OTHERS AND YOU (how you think others see you ?)

To capture the invisible is a common temptation for photographers – a temptation I had to resist in order to try and overcome a judgemental culture, which is more interested in normalizing than understanding.
My project’s title, “Others and You”, also reflects my subjects’ internal struggle with prejudice.
Exploring the link between the environment and the individual in different contexts, is the basis of my research – from school communities to those of political refugees.
To do so, I use what are, technically speaking, photographic mistakes, such as blurring: the out-of-focus.
This results in changing the appearance of the subject, and puts the human essence into the foreground – it shows the lived experience of the subject.
In doing so, it also attempts to remind us that being one’s self is a necessity before it becomes a right.
It asks us if there is a place where we can be the person we see in the mirror, rather than the one filtered through the views of others.
The subsequent photos are the result of a long and exciting study and artistic endeavour on how to overcome this impasse, and to make the individual and the importance of individuals’ choices, the focus.
In some ways, my methods have some similarity with painting techniques: such as the alternating use of fine brush strokes, with thicker ones, in order to create a more 3-dimensional image.
Each picture is constructed after a careful analysis of content and form, as well as incorporating the artistic aesthetic and the subject’s own individuality.
But, I never know what I’ll find at the end of the film!
I would like to thank those subjects who undertook this journey with me. They have not only given me this photographic collection, but also accompanied me on a journey of self-awareness – helping steer the viewer into seeing the pictures through their eyes – as well as - maybe - a little through mine.
In these confusing times I ask myself questions – but perhaps having the answers is not as important as it has been in the past.