Monday, August 22, 2011
The Day I Swallowed the Sun - Jamie
On Saturday the first of the Swallowed the Sun shoots took place. Jamie Tam, who is also the delectable Afrodyke, was a gracious and glorious model. There is something deeply humbling in being invited into the private thoughts and hurts and joys of people and there was a sacredness to the space we shared that day that I am very thankful to have been entrusted with.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
The Day I Swallowed the Sun
I am beginning work on an extensive photography and writing project spanning the rest of 2011 and progressing well into 2012. 'The Day I Swallowed the Sun' will chronicle the body journeys of 'othered' human beings.
I am looking for models who are fat, disabled, homosexual, black, old - the list is extensive and could go on for an age. I am looking for modles willing to pose alone and as couples. I am aware of the politics that arise when grouping these 'catergories' together because they are not equal in meaning and that's something I hope to explore as a part of this project. I am looking for people who live in bodies that the world has scorned and tries with every fibre of its being not to see. I am looking for happy bodies, sexual bodies, sad bodies, bodies in hurt but all of them proud bodies - dignified and human bodies. I am looking for people who live in these bodies and have come to love these bodies or have always loved these bodies. I'm looking for people willing to share their experiences and their physical presence in this world.
I remember the day I realised that I loved myself - loved every roll of fat, every dimple and crease that I had been told for years was disgusting. On that day it felt as if my soul lit up, as if pure sunshine was welling from within me and pouring out into the world. I became the light in my own life. I remember that as the day I 'swallowed' the sun. So I want to share in the days other people swallowed the sun - and the days when you felt like you were chained to the bottom of the ocean instead.
I am looking for models who are willing to pose nude and please remember this is work I hope to exhibit at the end of 2012. I hope that some of you will be willing to participate in this project and if you cannot will help me to spread the word.
I am looking for models who are fat, disabled, homosexual, black, old - the list is extensive and could go on for an age. I am looking for modles willing to pose alone and as couples. I am aware of the politics that arise when grouping these 'catergories' together because they are not equal in meaning and that's something I hope to explore as a part of this project. I am looking for people who live in bodies that the world has scorned and tries with every fibre of its being not to see. I am looking for happy bodies, sexual bodies, sad bodies, bodies in hurt but all of them proud bodies - dignified and human bodies. I am looking for people who live in these bodies and have come to love these bodies or have always loved these bodies. I'm looking for people willing to share their experiences and their physical presence in this world.
I remember the day I realised that I loved myself - loved every roll of fat, every dimple and crease that I had been told for years was disgusting. On that day it felt as if my soul lit up, as if pure sunshine was welling from within me and pouring out into the world. I became the light in my own life. I remember that as the day I 'swallowed' the sun. So I want to share in the days other people swallowed the sun - and the days when you felt like you were chained to the bottom of the ocean instead.
I am looking for models who are willing to pose nude and please remember this is work I hope to exhibit at the end of 2012. I hope that some of you will be willing to participate in this project and if you cannot will help me to spread the word.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Leaving on a Jet Plane...
I’m flying back to Cape Town next week Sunday and honestly, while I have loved spending time with my family, I’m really looking forward to getting back to the life I’ve just begun to carve out for myself. Its so strange to feel, for the first time, that home is not where my parents are but where I am comfortable, where I have made space and friends, and where I’m learning so much about myself and what I really want out of this life God has gifted me with. Its going to shatter me to leave my niece behind. I’m really not sure how I’m going to cope with that. I get tearful just thinking about it. *deep breath!* And now to my favourite photographic subjects!
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Pretty
http://broadist.tumblr.com/post/6754399892/you-dont-have-to-be-pretty-you-dont-owe#notes
Really love this quote. It begins - "You don't have to be pretty - you don't owe prettiness to anyone..."
I'd never realised, till very lately, the actual ugly oppressive weight of the word pretty. I thought, when I first found the size acceptance movement and encountered my very first fat admirers, that I had found home. The longer I stayed and played and read and learned though the more and more I saw that this was a space that, again, came with some very ugly hypocrisy. Drama about feeders and feedees aside, about sexual fetish, about waste and desperation and actual mental illness and social dysfunction aside, the sexual fatosphere is where I learnt absolutely the ugly lessons of 'Pretty.'
For years I knew pretty was not me. I was short and fat and very dark and this was not at all conceivably pretty. In the sexual fatosphere those lessons were, ironically, even more deeply ingrained. In the fat world you can be the wrong kind of fat. If you fat is not attached to your boobs and bum its the 'wrong' kind of fat. Fat girls who are not hourglass or pear shaped are routinely told my 'fat admirers' to try to lose weight. If you have a fat belly you are called an ugly blob, misshapen, ugly - all this within the fat movement. It was almost funny to find that I had run from a space I thought I was rejected to one where again I did not measure up. I often wander if I was light skinned, hour glassed and just generally less loud mouthed if I would keep swallowing the lies of pretty - if they wouldn't sting as badly because I fit. I can't know so I move forward with what I have, with what I've seen and I've learnt. What a crazy ramble lol! This youtube vid expresses this far better than I have.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0
Really love this quote. It begins - "You don't have to be pretty - you don't owe prettiness to anyone..."
I'd never realised, till very lately, the actual ugly oppressive weight of the word pretty. I thought, when I first found the size acceptance movement and encountered my very first fat admirers, that I had found home. The longer I stayed and played and read and learned though the more and more I saw that this was a space that, again, came with some very ugly hypocrisy. Drama about feeders and feedees aside, about sexual fetish, about waste and desperation and actual mental illness and social dysfunction aside, the sexual fatosphere is where I learnt absolutely the ugly lessons of 'Pretty.'
For years I knew pretty was not me. I was short and fat and very dark and this was not at all conceivably pretty. In the sexual fatosphere those lessons were, ironically, even more deeply ingrained. In the fat world you can be the wrong kind of fat. If you fat is not attached to your boobs and bum its the 'wrong' kind of fat. Fat girls who are not hourglass or pear shaped are routinely told my 'fat admirers' to try to lose weight. If you have a fat belly you are called an ugly blob, misshapen, ugly - all this within the fat movement. It was almost funny to find that I had run from a space I thought I was rejected to one where again I did not measure up. I often wander if I was light skinned, hour glassed and just generally less loud mouthed if I would keep swallowing the lies of pretty - if they wouldn't sting as badly because I fit. I can't know so I move forward with what I have, with what I've seen and I've learnt. What a crazy ramble lol! This youtube vid expresses this far better than I have.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0
FLICKR
I'm finally getting my flickr account sorted and turned into something I'm actually not ashamed to have online. I'm also very seriously contemplating changing the name of my photography company. I love Fierce Fotography but there are a number of Fierce Fotography's out there - its not exactly original. Something I've been mulling over for a while and now that I'm ready to take this business to the next level I'm thinking a change in name would be appropriate. Not sure to what though. Its funny how crazy I was about the name to begin with. There isn't another Fierce registered in South Africa and it makes me happy...we'll see - just weighing where I want to be going with all of this.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tauslair/
I'm feeling a great deal of focus. Have been on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster recently. That looming 3-0 man. I don't have a problem with getting older - what terrified me is how quickly time just zooms by and how much I still desperately want to do and achieve and feel and enjoy in this life.
When I was 18 I told myself that I would have my first baby at 34. I was very, very shaken when I realised that 34 is right around the corner and I am in no way, shape or form ready to have children. I'm still barely able to take care of myself, still such an emotional and mental mess, that the thought of caring for another life fills my veins with ice. I want babies - I do - but not now and its scares me to contemplate exactly when I'll feel ready because I don't think I ever will.
Its a time of epic growth for me again - and I'm savoring it but also a little weary of the constant growing pains. I figure if I keep putting my faith in God, trusting that he knows the path he wants for me, I can't go too badly wrong.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tauslair/
I'm feeling a great deal of focus. Have been on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster recently. That looming 3-0 man. I don't have a problem with getting older - what terrified me is how quickly time just zooms by and how much I still desperately want to do and achieve and feel and enjoy in this life.
When I was 18 I told myself that I would have my first baby at 34. I was very, very shaken when I realised that 34 is right around the corner and I am in no way, shape or form ready to have children. I'm still barely able to take care of myself, still such an emotional and mental mess, that the thought of caring for another life fills my veins with ice. I want babies - I do - but not now and its scares me to contemplate exactly when I'll feel ready because I don't think I ever will.
Its a time of epic growth for me again - and I'm savoring it but also a little weary of the constant growing pains. I figure if I keep putting my faith in God, trusting that he knows the path he wants for me, I can't go too badly wrong.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Soaking up the Love
The last post was gloomy and I cannot leave it at that because there is goodness too – so much joy in my life. I cannot end leave this blog just lost in anger. I’ve been home for 3 weeks spending time with my niece and nephew and my parents and it has been amazing. My babies are so beautiful. There is pure joy in the spirits of children and I’ve soaked up their happiness and their generous love and I am so thankful – so, so thankful – to have the family I have and the love I have in my life. And now for pictures!!! :D
May
May was the month from hell. School was madness, a dozen essays, thesis proposal and presentations all due at one brain crunching time and work...well I’m not going to say much about that. Work is status quo – a quo I’m working very, very hard to change as soon as possible.
I was exhausted just about every day, couldn’t sleep and everything hurt – my body, my mind. Sometimes I felt like my soul was too full of pain and hope and anger – like I could barely put thoughts together that weren’t tinged with resentment and urgency and frustration. I’m still finding equilibrium, still sort of staggering back to a happier space. This course on Gender and Transformation has been...life changing. This is no exaggeration – literally life changing. Sometimes I feel like I put a part of myself to sleep years ago, when I realized just how hard life is – and that part of me, that dormant part of Nomonde, has just shaken awake and I’m just feeling all these things. The conversations I’m having, the books I’m reading, the course work, all of it is tearing off the bandages I’d wrapped myself in. I am numb no more, blind no more, but now I can no longer pretend not to see the constant injustice of the society we live in and the endless layers of oppression that mire us in ugliness.
I’m in a dark place right now – very dark. I’ll write more lucidly about how I feel about all of this when it doesn’t feel so close, when it’s not suffocating me.
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