Face Of The Day

Bear Kirkpatrick shares how playing with hair coverings inspired him to create his series “Wallportraits”:

The first Wallportrait came about because I had my friend Ashley in my studio and I was playing dress up with her. I had borrowed clothes from a vintage store and from a costume maker and was just dressing her this way and that and taking photos, just seeing what happens. Playing. Most photographers hire Ashley because of her incredible hair, but in my mindless playing I wondered what she might look like without that hair. You know, take away the obvious, the given. I didn’t “think” this. I just wrapped her head with apiece of white fabric and took some pictures.

And her eyes! Man, they were out of this world! I mean, something really shifted visually — my own visual response system seemed to completely change its footing and include information that was newly revealed. Not by addition but by subtraction. And so there’s a clear antecedent there to my own experience of having been deaf when I was a child. Something taken away that can lead to discovery.

(Photo by Bear Kirkpatrick)