but more recently she is making an active decision to work in the format as it pushes her to be a better photographer.

I do agree with Jemma on this matter as I have in recent months also started working more and more with my trusty Canon film camera. The mayor challenge therein lies for photographers who started creating images digitally, is that there is no LCD display (liquid crystal display) in the analogue format, meaning that you literally do not know what you are getting when you photograph. This forces you to know your film camera better than any other form of equipment you will ever own.

Knowing exposure combinations and understanding lighting conditions as well as how your ISO, shutter speed and aperture play together is crucial. So yes Jemma, analogue does push you to be a better photographer. In addition to this, the fact that you only have 36 frames means that you need to take more calculated shots.

Jemma’s recent body of work is a series titled simply as Boys. The series is a collection of photographs taken of young males dressed in feminine underwear and attire all photographed in black and white. Jemma tells me that this project is an exploration into the destructive nature of the way in which hypermasculinity is idealized, as well as the importance of gender expression and identification in an individual.

Explaining the process that was followed to create this body of work, Jemma states that she asked some of her friends who identified as males to model for her. On the shoot day she showed each one of them a collection of her grandmother’s old lingerie and they were asked to select pieces from the collection that they liked. They were permitted to choose their own accessories if they wanted such as fur, pearls and glitter. “As they put the items on, I tried to photograph their emotional reactions – I wanted to capture how their gender expression changed in the presence of hyper-feminine clothing.”

Jemma expresses that this project is extremely personal for her, “Growing up in South African society, in which a strict gender binary is still very much embedded in our collective consciousness, I found it difficult to explore my sexuality and gender fluidity.” As she grew older, however, she started questioning the reasons behind why people are still stuck in out-dated gender roles, and why it’s difficult to break away from them.

Her aim with this series was to subvert commonly held ideas surrounding masculinity and gender expression as the models’ emotional reactions were captured. “Some of them were clearly uncomfortable wearing hyper-feminine clothing, while others seemed more fluid, and more powerful.” Jemma explains that the most important aspect of the process lay in the different emotional reactions of the models and form a part of their gender expression.

When asked why she opted to photograph this series in black and white, Jemma explains that for her, black and white represents the gender binary. “In the images, instead of just pure white and black, the viewer can see so many shades of grey, and this is a metaphor for the spectrum of genders and sexualities that actually exist within people.”

Boys, Jemma’s ongoing body of work is an example of a series that has achieved what she as an artist was striving for. It shares with its viewer in striking black and white and grey tonal range imagery a very real, non-constructed intimacy. Jemma’s Boys asks questions about normal conceptions of what it means to be male today and is all together a powerful body of work. Many photographers have approached this subject before but I believe what makes Jemma’s Boys stand out and have it’s own voice is the meaning behind her black and white images and the authenticity of the emotions that she was able to capture in this series. Boys will be on display at the Joburg Fringe, an independent annual art fair from the 6^th to the 10^th of September at 24 Victoria Road corner Viljoen, Lorentzville.

6 September 2017
Janelka Lubbinge: constructing synergy with the female form and natural landscapes

Lubbinge’s photography is female driven and with her cunning use of nature and the female form she pulls her viewers into a carefully curated utopia unique to her work. Nature and the female form become one as she captures with her lens that which she finds beautiful and inspiring.

Lubbinge lived in Pretoria for most of her childhood. At the age of 13 her family migrated towards a quieter life to the small coastal town, Port Alfred in the Eastern Cape. As Lubbinge approached Grade 9 she was sent to an All Girls boarding school in Port Elizabeth where she completed her matric.

She saw the world through a viewfinder for the very first time as a young 12-year-old girl photographing her eldest sister as a pastime. The camera in question belonged to her sister but to Lubbinge, it was hers. In order to protect the peace between the two sisters, her parents soon had to get her a camera of her own.

In grade 10 Lubbinge got her first SLR camera and started documenting the world she found herself in at that age; a world that consisted of hostel and school life at an all girls school. “I was glued to my camera and it became a big part of my life.” Mesmerized by the realm photography had created for her, Lubbinge found comfort behind the lens of her camera.

Using natural landscapes as the backdrops for her imagery, Lubbinge feels that growing up in a family that has a special love for nature, has made her feel like it is a part of who she is as a person. “I love how a landscape can patiently wait, and when the light strikes at the right time she transforms to her full splendor. She is ever changing and always perfect. I find studios restraining and I struggle to interact with an empty space. My talent lies in spotting something that is already there and giving it new meaning.”

Lubbinge strives to portray the environment in her backdrops the same way that she sees them with her physical eye at that given time. She enjoys going on photo missions with friends and is enticed by how a sunrise and a sunset possess different qualities. “I love how the same beach always looks different or completely new, as it is a subject to light and tides. I love the lines nature creates and how plant growth and light clothes mountain ranges just like a girl would clothe herself.”

Finding inspiration in people that she considers beautiful, nature itself and unusual clothing in interesting colours, Lubbinge captures what she sees with her naked eye in a hypnotic fashion. “We are all interconnected, constantly inspiring each other to improve and to do more. If I can learn one thing from other photographers is that I can always improve…it is part of the journey. It’s a great attitude to have to stay inspired.”

Growing up with a predominantly female presence in her life, Lubbinge is acutely aware of the insecurities that come with being female as well as the social expectations women feel obligated to honor. Lubbinge expresses that she possesses many of these insecurities herself and therefore finds comfort in other women.

Choosing to photograph women because she understands their inner workings, she captures something inside her subjects that they might not have been aware that they possess themselves. “I have never quite felt comfortable in my own skin and I want to make the people around me feel like they can and should be comfortable with themselves because I see the beauty they carry within them and that beauty has a physical manifestation.”

Stating that her photography is generally for herself and her models, Lubbinge finds gratification in the emotional responses her work evokes to her viewers. Her photography is intended to be an adventure and its purpose to capture how she feels about people and her environment.“When people and nature come together they create magic. I hope to trigger a feeling of honesty and positivity.” Lubbinge’s desire is for her photography to show her perception of the women portrayed in them and how they make her feel alive.

The girls featured in Lubbinge’s work consist largely of her friends and family. In her process Lubbinge strives for authenticity and styles her own shoots. Using locations that have pulled her attention by means of its unique qualities, Lubbinge relies on natural lighting to portray realness. The spontaneity of working with natural light is something that Lubbinge enjoys and considers to be a defining characteristic of her work.

5 July 2017
‘I still love you when I’m dreaming’ – a photographic series by Katya Abedian

Katya Abedian first came to my attention after Rookie Magazine published her work earlier this year. The 18-year-old artist blew me away with her 35mm film imagery that plunged me deep into her dream world. I spoke to her about her new series I still love you when I’m dreaming.

Abedian was born and raised in South Africa and is a self-taught photographer and film director. She grew up encircled by people of diverse backgrounds, cultures and religions. Katya believes that growing up in South Africa has shaped her sensitivity and awareness as an artist.

I still love you when I’m dreaming is a story in which Kim (Kimberley Davidson) and Casey’s (Casey Redlinghys) personalities become characters. Kim is depicted as both strong and gentle, and Casey is shown with warmth and vulnerability in his eyes. The models for this series convey reciprocal and harmonizing feminine and masculine attributes, lying at the heart of Katya’s story.

“I aimed to explore the mutuality of the genders through these images and convey that human emotions are not limited by gender. Both have an equal capacity to feel a spectrum of emotion and both have an equal capacity to support one another in unique and beautiful ways.”

For Abedian dreaming is one of the most alluring planes of worldly existence. She is in awe of this wonderland and how we are able to exist in one world and another simultaneously. “There is so much to discover concerning the relationship between our subconscious and our conscious realities, both spiritually and scientifically.” Her title for this series touches on these feelings and how people’s spiritual characters are a continuum of this when our eyes are open and closed.

Relying completely on natural lighting in her projects, this series was shot in low light which led Abedian to use a very slow shutter speed and high aperture. She was aware that the result would be a blurry-dream, but as analogue imagery can’t be reviewed while it is being photographed, she was not able to predict to what extent that decision would present itself.

“I think there is a quality of out-of-focus imagery that give space for interpretation and imagination. I aimed to create imagery with this story that opens the space between what you are seeing and how it is making you feel. That space is a beautiful one because it surfaces different interpretations and invokes a spectrum of feelings in the human imagination.”

The veil depicted in Abedian’s series is representative of the thin membrane between being awake and dreaming. In her series tulips are featured as well as other flowers styled on Casey’s face. According to Abedian flowers are symbolic in her work in the way that they are a representative of the contrast of fragility and suppleness, faultlessness and the inevitability of death giving birth to life.

“As far as I can remember, art and expression was something I turned to when nothing else really made sense. There had to be more… a world in which the depth of my feelings could find home in. Film photography was the first way I could physically get to that world, by training my eye and entering the world of analogue light capturing.”

Katya was drawn to 35mm film as she feels that digital photography never pushed her to refine her eye or enable her to capture images in a way that was different from the norm. “35mm film has a truthfulness to it. The beautiful thing about film is that it is both irreplaceable and unpredictable. That combination starts becoming ‘art’ to me.”

Her first camera was an age-old, Russian Zenit received as a gift from a friend. The light meter was broken and Abedian tells me that it aided her in training her eye from the beginning of her photographic experimentation. She would later discover that the Zenit was a film prop and was not meant to be in working condition.

Abedian reflects on her early work and says that she still remembers her excitement when her parents came home with her printed stills. “I think that feeling nurtured my love of analogue film photography as apposed to digital work.”

Her excitement by colors and how they act together comes through in her photographs. She switches between working in soft pastels to shooting very saturated colors, and brings in black and white sporadically. “I’m not prescriptive and I definitely try not to limit or control the channel of creativity when it comes to a story I am shooting. If it captures my heart then I will shoot it just like that.”

Abedian styles her own shoots and photographs either friends, people that she finds genuinely interesting or people that she can relate to on a human or artistic level. She locates her shoots in spaces that enrich her stories and identifies as a sentimentalist. This is evident in her photographic style.

“Artwork, of any form, has the power to start a conversation… to connect with the facets of the human condition that we have in common: our hearts, emotions, experiences. I can only hope that my work acts as a catalyst for progress because that is always my intention… whether that is explicit or understood is secondary.”

Assistant: Ruby Glass

Facial Art: Jessica Grammer

13 June 2017
Cahil Sankar: making waves with documentary photography

Cahil Sankar has gained popularity with his vivid motion blurring band photography. Sankar shoots interchangeably between digital and analog, and has a particular fondness for Fujifilm. “I think I just picked up my dad’s old camera when I was super young and just never stopped taking photos,” he explained when asked about where his interest in photography came from. As one of the artists selected to exhibit in the AUTONOMY WAVE Future 76 exhibition, I had a conversation with him about his work.

Marcia Elizabeth (ME): How do you like to describe your art? Which photography style do your images fall under?

Cahil Sankar (CS): I would describe my art as a way of documenting narratives that aren’t told. I would classify my photography as more documentary photography than anything else.

ME: What is your background? Where did you grow up? What are you currently doing? Are you working on any current projects?

CS: I grew up in JHB and went to school at St David’s. I am currently studying creative brand communications at Vega, specializing in multimedia design. I think my photography has always been an ongoing work. I do not necessarily work on specific projects but my work is just a culmination of images. And I think my photography definitely influences what my designs look like.

ME: Who are the people that you photographed?

CS: I worked quite a bit with bands. I have worked with the Tazers, Soul Gems and The Moths. I work with them a lot and the rest is just random people that you see on the streets.

ME: In a lot of your band photography you play around with shutter speed. Is that something you conceptualize or is it something that just happened and became a thing?

CS: I think it happened because I refused to use a flash in my band photography. I use natural light. I played with how low you can take your shutter speed while still getting a clear image. When you push that you get movement. So it stemmed from not using a flash.

ME: What are your views on Future 76 and the artists that are exhibiting? Do you know some of the other artists you will be working with?

CS: The project itself is such an awesome platform. It is great to be working with Bubblegum Club and I am privileged to be working with some of the best young artists in Johannesburg. I am just so happy to be working with everyone. If I’ve not met them, I have seen most of them online. We are all a part of the same circle.

Do you think that your art will work well with the other artists exhibiting?

CS: It will be a challenge to get it to mesh with the other art forms. My approach is to document and not really to create. I think once we get it to work together it will be pretty cool.

ME: In this month will you be focusing mainly on photography or are you going to bring in other elements of your creativity?

CS: I think I will be focusing mainly on photography but different to what I normally do because I will be collaborating with the other artists and try to merge the different styles of art.

ME: What is the future vision you have for your art?

CS: I am hesitant to pursue photography as a career because I fear falling into the trap of spending my life shooting weddings or commercial photography. I looked at other creative fields and came across multimedia design and fell in love. I will always do photography but it won’t be my main source of income.

ME: I was having a look at your work on Instagram and came across a project where you took some images in a butchery. I found that very interesting. Can you tell me more about this project?

CS: The project started as an assignment from Vega. The assignment was to go into a space that makes you feel uncomfortable or a space that you didn’t really ever interact with. We went to a Halaal butchery in Mayfair to see what it was all about. We were also attempting to remove some of the stigma around Halaal meat. We documented everything that happens behind the counters. What happens behind the counters; to show what people don’t see.

ME: Do you think that you have a visual signature?

CS: I think over the past 3 years my photography has changed a lot. I went from shooting a lot of black and white to shooting super high contrast colour. In the last few months I have settled on shooting low saturation colour. I think you will be able to tell from my perspective or what I am shooting that it is me. But I am not sure that you will be able to tell specifically from the look of the image that it is mine. So you are getting the same perspective, it is just the style has changed.

ME: Are you trying to convey any kind of message with what you are doing?

CS: I feel like my work is quite subjective. Depending on who looks at it they will see a differently story or feel a different emotion. I don’t need my work to have a meaning. I feel like the viewer will make a meaning. It depends on what I am shooting though. With the project where I was shooting at the butchery there was a clear narrative behind all the images. But if I am shooting band photography I am just trying to capture the emotion.

ME: Would you say that you have found your voice as a visual artist?

CS: I would say I have found a voice, not my voice yet. I have been able to tell certain narratives but there is also stuff that I wouldn’t be comfortable putting out there yet. Just because of the social climate in our country you can’t just say whatever you want to say.

ME: Do you feel like you and your work are a fair representation of South African youth?

CS: No. My work is a very narrow view of South African youth. I’m from a privileged background so you are not going to see what the majority of South African youth is actually like. You are getting my perspective not an overall perspective of South Africa.

ME: Are there specific issues that your generation is faced with that are not voiced? And if so would you attempt to voice them during the Future 76 exhibition?

CS: I think there is a lot that is not spoken about, a lot that is pushed under the carpet. I think if I find the right mode of talking about it then I will.

12 June 2017
Danielle O’Neill – the camera as a tool and a weapon

I had a conversation with young photographer Danielle O’Neill about her views on the power of the lens and a collaborative project she did titled Las Brujas.

“I’m really interested in how photography looks at looking, and looks at the way we preserve our ways of looking,” Danielle explains when discussing her love for the camera. This anthropological approach to her practice allows her to see the photograph as problematic in that it can encourage self-policing and inaccurate preservations. However, she also highlights the potentiality for the camera to be a tool and a weapon that works to make denied bodies and identities visible – it opens up a space to interrogate the gaze.

“When you wake up in the morning and you are feeling really good and you turn on your phone camera and take a selfie, there is a reason why are feeling the reason need to preserve that moment. There is particular identity in that moment in time that you are wanting to preserve, whether it be for yourself, or for a post. That’s how we live and it’s important to recognize that,” Danielle expresses. For her, photography can transform, repackage and recapture identity. It is also one of the visual mediums that speaks to access – “bodies, words and minds can be made visible”.

Stemming from this approach and understanding of photography, Danielle shared with me her thinking behind the project Las Brujas. Taking inspiration from Nina Simone’s song Four Women which is centred around breaking down the stereotypes attributed to Black women through popular culture, Danielle explains that she was inspired to collaborate with other womxn to bring to life a piece representing black and brown womxn & femmes outside of the exhausted imaginings of our bodies. She worked with creatives Lihle Ngcobozi, Rafe Green, Upile Bongco, Wairimu Muriithi, Kirsten Afrika, Georgina Graaff Makhubele, Thathi Mashike, Mosa Anita Kaiser and Michelle Mosalakae to put this project together.

La bruja is directly translated to mean ‘witch’. This was an interesting starting point, as Danielle was trying to look at the historical placement of the witch, and how it is an image that has continuously followed female identity. She explains that in some Afro-Latino cultures bruja is a space of sisterly communication and is a term of endearment among women. It is a term that is associated with sisterly and matriarchal showing of affection. She wanted to look at the witch outside of white, Western, patriarchal, historical narratives that have been placed on black and brown womxn and contemporary ideas of womanhood and femxle sexuality.

To check out more of her work follow her on Instagram.

8 March 2017
Self-discovery through imagery – ‘Plastic Crowns’ exhibition by photographer Phumzile Khanyile

Young photographer Phumzile Khanyile is showing her first solo exhibition titled Plastic Crowns at the Market Photo Workshop gallery in Johannesburg.

“Plastic Crowns is a journey of self-discovery,” Phumzile explained, “As a photographer I think the vision is more important than the equipment. I believe that when making a body of work there is nothing more important than honesty”. This guided her decision to include herself in her images. Using her personal experiences as a backdrop for larger conversations, the self-portraits in her exhibition try to unpack the expectations she carried from her grandmother around what it means to be a woman. This was the entry point for her to address the ways in which women’s bodies are closely monitored with regards to how we choose to present ourselves. “I wanted to figure out for myself what being female is,” Phumzile explained.

© Phumzile Khanyile, Plastic Crowns, 2016

Choosing sexuality as the focal point, she uses symbols to talk back to these expectations. Balloons scattered on the gallery floor and featured in her photographs represent different sexual partners. Through this she speaks back to ideas around promiscuity, stating that she views having multiple partners as a choice and not a reflection on lack of morals. Given that these expectations and teachings come from how she grew up, her images play with understandings of family photographs by turning the idea of the family photo album on its head through telling the story of what happens after the idealized family photograph has been taken, and producing images that are not often seen in albums because they highlight flaws within the familial structure. During our conversation Phumzile pointed to a photograph of her standing next to a black coat hanging from the handles of a cupboard door. In the image she links arms with the coat, as if she was linking arms with another person. She explains that this particular photograph refers to the absence of her father. “It was really important for me to create this because I have lost all of my family albums at home. I wanted to create the feeling of something that is familiar.”.

© Phumzile Khanyile, Plastic Crowns, 2016

To create the feeling of old family photographs and worn down photo albums, Phumzile covered her digital camera with a cloth. “I didn’t want them [the images] to have this clean sense or this technically correct thing about it,” Phumzile explained. Certain images come across as blurred, slightly out of focus and grainy, working hand-in-hand with her inversion of the family photo album.

Having been awarded the Gisele Wulfsohn Mentorship in Photography in 2015, Phumzile was mentored by photographer and filmmaker Ayana V. Jackson. Her exhibition will be up until the 19th of March.

Check out more of her work visit her website or follow her on Instagram

© Phumzile Khanyile, Plastic Crowns, 2016

© Phumzile Khanyile, Plastic Crowns, 2016

15 February 2017