A cyanotype from the series DesCollages under the loupe.
Paris-based photographer Danielle Voirin travels the world and documents her experiences in photographs. She takes street photography and photojournalism a shade beyond even art, to the level of mysticism. You may see more of her work on her website DanielleVoirin.com, or her alt website, DaniVoirin.com.
Such a fascinating series of photos; vaguely unsettling yet often whimsical…thoughts about what we show and what we hide run through my head, along with what is “real” and what is “fake” or “added on” in our ways of seeing ourselves and presenting ourselves.
Dani — I’d be curious to know about some of the more extreme (positive or negative) reactions to this series of images you’ve encountered .
Well, I have had reactions from people who see themselves and their experiences, like a woman in my neighborhood who tracked me down after seeing an image I had pasted in the street. She felt it represented the relationship she was having with a new love.
One person felt that the images from DesCollages were like characters from a Beckett play.
What I find really interesting is when, this has happened a few times so far, a man has come up to me during an exhibition and asked if the photographer is present. An amusing moment of confusion results as he realizes I’m not just in the photo but also the maker of the images. I can see the wheels turning in his head and I try to imagine how that changes his thoughts about the work. Unfortunately, when this has happened, the person usually walks away. And I understand, self-portraits can seem a pretty bizarre thing to do.
I’m reminded of this because I’m traveling in southern Italy at the moment and the other day I had to explain to someone that yes, really, I am the photographer, not the assistant.
Oh — those are all very interesting reactions. I can definitely see the “characters in a Beckett play” resemblance for some of them; it’s not an exact fit, but more like a familiar shape or echo, or emotional/psychological tone, if that makes sense.
Yes, we usually assume that the person behind the camera must be different from the person in the images; I think many people do not realize how feasible it is to do, what with timers and remote shutter buttons and all. And I think many people probably do not have the patience to move past the instant gratification of the “selfie” to get into the trial and error it takes to make self-portraits with some aesthetic value: the repositioning, adjusting lighting, timing.
I do find it curious that people often walk away when they find out you’re both artist and model. Do they feel stupid/embarrassed for not recognizing you? Do they associate some kind of narcissism (as opposed to logistical ease, or a difficulty in communicating the artistic idea to a model) with self-portraits? Then again, maybe some people just don’t know what to do with a person willing (and clearly very able) to embody both roles at once…