Vampires and Artists is a photobook and an interspecies collaboration. Photographs of artists, text by vampires.
I'd like to take your photograph for the book.
All the photographs will be taken in a way that both reflects the artist's practice in some way and will appeal to vampire readers of the book - emphasising shadows, the unseen and the unknowable. I'd like to take some time to discuss this with you in order to plan the photoshoot. The photoshoot might be in your studio or somewhere special to you or your art art practice.
There is a persistent myth that my kind cannot be captured in mirrors or on film. This is a born of a mortal fear of the unknowable. We reflect light just as you do; we occupy space. In fact, we are perhaps the ideal critics of photography. You view a photograph as a captured memory, a doomed attempt to stop time. We view it as an artifact of shadow, a flickering pause in the endless cycle of mortal life and death.
The images are portraits of artists in their environments, with their work. From our perspective, the art object is often more honest than the human. The clay on the wheel has a reality independent of the potter’s ego. The canvas exists without the painter's desire for acclaim. In our text, we will examine that relationship: the friction between the fragile, meaning-seeking human artist and the stubborn, withdrawn reality of the materials they shape.
When you step into the velvety shadow, you will not disappear. You are grounding yourself. You are allowing yourself to be seen as a mystery rather than a commodity. It is a more honest representation of the human condition—an object that exists in its own right, partially hidden, and utterly indifferent to whether the rest of the world understands its totality.The text will be an autopsy of the artistic impulse. We offer you a perspective stripped of the need to persist or belong or achieve. We offer you the cold, clear view of the outsider.
If you agree to being photographed for Vampires and Artists please fill in the form below. We will have a meeting to discuss a photoshoot and then a photoshoot at a later date.
By returning the form you consent to me using any photographs taken for commercial and non commercial display in any medium, including (but not limited to) a book and an exhibition.
You will receive one print of a photograph of yourself and waive any right to copyright or further payment.
I undertake not to use the photographs to represent you in any derogatory manner.
Thank you!