During a year-long illness when I was physically unable to make photographs, I spent a lot of time looking at photography books. This was how I first discovered several nineteenth century vernacular anonymous nudes, dating from 1843-1910 all titled ‘Anonymous’. As a title, anonymous means no information survives concerning the photographer, the subject, or why they disrobed before the lens. This sparked my imagination and I kept thinking about these unknowable subjects caught in a moment of eternal vulnerability. Seeing all the camera reveals, I was also aware of what it misses. Could an alternate moment that restores personal agency by redirecting the viewer’s gaze offer them a second chance at remembrance?
I use a myriad of photographic approaches; film, digital, and hand applied emulsions, to create an alternative setting and then hand sew the print to entice a closer look beyond nakedness to the individual. Hand embroidering the print is akin to mending, clothing or providing gestural camouflage.
With a camera, I look for timeless settings without contemporary references or structures. I match found sunlight with my lens to echo the original studio lighting. I use hand applied emulsions like Cyanotype and Van Dyke to engage another kind of faithful reproduction. These are more conceptual traces where I can place the figure amid paper collage or photograms of plant specimens such as ferns, Samara seeds and Queen Anne’s lace.
In these unknowable spaces, I find possibility.
