Bio

Victoria Smith is an artist and freelance fashion photographer residing in London. Victoria likes to create illusions with her previous series ‘LIMBS’ where she dismembered her own body parts to represent the objectification of the female form in advertising, to her current series that rethinks the fashion image through abstract photography capturing the energy of the fashion photoshoot.

Artist Statement

Whilst working as a photographer for a vintage clothing brand in London I was fascinated by the energy of the fashion photoshoot. There was always so much excitement, anticipation, and a feeling that something wonderful was about to be collaboratively created. I couldn’t quite grasp or put into words the energy that flowed between myself and the model, with all the unspoken cues that led to the evolving movement of pose brought about through gesture, expression and body language both projected and absorbed. It was a fluid experience which continually developed through the highs of capturing a captivating image and the lows of something not working, it was an exhausting but exhilarating experience for everyone involved.

On the fashion photoshoot moods are experienced, translated and then transmitted, and not just on shoots but in everyday life too. With the theory of Affect, the series of work conveys the story of the model and photographer’s relationship as an intense and almost transcendental one, one that is not something sexual per se but maybe a communication of their souls. The way fashion models have discussed their experience of affective energy on shoots and how they use bodily sensations to embody garments and guide their poses all feels somewhat romantic. I wanted to pay tribute to that. I wanted to celebrate the fashion model as a highly intuitive and perceptive being with heightened awareness to bodily sensory perception. Through abstract and painterly photography using colours, fabrics and movement, I wanted to capture affective energy and represent those beautiful, organic, free flowing and spiritual connections that occur on the fashion photoshoot.

The final sequence of images tells a story, the story of the model with the curtains opening, the model looking up towards the light shining down upon her with the performance about to commence and then through a mixture of colours, hues and movement the affect is captured. The narrative from darkness tones to light insinuates a journey towards a sort of enlightenment as the model navigates the affective energy, giving their whole self, maybe even their soul, to the fashion photoshoot. The performance then draws to an end, the curtains close, and the model’s story on this photoshoot ends.

See the full story at https://meticulousfox.com/affective-energy/