Well, hair we are-what fun! How much of inner ourselves do we attribute to the hairs on our heads! We express our-selves in terms of hair. We have good hair days and bad ones. It projects our self image. We change its color, its length, its style. From birth, we are notable for our hair, more or less-he/she starts out with lots of hair, or not so much. Will it be curly like mom’s or straight like dad’s? We agonize over it when we are adolescents, and for some of us, the agony continues. We fret about losing it. We plug in extra hair to plant a new crop if we dislike its loss. We buy toupees and wigs made of real or synthetic hair to fill the gapsWe grow it on purpose on our faces and we pluck it out and wax it off, too. Hair is such a powerful symbol that in certain cultures, by custom or by law, it must be grown long. In others, it must be covered up or shaved or braided.
In my own photographic work, a focus on hair reveals something about how we view ourselves. It suits my interest in street photography to discover something deeper in ordinary moments and to savor the silly and the quirky, too.
Les Cheveux-gelatin silver print, is a multiple exposure image taken with a Kompakt Horizon Panoramic camera. The hairdresser is everywhere in this print. If you look closely, this is also a self portrait -the camera is lowered to catch my image, too, revealing just one stage in the process of creating my “natural” red hair.