When working with the incarcerated youth of Washington State, Steve Davis used the camera in different ways and to different ends. He conducted his own long-term portrait project concurrently with workshops offered to the detained youth. At Remann Hall Juvenile Detention Center, Tacoma, Steve and his female students were not allowed to photograph each others faces. Steve’s solution was portraits of the girls with plaster masks, heads in their hands and similar visual devices. The girls’ solutions involved outstretched hands, evasive gesture, long exposures, and full utility of pinhole photography’s conveniently blurred results.
I find this workshop to be an extremely beneficial one, not only for Davis, but the girls who were involved in it as well. What most intriguing for me would be the fact that they are shooting these photos through pinholes, The pinhole camera holds so much symbolism in the girls' present living situation. It makes me feel claustrophobic.
Make sure you read the article, then look at Davis'Site
1 comments:
Monica,
Thanks for sharing this. I relate to a lot of the same situations in the GBIC. Although it is hard to not include inmates' faces, there are ways around it. For example, allowing a long exposure time. I found that if I do this, most of the time the inmates will be moving enough to create a blur. Even though I wish I could capture the inmates faces without problem, I appreciate what Davis has done with his work. I am glad to see these photos because they are in an occupied prison.
I was talking with Shane the other day and was telling him that it is the strangest thing but every time I go back to shoot in the prison, I feel like the space becomes more and more catered to my style of shooting. As I said before, it is always difficult for me to organize a room or large space. But in the prison things are so organized and stripped down that it becomes a space I enjoy entering. Every time I go back to the prison I am visually overstimulated because every space becomes interesting to me. Sometimes I feel really bad for my escort because I randomly stop at a bathroom and photograph it for a while, and she thinks, what could you possibly see in this bathroom? But the space becomes more and more of a playground to me.
It is so hard to explain what being in the prison is like. It is emotionally, physically, and visually exhausting. It has definitely tested my endurance for taking photos for a long time in a similar space. But every time after I shoot, I feel so good. Not because I necessarily think the work is strong, but because it was an accomplishment for me to be there emotionally and to have visually endured such a long while. It's interesting because often the strongest photos I shoot are some of the very last ones. That feeling is so great, to know that I stuck it out to the very end.
In conclusion, I think the prison shooting has taught me discipline in a number of ways. Most of all, to not let my frustrations of what I WANT to get in the way of what I GET. The greatest opportunity came to me the second time I shot, when it was a cloudy day and the sun was not reacting in the rooms the same way it was the first time I went. I was disappointed, but it made me deal with the space in a new way, acknowledging the artificial lights much more and how they interacted with the space. Even though I didn't get what I wanted previous to entering, I came out with something much greater.
Don't let your frustrations get the best of you. Shoot despite them and maybe, just maybe it will be the strongest work you have.
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