Resonate is a show of work by Irish fashion photographers at Meeting House Square, curated by Darragh Shanahan and Aisling Farinella for ID2015.
23 Irish fashion photographers were asked to submit an image that had special significance for them. The results are interesting and perhaps a bit surprising.
There are very few of the “straight” fashion images readers will be used to seeing in fashion magazines and newspapers such as this one.
While fashion is commonly connected within its commercial capacity and designers and brands are always keen to show off the clothes to prospective buyers, fashion photography can be timeless, personal and resonate with the viewer as an artistic image.
There has been a distinct trend for many years towards mood, atmosphere, lifestyle or “vibe”, and away from any kind of slavish representation of the actual garments. The photographers represented in the gallery below chose their representative image for different, sometimes personal reasons.
Mike Bunn's image of a topless model combined ancient pinhole technique, 5x4 view camera and digital back. "This is so far perhaps the most important picture I have taken to date. At the time the process happened by accident and had never been done before in the history of photography - yes I say the first and probably is still unique."
"At the time I was working on a project about small statues found around the gardens and grounds of our old interesting country houses and estates. Usually rusting and oxidizing with time and weather and developing that unkempt patina of time. The idea was to reconstruct them as studio fashion images with specific models."
"Completely by accident I met up with my good friend Anthony Hobbs head of photography NCAD who was leading me into the new world of scanning negatives and processing with the computer. That was in 2003 when there was no digital cameras around of any use they were still very embryonic.
"In my car at the time was a new 5x4 pinhole camera made for me that could take sheet or instant film, and Anthony was showing me a brand new space age 5x4 scanning back for that format camera
$20,000. We wanted to know how and if the two extremities of photography could be put in bed together and what kind of results would we get. "Twelve Minutes of Time" is the result – 2000 linear exposures over the 5x4 format taking twelve minutes, resulting in this very historic and beautiful image".
Barry McCall’s image, Mariacarla, chose this image for its timeless quality and as a long time personal favourite. “It was taken on a day where all crew (myself, Catherine Condell, Zoe Clark and Michael Leong) were creatively firing on all cylinders and we also just happened to be working with one of the biggest models in the world, Mariacarla Boscono. I love that you can't quite figure out where the location is and the fact that there was absolutely no digital retouch to this shot. It was straight off my old 10 x 8 Sinar camera; a one shot, once-off little piece of art which will never be replicated.”
Conor Clinch took his photograph while filming a project for Sky. “It's from a project called Fresh that I worked on with Rankin during the Sky 1 show "The One's To Watch" which aired during the Summer. The image is of Liam, one of the guys we street casted in Croydon for the shoot. The project is based around lads who like to look good and take pride in what they wear. I think this ties in with the concept of the show, as it's a different take on a typical fashion project”
Perry Ogden’s photo reflects his attempts to challenge perceptions of beauty.“I have always enjoyed finding - and working with - people who are not models because they can bring something real to the image.”
“This picture was part of a series shot for W magazine on the streets of Dublin in 1996 and features Dee and Wesley - Dee I knew of through the band Kila and Wesley I met in Smithfield while making the Pony Kids series. Even though they are dressed up in designer clothes (Dries Van Notten, Calvin Klein etc) it looks to me like they are just two people I stopped on the street to photograph - a quality I like very much.”
Photographers featured in the exhibition include Linda Brownlee, Leon Ward, Andrew Nudig, Neil Gavin, Alen Mac Weeney, Rich Gilligan, Perry Ogden, Josh Gordon, Nick & Chloe, Liam Murphy, Ross McDonnell, Niall O’Brien, Conor Clinch, Barry McCall, Lee Malone, Sean Jackson, Johnny McMillian, Mike Bunn, Sarah Doyle, Eilish McCormack, Sean Breithaupt, Boo George, Peter Rowan. Resonate runs in the Gallery of Photography, Meeting House Square, Dublin from March 12th through to March 29th.
