I took the photographs in this series during a cycling trip to France with 2 friends. We reached a village during siesta, it was very still, quiet, almost uncanny. At first I was taken aback when i saw this lady in her window, in her gown and didn’t take a picture until I had walked once around the village. She was still there when I stopped and returned to my bike. Later that year in December, between shooting and processing these pictures I visited a cemetery in Lisieux Basse, Normandy and made shadow cut outs out of the Saint Therese figurines on the gravestones. Later I made Normandy series, taking the lady out of her window and letting her move around the space and time of her original place, where she had been imprinted on the emulsion. This series became quite important and I used it to as a project to experiment with my ideas as I began Shadow Dialling in earnest. To explore what photographic process does by exaggerating and delaying stages of it: tracing light, duplicating lines , transferring, enlarging , exposing , using negative and positive, switching unseen for seen. Background to Normandy figure (extracted from a conversation with Rebecca Drew) .
Giclee print, Hahnemuhle paper, 20x20cm , Edition of 20
£100
Joan Alexander 