How to photograph a shadow, 9 C-prints, shelf with tarot cards. 2013 - 2014
A series of portraits made during or after tarot readings. A blue table in a light-filled kitchen formed the setting for each of these encounters. The people asked to participate were photography students, all image-makers in their own right. The cards and their interpretations became less significant than their capacity to deflect the sitter’s attention away from the camera, to draw them into a state of introspection. The images reveal the failure of a photograph to faithfully represent someone else’s moments of self-reflection, in allusion to Carl Jung’s conception of the shadow as the unknown dark side of the personality. Although these shadow spaces are not literally portrayed within the frame of the photographs, readings of the interactions between light, color, the cards, the sitter and the photographer can be made.