TREVOR APPLESON – FREE GROUND

Like Glenn Busch, below, these images both contain the style and content of my pictures.  The following is taken from the book ‘Free Ground’:

‘Free Ground’ is an English translation of Afrikaans ‘Vryground’ which is the name of one of the most memorable locations for Appleson’s portable studio portraits. Vryground was supposedly gifted to local fishermen and their families in the 1930s, but under apartheid, the area was declared public land and the inhabitants no longer had any legal right to live there.

Trevor Appleson photographed these people by rigging up a background and photographing them on random beaches suggested by the work of Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.  This developed into a more resolute and conceptual approach involving using a studio on location.  Appleson worked at dawn or dusk and took his studio to beaches, car parks, shantytowns and shipyards – anywhere where he could gain access to people in an informal way.

People were attracted to his studio – it looked like a small film set – made up of a large backdrop and lighting.  The studio is a neutral space in which it is possible to photograph people in their natural environment.  The black background creates a neutral space within this environment, a setting in which a ‘model’ can be present as part of an ongoing narrative.

Working at dawn and dusk is a defining element of the process, not only because of the quality of light, but also because of the randomness of the people who happen to be on the street at these particular times of day.

All these photographs are taken as three-quarter lengths, whereas mine are full length.  I have to worry about cross-shadowing which I was, at first, trying to avoid, but I like it now and I don't think I will worry about it too much, unless it becomes distracting.