SHADOW DANCING, 2011-2023
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In Shadow Dancing, photographer Barbara Cole connects with both the history of photography and her own personal history in what she calls “the shadow dance between our private and public selves.”
The images in this series are an amalgam of incomplete sets, bits of wardrobe, and headless bodies that allow the characters to interact anonymously with their strange and elusive alter egos. This series has a quiet but insistent feminine power that eschews provocation and sexual innuendo in favor of the language of shadows.
“For years, I’ve been fascinated by the mystery and metaphor of shadows. My lifelong journey with depression reminds me that we are always walking with our past. Without light there are no shadows and the prospect of hope is a powerful personal metaphor.”
By using a turn-of-the-century photographic process called wet collodion and her own modernized twist of adding a layer of color, the resulting tintypes offer glimpses into a particularly feminine soul. The process requires heavy prep work and each handmade image takes at least half an hour to create from start to finish. The final image feels like something lost in time, somewhere between the past and the present.
Shadow Dancing inhabits a poetic space you have never been to but wish you had.
All photographs available for purchase at multiple sizes. Please inquire for sizing and pricing.
