Mirror Mirror – Guest Post

When a former blogger gets in touch and says, can I share my groups work on Sinful Sunday the obvious answer is, hell yes. For those who remember Jane is the artist formally known as Chintz Curtain!

A photographer, a film maker, and a writer walk into a bar and show one another naked self-
portraits … (No, really. They do.)

A few months back, Kirsten, Jeremy, and I started a group chat we jokingly titled ‘Creative Procrastinators’. All three of us have some sort of arts background (photography, film making, writing/art history) yet none of us were consistently working on (or managing to complete) personal creative projects. Primarily because—surprise, surprise—we kept getting caught up with the responsibilities of everyday life. Read: work, kids, and general ‘adulting’.

The chat was a space to give encouragement to one another, throw out ideas or thoughts on all sorts of arts-related things—writing, film, music, photography—and critique various projects we were working on. Then, at the beginning of the year, we decided it would be a good idea to start setting ourselves group homework: every few weeks, one of us would get to pick a prompt and all three of us would have to share an image (photographic) on a specific agreed date. Our first assignment, Strawberry, resulted in three wildly different images, as well as some interesting creative dilemmas—including mutilated toast and a
crisis watch of Mad Max – Road Warrior. (Not to mention I kept eating my props!)

Last night, over dinner and some very delicious cocktails, we shared our images for prompt number two, Mirror Mirror. This second reveal was particularly fun because, unlike our Strawberry photographs, we made the deliberate decision not to share any test shots or information about our images/concepts with one another before the big reveal. Our pictures came as a complete surprise and, once again, it was fascinating to see our individual approaches to the same brief.

We’re honoured to be here for this week’s Sinful Sunday and all three of us would like to say
a huge ‘thank you’ to Molly for hosting our images. We really hope you all enjoy them.
Jane
xxx

Jeremy’s image:

Absorbed in watching through the keyhole, the voyeur embodies our innate curiosity. Growing up, masturbation was often performed in the dark. You were never allowed to speak of this so called ‘shameful act’. Surprisingly, observing myself through the keyhole reveals not a shameful sight, but a captivating one.
Technical notes: multi-exposure.

Kirsten’s images:

“It’s going to be OK.”

Some high demands from some little words. But these are the lucky words life’s currently calling on, and so guided this Mirror Mirror prompt. Actually, the cascading plant was the initial seed, depicting daily watering of the mind whilst feeling mildly strangled, but it was a pain to arrange on my head and I probably should have ditched it. Undecided between these two images. Jeremy observed a postural/mental strength in Image A that seemed to capture the essence (or rather goal) of this little word practice. So I’ll take that as a win.

Jane’s image:

I’ve played with mirrors quite a few times in previous self-portraits, so really wanted to challenge myself and try something different for the Mirror Mirror brief. I’ve had a tough year and I think this picture reflects that. There’s no image manipulation/post-production in this shot; the inversion was achieved with a small magnifying mirror. Side note: I don’t think I’ve ever submitted a fully clothed Sinful Sunday before (at least not that I can recall!?), and it feels a bit strange to include one with my kit on, but, in this case, the less revealing image worked best and, in many ways, felt way more naked.