It may seem obvious, but now I’ve finally decided what to do with the Vietnam and Rethink projects, I have clarity and focus.
I’ve been floundering for some time to discover what it is I want to do; God, if that’s not a microcosm for my life, I don’t know what it is. Now I know, things are easier – my mind is clearer, I have the confidence to get what I want and the energy to do what needs to be done.
I’m focusing on the Vietnam war from a queer perspective – a specific choice of word as ’queer’ is politically loaded. I want to illustrate how ingrained homophobia impacts on every facet of a gay person’s life – and tell the few published personal gay histories. The gay Vietnam history is a minority voice, but it’s a voice that needs to be heard – it will show present and future LGBT people that we have a visible, participatory presence in history as well as showing the wider world that we are all deserving of equal respect and understanding.
My Rethink still focuses on technical portraits, but my overarching theme now looks to my What’s Left project: exploring links between the ordinary objects our deceased leave behind and how/why we imbue them with a preternatural, symbolic meaning.
The objects will get uniformly photographed to underline their ‘ordinariness’, rather like Ziyah Gafic’s ‘Quest for Identity’. Portraits will be in the dark, an ambient source lighting them, e.g. tv, mobile phone, streetlamp, microwave etc – linking ordinary light-giving sources with ordinary comfort-giving sources, hopefully giving the portraits a slightly ghostly quality.
Here are some images that nudged me in this direction:
I’m liking where this is going Richard! Can’t wait to see the results.
i just checked out Luke Smith’s Isolation project which although on a different topic to yours photographs its subjects in the dark and uses multiple images to create these very haunting symbols of isolation…i think this is definitely up your street, definitely worth checking out http://lukesmithphotography.com/3/artist.asp?ArtistID=27864&Akey=6N346RXE
Hi, Max.
Thanks for bringing his work to my attention. Although I’m not a great lover of over complicated post production, his Isolation photos really give a sense of loneliness and abandonment whilst still retaining a semblance of reality.
The thread of loneliness certainly does seem to run through many of his other galleries, too – I’ve really enjoyed flicking through his site.
Thanks.
interesting stuff, this. i should be following