Bodyscapes Posted On 17th December 2024 To Magazine & Stories

On the Language of Photographs

A photograph is so much more than just a photograph; it holds an entire language within it. Each photograph captures a unique world that exists only in that moment, preserving the memories of the people in it, and the experiences of the photographer pressing the shutter. Today, I want to reflect on my own work and how my favourite images have defined me as an artist. What messages do they share with the world? How have the tools I’ve used to create them shaped their unique language?

Canon AE-1 ILFORD HP4+

Bodyscapes

My work is riddled with the body's subtleties. Observing it and its environment, finding mirrors in their forms and in their communication with each other. The movement and position of a body is in itself another form of expression; the arch of a back, the crease of an elbow, the texture of skin. There is stillness, and there is motion. There is so much to be said. Through these subtleties, an image can communicate what words cannot. For me, this process is intuitive, involving little planning and a lot of trust in myself and the person in front of my lens. It’s a beautiful feeling when you see the final image and the emotions you wanted to express reflected right back at you.

Nikon F100 + Delta 100

Mamiya RZ67 + ILFORD HP4+ (expired)

Mamiya RZ67 + ILFORD HP4+ (expired)

The Image as a Messenger

Black and white photography plays a big role in all of this. Keeping the composition and the story at the forefront of the message. With its range of silver tones drawing our eyes in, it becomes the conductor, showing us exactly where to look, and how we can eventually read and interpret the message. Perhaps it's because I have a tendency toward the melancholy, but using black and white film consistently allows me to capture my most honest and vulnerable perspectives.

Mamiya RZ67 + ILFORD Delta 400

To Paint with Light

I especially love how black and white photography brings a honed-in focus on the light within an image, revealing its bones; light is the core of any image. Finding light in my surroundings and building a story around it is like starting with a canvas that nature has already touched. I just have to add my own unique strokes.

There is a profound duality in the sense of community and loneliness in my work. I am still continuing to explore this polarity and how we, as humans, are full of contradictions. We are incredibly complex yet simple. I choose analogue tools to help me tap into this, slowing me down and forcing me to be intentional with every core decision that needs to be made before pressing the shutter. I don’t know where my work will take me next, all I know is, I’ll be guided by my intuition and the ever-evolving language of photographs. I’d like to leave you with this poem from my debut book ‘Fault Lines: A Collection of Contemporary Poetry and Photography’, it is quite fitting;

Pentax 645N + ILFORD Delta 100

TIME-LAPSE

 I was like an undeveloped film roll,

hiding in a darkroom shed,

sulking-silver bathing

in my expired innocence.

Overexposed frames still haunt me,

queues of undiscovered photographs scratching

at the nerves behind my eyeballs.

So I watch these textures dissolve

like contrails in the sky

as that silver seeps into my skull

salt dunes exfoliate my skin 'till it bleeds,

'till they find my breaking point.

My dreams turn into consolation

light re-born as the sea baptises me,

this space distorted

fish-eyed like a pinhole camera,

shapeless like this memory.

A colour image is desaturated

'till my vision cries in black and white.

I can't feel her anymore,

she's drained every word out of me,

every shutter pressed:

emptied

here.

Pentax 645N + ILFORD Delta 100

Images ©Clarissa Sofia