The Amelia Project
Photography has given me the opportunity to explore my child, and the worlds I have dreamed to enter. Decisively photographing my daughter, Amelia, sometimes combining my life-long obsession with animals, has dared me to transform my photography, in concept and presentation.
I have sought the intimate, fleeting portraits of animals in my previous projects. My goal continues to be to catch a society of interspecies relationships and their activities - my imaginaryworld come to life. The challenge of photographing animals has taught me that the subject does not define the art. Art is distinctive by how the subject is portrayed.
An artist photographing her child can invite ridicule, but getting personal with my projects has always been my need, my edge. Motherhood is important, adding a new perspective and dimension to my life and work. Amelia is my priority, my muse, my co-conspirator, my tormentor and my bliss.
My inspiration now comes from the realm of painting: Velazquez, Sargent, Botticelli, Vermeer and Bastien-Lepage. Working with Amelia as my partner, I am able to go to any time or place.
LIKE US: Primate Portraits
The majority of apes and monkeys I photographed were privately cared for, contributing to the diversity of relationships, environments, and personal possessions in the photographs.
I incorporated elements from paintings, illustrations and my fantasy images into the photographs and tried to show each primate had a unique personality. I usually photographed within three feet of each primate, with a 35mm lens, never through bars or plexi-glass cages. I made friends with the primates and made subsequent visits. Developing a relationship was essential to capture the intensity of eye contact, which shows a consciousness of me.
I sought moments and edited for photographs that do not represent the everyday world of monkeys and apes in captivity, but my dream world of primates. Meeting the vast variety of primates and encountering the generosity of the owners, anthropologists and keepers was the experience of a lifetime.