“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”
Process
Inspiration for this body of work came by way of a book I brought back with me from the Prado Museum in Madrid. Spanish masters, Francisco De Goya and Diego Velásquez, became teachers in my study of gesture and light. My photos take their inspiration from European art history and portrait traditions. The subject, dramatically lit, evokes a similar stoic pose as many historic European monarchs did in their court portraits. Rather than elaborate costumes that would be typical of someone maintaining this stance, the sitter is in an environment that reflects their inner/outer stories.
In order to do justice to this project I chose to challenge myself. I had not photographed using film in over 20 years, and this was my very first time using a medium format camera.
My goal was to free myself from the immediacy of digital photography, so that I might make more intentional and creative choices. Photographing with film slows the process down, every frame captured is filled with intention. With film we embrace the “flaw" in the frame. In the same way that this project embraces, and celebrates, the subjects with whom I collaborated.
The choice of color film is intentional. A huge influence on me, photographer Dawoud Bey wrote, “Color adds a degree of material specificity to the description of a subject that makes the experience of the person more palpable and immediate.”
Many rolls of test photos were made. These failed experiments helped to clarify my vision. They brought me closer to my goals for these portraits. As famed portrait photographer Richard Avedon once said, “when you see what’s wrong with an attempt, you can also see the promise of what could be right."
In an essay published in a book of portraits by Richard Avedon, writer and art critic Harold Rosenberg wrote of the “Split Man.” Rosenberg said, “With the elimination of the difference between inner and outer reality, nineteenth century literature conceived the Split Man, an individual in whom the previously concealed alter ego (Lago’s “I am not what I am") rose to the surface and assumed a tangibility equal to that of the original person.”
For this project I have considered the concept of the Split Man as a by-product of shame, as a coping mechanism. The outer life that masks our inner selves, and the line that is blurred between the two. This concept is what lead to the use of mixed lighting in these photographs. The combination of natural and artificial light sources give a heightened sense of the physical and psychological. interior and exterior; what we show, what we hide protectively. The warm, natural background light and the monumental position of the subject, dramatically illuminated by the artificial light, are a result of this premise.
In his influential book, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World, clinical psychologist Alan Downs poses the question, “If you hold the fundamental assumption of shame that you are critically and mortally flawed, how would you cope with this?” One of the ways, he writes, is to “compensate for shame by striving for validation from others.”
Although written by a gay man, about and for gay men, The Velvet Rage poses questions and answers regarding shame that are illuminating for many people. He goes on to write, “when you confront your crisis of identity and face the truth of who you really are, life begins to take on an entirely new look.”
Shameless demonstrates what facing the truth looks like.
“ I got the usual “faggot” remarks every now and again, once even by a teacher who, to gain favor with the class that hated him, called me, “you stupid little faggot.” But what brought the most shame to me? Ninth grade. Civics class. I sat 2 rows in front of three of the most popular, masculine, football-playing jocks in the grade. It started randomly, one throwing a small piece of paper at my head in October. I remember turning to see where it came from, and three sets of cold, mean eyes were staring back at me. I flushed. They saw. And that was the start.
I still think about that time. Those days. Those boys. That cruelty. I think of the Rodney that was—14 years old and small and timid and until that moment, only believed in goodness. Man, what I wouldn’t give to go back to him and hug him so hard.
I still fight shame. It’s there. It will always be there. But it’s not who I am. It’s just a part. And I try to take it as a positive. When shame pops up, I can say, “I see you. What’s up? What do you need?” Shame can be a reminder that, in that moment, you are feeling “less than.” And it’s an opportunity to take that and turn it around.”
“What my father likely wanted, when I was born, was a mini-him —I am his namesake after all. A son he could take to baseball games — athletic, interested in fishing and cars, like he was. What he eventually got was a scrawny, sensitive little boy who played with Barbie dolls and preferred the company of books over most people.
I always sensed that I was a disappointment. Early in life I felt the shame of it. I have carried it for a long time.
Later in life I took my first step towards confronting that shame, in high school. I tried-out to be the school mascot, a Bruin bear. Instead I was offered a spot on the cheerleading squad. The only guy. I accepted, despite what I knew would happen. Throughout senior year I wore my uniform proudly on game days and at pep rallies. It wasn’t always easy, often it was terrifying.
I gave bullies at school ammunition to hurl the word faggot at me, more than they already did. I wasn’t out to anyone, not even to myself — that came later.
Looking back, and for the longest time, my own actions were a mystery to me. Why on earth had I put myself in that position?! Like some kind of masochistic teenage angst or something. But now I see that I was standing up for myself, simply by doing what I wanted, instead of what was expected of me.
My foot came down. I wouldn’t continue to let others put that shame on me.”
All images © 2000-2023 Omar Vega. All rights reserved.