Fallyrag | Photography | The Lighting Life of Subject

Photography

The Lighting Life of Subject

Fallyrag

Pages:

'I was born and grew up in New York, mostly in Manhattan. I've been in London for about three years now. It's my first time living outside NY, and it's very refreshing living in a new city. There's always the thrill of finding something new…'

Willie Nash is a photographer whose work explores the deep, complicated concept of humanity. By creating wonderful narratives he poses questions not only about ourselves as individuals, but on a much broader, all encompassing scale. Willie's work seeks to confront the questions, or rather, pose the questions, that we all consider at various stages in our life. They are the questions that get all too easily forgotten when you have to be at work 5 days a week and the weekends are spent nursing Friday night.

Willie's photographs ooze sexuality. They are atmospheric, mostly dark and you can't help but feel a little naughty even just looking at them. Yet beneath the unusual compositions there is a familiarity with these works. Gestures and poses borrowed from an earlier period. Indeed Willie cites one of his influences as Caravaggio and it's easy to appreciate the Renaissance in these photographs.

Nude figures are illuminated against darkened backgrounds. Your eye is immediately drawn to the ghostly white of the figures and yet slowly the darkness unearths more props to support the narrative; objects that pose more questions than they answer.

'Although I get a lot of inspiration when viewing the Renaissance, Surrealist and Dadaist sections of museums,' continued Willie, ' they are not my only influences. I get a lot of inspiration from junk I find on the street, literature and movies.'

These images are fantastically cinematic. Willie paints masterfully with light on his subjects, which has the effect of breathing life into them. You expect them to move.

Amusingly perhaps, although his figures lay bare their nakedness, this very nudity associates the viewer with the photographs. After all, it is the clothes and accessories that define our individual identity far more than the naked body - in fact this is the one thing we have in common.

It is easy to appreciate these works but, perhaps less so, the time and nurturing that each one requires. We asked Willie about his technique - how his photographs are created:

'My technique is quite straight forward. I build a set in my studio, spend a lot of time painting and decorating, find or make the props. Then I light it with strobes. When shooting I work quite slowly with the models, and shoot digitally. After I've edited, I retouch a little bit and eventually get my printer in NY (Ken Allen Studios) to get all the saturation and colours correct. The paper I print on has a watercolour texture and I sometimes give it a coat of wax.'

While it's a 'straight forward' technique it's very time consuming. I always start with a rough drawing of an idea (that I do constantly) and might mix a few together. Then, see what models are available and figure out who would work in which photo. It's all hard work but I love every step of the process.'

If you would like to see more from Willie, please head to his website at http://www.willienashphoto.com/

Pages: