portrait photography

Portrait photography and gender stereotypes

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I’ve just finished shooting a series of portraits designed to challenge assumptions about the gender profiles associated with specific jobs.

Quiz

Because they are continuously reinforced by the reality that they create, such assumptions are self-perpetuating. Women don’t work on building sites because… women don’t work on building sites. Showing a woman who does work on building sites can help to break down these entrenched ideas. Look at the portraits above, and try to guess which of these people a) is a carpenter, b) runs a crèche, c) teaches belly-dancing, d) conducts an orchestra, e) teaches weaving, f) is a sound technician. The answers are below.

It’s been a fascinating project to shoot. I have enormous respect for the subjects, each of whom has had to overcome personal and institutional prejudice in order to pursue their chosen career. They have needed persistence and courage. And their willingness to participate in the project demonstrates their desire to make the path easier for those that follow them.

My clients for the project are the Gemeenschapscentrum Ten Noey in Saint-Josse and Femma Brussels. The photographs will be used in a workshop and shown in an exhibition in Evere as part of the Printemps des Femmes during March 2020.

Answers

Making prostate cancer visible through portraits

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Specifically male cancers – prostate and testicular – are still subject to the same kind of taboo that until recently hid the extent, and the human cost, of breast and cervical cancers in women. Most men shy away from discussion of illness and death, let alone incontinence and sexual dysfunction. But their silence reinforces the taboo.

Having lost a close friend to the disease more than 10 years ago, I jumped at the opportunity to shoot a series of portraits of men with advanced prostate cancer for an awareness-raising campaign. (The campaign is being mounted by the pharmaceutical company Astellas but has no direct commercial objective.) The idea is to show that, far from being passive victims of a shameful condition, cancer sufferers can be proud, passionate and fully engaged in life.

I’ve already completed three of a planned 12 shoots – two in England and one in France. All three guys were fantastic: open, generous and actively committed to the cause of bringing prostate cancer into the open. More shoots are planned in Italy, Germany, Spain and Belgium.

The aim is to capture one portrait in each session, together with one full-body shot of the subject with a person or an object, or in a place or engaged in an activity, that means a lot to him. My client is going to create a travelling exhibition which will be presented for the first time in November of this year, in Brussels.

Sharon How, pianist

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Well, it’s a mysterious and wonderful calling to be a photographer, I find. You put yourself out there on Facebook and Instagram, you create a website, you do a little advertising with Google AdWords, and one day you receive a message from a young pianist asking for a one-hour studio session to produce a series of professional portraits. Of course, you say yes.

Sharon arrived straight from the hairdresser, fully made up and in the dress in which she was to give a concert (a Bach solo piece) later in the day. She refused coffee, tea and water in order not to mess up her lipstick. We talked for a while. She is Singaporean, studying in the US. She has beautiful hands and a lovely laugh. She showed me a photograph of her without the hairdo and the makeup.

Then we went downstairs to the little studio set-up I had created in our basement – a simple white drop, plenty of natural light and a couple of LED lamps, and on-camera fill flash. What an incredibly intense and intimate hour – for the photographer, trying to ‘see’ a stranger, and for the subject, trying to reveal herself to a stranger.

But I think we made it. I am proud of the results, and Sharon wrote me a lovely message to thank me for them: “I just managed to look through Sharon_web-best on my phone and they turn out really amazing, so much to the ideal portraits that I have always wanted to have for myself. In addition, I am amazed by the black and white photos (it is incredible some look nicer in black and white), it changed my whole perspective of the artistic potential of black and white art! The black and white photos are so artistic and incredible! I really really love them!”

The photos on this page are outtakes. They are not the ‘professional’ shots, but rather the ones that show Sharon’s playful side. She’s a lovely person, and I hope that we can stay in touch. One day, I’d like to shoot her without makeup and with her own short hair.