“I went into this expecting to come out with a project about what recovery looks like… What I found was not a recovered woman, but someone who was still in the midst of dealing with these disorders”

Last month, one of Russell-Jeffrey’s photographs – from her 2021 photobook You Will Always Be Loved Even When You Feel Alone – was selected for this year’s Portrait of Britain award. The image is of Xanthe, the protagonist of the series and one of Russell-Jeffrey’s closest friends. Growing up, Xanthe struggled with disordered eating. “[Back then,] I didn’t quite understand it with great depth, or interrogate it in any capacity,” the photographer says. 

In 2021, while studying photography at Oxford Brookes University, Russell-Jeffrey decided to move in with Xanthe for two months. She wanted to capture how her friend was healing from adolescent trauma. “Naively, I went into this expecting to come out with a project about what recovery looks like… What I found was not a recovered woman, but someone who was still in the midst of dealing with these disorders,” Russell-Jeffrey says.

The pair spent two months together – day-in, day-out – and Russell-Jeffrey became aware of an “immense loneliness” that consumed Xanthe. This was surprising. “Xanthe is very outspoken, driven, and successful,” Russell-Jeffrey explains. They had grown up together as girls, but this was the first time they had spent a prolonged period of time together as adults. While they were living together, Xanthe experienced a bulimia relapse. “She’s not someone who welcomes pity, but I’d never seen her so defeated,” says Russell-Jeffrey. “I noticed that the problems she grappled with when she was 14 are just as prevalent today.”

The sequencing of You Will Always Be Loved Even When You Feel Alone echoes the reality of living with an eating disorder – moving through periods of binge eating, relapse, and healing. “Then the cycle begins again, of trying to stay in recovery, and this immense fatigue around that, because you’re never entirely free of it,” Russell-Jeffrey reflects. Alongside the images are Xanthe’s handwritten notes as well as letters from her family. Imbued with a striking vulnerability, these notes provide further insight into the complex process of dealing with trauma. 

What emerged was a series not just about recovery, but also friendship, and most crucially, care. Even though Russell-Jeffrey doesn’t appear in the images, her presence is palpable. The series feels like a dialogue of understanding and acceptance between two women that have grappled with many of the same issues. “It was almost a documentation of the small-scale things that you can do, the act of noticing, and not always over-analysing someone’s life but being attentive to it,” she says.

Due to the nature of the work, Russell-Jeffrey had to make certain ethical considerations. Xanthe was involved in every step of the process – while making the images, but also in the editing phases. When the project was finished, the photographer made sure that her friend was aware of all the implications of sharing it on the internet. Most importantly, the door was always left open to take it all down if she wanted to. 

Fortunately, “she loved it,” Russell-Jeffrey says. “It made her very emotional. She’s really proud of it as well, which she never thought she’d be able to feel.” The women have also grown closer through collaboration. “We went from having a friendship that we knew so well, to realising there’s so much we don’t know,” Russell-Jeffrey explains. “This was the first time I got to know her in loneliness, which is a rare thing.”

As an adult, it can be difficult to find the right words, or even the time, to properly care for friends as they experience hardship. Russell-Jeffrey’s project is a reminder that sometimes the best act of care is purely our presence. As she pledges in her introduction: “I shall be here not as a spectator to your pain or recovery like before, but as a hand to hold in the sunshine or on the cold bathroom floor, for you will always be loved even when you feel alone.”

sophie-jeffrey.com

To coincide with Female in Focus 2021, Gulnara Samoilova – one of last year’s judges – discusses her latest photobook, compiling the work of 100 women street photographers from around the world

Female in Focus is a global award recognising women’s extraordinary contribution to contemporary photography. Enter the 2021 edition now.

In the mountainous Adjara region of the former-Soviet state, Georgia, three girls pose for a photograph on a misty village road. The image, captured by photojournalist Natela Grigalashvili for her series Women with Headscarves, is a delicate portrait of youth and innocence; a time when something as simple as taking a photograph is an event. In it, the two eldest girls hold up a piece of black, transparent cloth for the camera: a fabric which will be made into headscarves for them after they marry, as a symbol of their femininity, loyalty, and “inner peace”.

“[Grigalashvili] is from Georgia,” says Gulnara Samoilova, editor of the illuminating new anthology Women Street Photographers, in which Grigalashvili’s image features. “I am from [the Russian Republic of] Bashkortostan. Even though they are worlds apart, when I look at this picture, I am transported back to my childhood.” 

Growing up in extreme rural poverty in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, Samoilova first turned to photography as an escape: a magical means of reimagining life’s mundanities, discovering people, places and things in a new light. A shy yet curious, risk-taking teen, she had her first image – a street photo of a lamppost made at night – published in the art section of a local newspaper, and thereafter, she was hooked. 

She moved to New York in 1992, and would go on to garner first prize in the World Press Photo competition for her coverage of 9/11. “I see myself, my mother, and my grandmother when I look at Natela’s photograph,” Samoilova muses. “And that’s one of the most amazing things photography can do. Not only preserving a moment in time, but holding the power to transport you to your past; affirming a deep connection that exists nowhere except in your memories. Reminding us that we are more alike than we are different.”

“That’s one of the most amazing things photography can do. Not only preserving a moment in time, but holding the power to transport you to your past; affirming a deep connection that exists nowhere except in your memories. Reminding us that we are more alike than we are different”

Women Street Photographers, published by Prestel, brings together the work of 100 women photographers around the world, recognising their extraordinary contribution to an overwhelmingly male-dominated field. Featuring artists from the ages of 20 to 70, alongside a foreword by Ami Vitale and an essay by Melissa Breyer, Samoilova sheds light on generations of underrepresented talent: proof that the relatively few women accepted to the canon of the street photography – our Mary Ellen Marks, Helen Levitts and Vivian Maiers – are just barely scratching the surface. 

The book comes off the back of what began as a travelling exhibition and accompanying Instagram feed, founded by Samoilova in 2017 to champion the work of both amateur and professional women street photographers. Much like the project’s previous iterations, Women Street Photographers isn’t a linear, historical, or academic book, but rather what Samoilova describes as “my emotional, aesthetic, and spiritual response to the work of other artists”. It is a vibrant showcase of scenes she finds moving and powerful, from ultra-orthodox youth in a Tel Aviv park, to a sea of taxis outside a Kolkata train station; a moonlit bus stop in Munich to a foggy morning in Romania.

Do women see the world ‘differently’ to men? “I think it’s far too early in the conversation to summarise what encompasses the ‘female gaze’,” Samoilova says. “We’ve been indoctrinated by the ‘male gaze’ for so long that it’s hard to say where that ends and where we begin. But it’s time we create the space to reflect upon these questions in further depth, and at greater length.” 

Indeed, only once the visual landscape opens up to every iteration and intersection of woman, across race, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, ability, age, class and so on, can we begin to distill what the ‘female gaze’ really looks like. Until then, Samoilova endeavours to “build everything I wish I had encountered over the past 40 years working as a photographer that would have helped me along my journey – so that I didn’t feel so alone in the world”.

Enter Female in Focus 2021 now 

Women Street Photographers is published by Prestel

womenstreetphotographers.com | @womenstreetphotographers

The author of Me + Mine discusses her origins in zines, graduating to photobooks and the importance of clinging onto print

In late 2020, Chinese-English photographer Alexandra Leese – who built her career on shooting fashion editorials for the likes of Vogue, i-D and GQ Style – self-published Me + Mine. A simple but achingly beautiful ode to the female form, the minimalist photobook presents 44 portraits of women all over the world, posing nude over Zoom during the global coronavirus lockdown of April last year. “It’s definitely a timely piece,” Leese muses. “To do a whole book remotely is so 2020.”

Me + Mine is Leese’s third self-published work, the first two being closer to zines. Boys of Hong Kong (2018) explored the diversity of masculinity among Hong Kong youth culture in a bid to challenge damaging conceptions about the homogeneity of Asian men. A year later, Yumi and the Moon saw Leese construct a mystical vision of femininity through a modern retelling of a centuries-old Japanese folktale, The Tale of Princess Kaguya. “It’s quite addictive once you get started,” she laughs. “Having something physical and tangible is just so meaningful in a time when our entire existence is online; when everything feels like a fleeting moment on Instagram. Especially as artists.”

Needless to say, Leese is part of a wider boom in the self-publishing of photobooks that has been building steadily for some years. Cheap digital printing technology has collided with the rise of social media, and photographers are now able to source suppliers, collaborators and audiences for their work with relative ease. Since it’s rarely a way to make fast money, experts in the field will stress it’s vital to know why you’re making a photobook, who you’re making it for, and carefully tailor your decisions – from content and form to materials and print runs – to these ends. But, as Leese testifies, there can be noteworthy benefits if the recipe is right. 

 “Having something physical and tangible is just so meaningful in a time when our entire existence is online; when everything feels like a fleeting moment on Instagram. Especially as artists”

“It informs my fashion work, because it helps me understand myself; who I am, what I stand for, and what I want to shoot,” she says. “And that’s when you start to get hired for you, and what you do, as opposed to just being hired because someone needs a photographer to do a job.” Leese’s self-published works have served as catalysts for many clients to commission her to create similar work. “Like with Yumi and the Moon,” she explains, “it was very much about the body, and I got a lot of lingerie and beauty assignments. It really does tie in.” It was a bonus, in the end, that Boys of Hong Kong and Yumi and the Moon sold out and made a profit (Me + Mine – still on sale – is a non-profit title, with proceeds split between Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, Trans Law Centre and the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre). 

While the initial investment can be costly, as Leese notes, it’s entirely dependent on the design, production materials and how many you print; in this sense, it is arguably safer to start with a zine, as she did, and work up to a book. “People made zines super cheaply back in the day, and those had a huge impact,” Leese says. “So you can work within a budget.”

The photographer freely admits that she had “no idea” what she was doing when she set out to publish Boys of Hong Kong back in 2018. The photobook process is gradually becoming de-mystified (particularly by Self Publish Be Happy, who run a wealth of educational workshops, alongside resources from the likes of British Journal of Photography and Photo District News). But for Leese, the main solution was enlisting more experienced creatives. “I knew I needed some kind of designer or art director to guide me through,” she says. “Someone who loved the project, wanted to help it get made, and had done it before.” Lauren Faye of CLO Studio came on board as art director of Boys of Hong Kong, and Bruce Usher as designer. Fast forward, and Leese’s most recent publication, Me + Mine, has been a collaboration with Dazed designer Eva Nazarova. 

“When I start coming to the end of shooting a project, I start to research and ask around my contacts for a designer who could be right for it,” Leese explains. “Then once they’re on board, everything is a collaboration, from the layout, to the paper that we use, everything.” The photographer will always have an idea in her mind of how she sees the finished book looking before she approaches her collaborators, but hopes to find people who can bring something extra to the table. “With Me + Mine, I knew I wanted to work with a woman,” she says. “Someone younger, someone who I could get creative with. Jamie Reid [art director of Dazed] said I should hit up Eva, and we really got on. She loved the project. It was an instant ‘yes’.”

All three of Leese’s titles have been stocked and distributed by Antenne Books, whose list also includes publications by Ed Templeton, Kim Gordon, Harmony Korine and Ryan McGinley. Leese initially approached the distributor by pitching Boys of Hong Kong and sending them a copy; after the zine proved a sell-out success, the relationship continued naturally. In terms of promotion, Leese has been lucky in that, as an established fashion photographer, she already had a bank of press contacts. But she’s also forged relationships with magazines who had never previously heard of her to get the word out. “That’s always daunting,” she says. “But you have to just trust in your project, and hope that someone will pick it up. And if they don’t, they don’t. There has to be a level of acceptance that not everyone’s going to like what you do.” 

Me + Mine has proved particularly difficult to market on social media due to the nature of the images. Instagram has garnered criticism in recent years for an anti-nudity policy that appears to disproportionately affect bodies that aren’t thin and/or white. When Leese began circulating images from the project, she maintains her account was shadow-banned (where content is allegedly suppressed by Instagram, so that users are unable to see it on their feeds or find it via the search bar — though this is something the app doesn’t admit to doing). “When something like that happens, you realise how unhealthily dependent you are on these platforms to promote your work,” she says. “Even though these books are ways to remove yourself from that, your platform to promote them is your Instagram.”

With hype fuelled by features in Vogue Italia, The Face, AnOther and more, there is firm hope that Me + Mine will sell out like Leese’s previous titles, with or without Instagram’s help. As for what’s next for the photographer, her trajectory so far has given her confidence to consider pitching to a traditional publisher next time — something that felt entirely “out of reach” in the beginning. “But I really hope self-publishing carries on thriving,” she says, resolutely. “I hope it continues as this accessible art form. And I hope we always keep one foot in the physical world.”

alexandraleese.com

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The project, which Leese began in April, a few weeks into the global lockdown, coopts a genre conventionally serving the male gaze. In Me + Mine, the nude becomes a space in which the subjects may connect with themselves. “I began by photographing myself first,” explains Leese. “I was alone with my body and thoughts much more than usual and I was interested in exploring the relationship I had with it.”

As opposed to posing or performing for an audience, the woman photographed should feel beautiful and safe, even if just for a moment, and, in doing so, inspire others to feel the same. “It’s about accepting that a system is in place that puts the male gaze’s concept of beauty above our own, and so I hope we can continue to address and question this,” continues Leese. All of the profits from Me + Mine, which is self-published, will be donated to the Black Trans Femme in the Arts Collective, the Trans Law Center, and the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre; organisations that several of the subjects are involved with. Below, several of the women reflect on their experiences. 

Eniye Kagbala, an artist who tells stories through song, sound, and the moving image, for healing and feeling. And a mother, wife, and entrepreneur from St Vincent and the Grenadines. 

[Participating in the project] was empowering. I felt connected to a group of women who were all seeking different things from the experience; a collective shift of personal perspectives about self and body.  It was an escape in the midst of so much uncertainty worldwide. But, also speaking to Alex, who was having a completely different experience from me, really opened my eyes. Alex has an impeccable eye and the emotion to understand how to make who she’s photographing feel comfortable. She gave me gentle but grounding confidence. You trust her because you feel like she has your best interest at heart and that you are working with a master of their craft. This allowed me to open up a bit, feel vulnerable and in that, I was empowered. I’ve never been shot nude so after initial insecurity, I felt a freedom. I enjoyed the process. [It made me feel] fabulous.

Nylo Beeharry Mian, a Mauritian and Pakistani writer born and raised in North London.

My feelings and emotions surrounding my body throughout lockdown have fluctuated since it commenced in March. I felt pleased with myself for jogging a little longer than usual, taking a whole day dedicated to ‘self-care’, or pulling out my yoga mat for a quick at-home workout. I felt that I was implementing beneficial routines for my mind and body. However, having so much time on my hands led me to gawk and gaze at what I felt needed to be improved. During this time I worked with the caring and talented Alexandra Leese who made me feel comfortable and gave me the introspect to be a little kinder to my body and myself. She left with me with pictures that I can look to, remembering a time I’ll never forget and a journey with myself that is ongoing.

Yumi, a Japanese British artist based between London and Hokkaido.

I’ve always felt great artistic chemistry with Alex, we share a lot of similar thoughts on anatomy and the metaphysical connection we have with our own, as women. We are both of Asian diaspora and with that comes a lot of unspoken understanding. To some people, this may seem like an unrelated topic but its absolutely not, it’s everything. There is a silent but vivid sense of trust that is needed to allow yourself to communicate to someone with your naked body, and that’s something I’m grateful to be able to share with my friend. Our previous project, where I posed nude, was in reference to another time of stillness in my life, where I was also confronting mortality, grief and a sense of rebirth. These conversations of course returned to us in retrospect of the greater experience of solitude and self-reflection that has come over us [globally] in response to the pandemic. It has been deeply meaningful to me.

We face many unique challenges with our bodies as women. But above all,  I am deeply grateful for this physical vessel that is mine and the one that birthed me. I come from a culture where communal bathing (onsen) is a frequent and therapeutic ritual. I grew up seeing all types of female bodies of all ages. In hindsight, I honestly feel it’s what blessed me with the truth. The sense of understanding I have with my body, which to me is vivid in my nudes with Alex, is of pure surrender. For me, my body is ‘she’. She is a part of me that I own and simultaneously have all and little control over, since she works painfully hard, knows all and more about me and sometimes does unexplainable things. I can only give her my trust and affection. But, with that, I can love to see her grow, perform in all her glory and have moments like these.

Caley, an artist who works with young Refugees and Migrants for NGOs, based in London.

I enjoyed doing a creative collaborative project because at the time we were in a strict lockdown and I was living alone. It has been relentless and very lonely and has had a very negative impact on my mental health. So connecting with Alex and making a beautiful image together was exciting and met some of my needs. I was at a point I was starting to model through virtual shoots, and it was an interesting manifestation of the Covid-19 lockdown that I would be photographed through my devices. I felt safe with Alex, and the concept behind the project aligns with my values.

I am at a point in my life that self-expression through nudity is something I am exploring in self-portraits and portraying others in my paintings. The opportunity came at the right time. My body has been a battleground; I have abused it, hated it, and it has been abused and violated. It is also a battleground in the sense that the world has extremely polarised, oppressive, and obsessive views on what I should be allowed to do with my own body, as a woman. I feel tentative about this nude image going into the world, however, I feel this is my right as an adult woman to show my body as I please. It feels daring and liberating.

Me+Mine is available via Antenne Books here. 

Covid-19 has trapped the world at home. National lockdowns have caused millions of bored, trapped, stagnant humans. This is in contrast to the expected life of a photographer: the singular artist, camera in hand, roaming the world, traversing border after border to get that perfect shot. It is an art, which for most, requires one to leave the house. It is quite easy to imagine how this has limited most photographers. The brief for Still Life was simple: create a story about your lockdown.

The publication is very much aware of the long western canon of still life. Artists have been tackling the genre for centuries, but due to the current climate, life itself has become the static subject. It is in this lack of movement that the book finds its originality. The work produced is a look into the lives of the artists, and the small worlds each have built for themselves over lockdown. Life with young children, seeing friends from a window, and the awkward intimacy of an unexpected roommate. Life continues within each of the photographers’ bubbles, the images acting as postcards from each artist and their individual lockdown world. The book includes work by 13 international artists, including Charles Negre, Harley Weir, David Brandon Geeting, Xiaopeng Yuan, and Caroline Tompkins.

Everybody has lockdown memories. Some good, some sad, and some mundane. Still Life uses the vision of 13 artists to give insight into the sublime mundanity of a Covid-19 year. Although everyone’s lockdown experiences differed greatly, we can all find a shared experience within these works.

The mundanity of the domestic can be transformed when one spends multiple months in the same chair, bed, or desk. Objects such as discarded toys, soap in the sink, and crisps on the shelf become fascinating subjects. Items which would go years unnoticed become the muse of the bored photographer. Despite the stagnancy of a still life, beauty in one’s surroundings can still be found.

Home & Belonging 

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“When we arrived, it was a peaceful day,” remembers Robbie Lawrence, who first travelled to the gardens, with the illustrator Emma Tudor-Bloch, in 2016. “Low-hanging mist over the loch; late winter, early spring; this beautiful west light. The place just felt magical. It is incredibly dense: a cliffside full of shrubs and trees. And, as you make your way through the garden, you discover a huge dilapidated house, which is astounding when you first see it. And then there was Jim,” continues Lawrence, describing his first encounter with Dr Jim Taggart, owner of the gardens.

In his younger years, Taggart, an arresting octogenarian with a furrowed face framed by tangled grey hair when Lawrence met him, studied botany in Glasgow before reading theology at Oxford, after which he entertained becoming a priest. Instead, in 1971, he purchased Linn villa and embarked upon transforming its steep and rocky gardens. Taggart already possessed an extensive plant collection, and he worked hard reorganising the space to accommodate it. He cut down trees and hedges to allow for more light; removed decades’ worth of debris from the Meikle Burn gully, expanding plantings down the garden’s steep banks; and built water features to prevent flooding. He also grew his collection, sourcing exotic species from all over the world. In 1999 the Linn was officially named a botanic garden given its array of plants, many endangered, and Taggart’s son, Jamie, committed to cataloguing the collection.

At their pinnacle, the gardens housed over 8000 taxa carefully arranged around a winding one-kilometre long path. Walking up towards the Linn through the glen, steep slopes ooze flowering rhododendrons, exotic climbers and the delicate, spider-like buds of Chinese Epimedium; a towering Schefflera fengii tree from southwestern China looks on. Above the glen, in the northeast corner, sits a bamboo garden that once contained 40 varieties of the plant. Meanwhile, an exotic wood – with a delicate Australian snowdrop tree and ornamental Japanese Katsura – occupies the northwest side. Nearer the house lies a New Zealand alpine lawn and a spiky bed of cabbage palms, yuccas and grasses, giving way to a lily pond and rockery below. Water is present throughout. Flowing from a waterfall at the garden’s peak, the Meikle Burn cuts through the land; several man-made ponds and a fountain also feature.

Having first heard about the gardens from his sister, it was four years before Lawrence visited them. But, when he finally did, he knew he had discovered something special. “Without even introducing himself, Jim began telling us about the gardens and took us around them,” remembers Lawrence. However, a tragic story soon emerged. His son Jamie, a part-time firefighter and botanist, who took over the gardens in 1999, had travelled extensively, researching and sourcing new species for the grounds. In 2013, on one such trip to a northern, mountainous region of Vietnam, Jamie disappeared. He remained missing for several years until his body was discovered at the bottom of one of the mountain’s higher passes. “Jim lived in a perpetual state of mourning for his son,” Lawrence continues, “and the garden became an emblem for Jamie, who had been part of designing and developing it.” Small tributes sit throughout: a portrait above the fireplace; wild greenhouse experiments, which Jamie started; a pile of rocks alongside the waterfall.

The tragedy was significant. However, it is not the focus of Lawrence’s work. Instead, the intense relationship between nature and man, which he observed at the Linn, compelled him, and he watched and photographed Taggart amid the rich surroundings he had given his life to cultivating. Here was a man at one with nature; devoted to a garden he had built and nurtured. “He lived for the garden,” says Lawrence, “it energised him. When he was in it he was far more lively and lucid than when he was inside; it was therapeutic.” The images bear witness to this connection. With his wild beard and brooding face, carved with age, Jim blends into his surroundings; an ancient tree among those spread across the property.

Over the next four years, Lawrence returned to the Linn along with Tudor-Bloch whenever he was in Scotland. He captured the garden and its owner through the seasons, gradually building an evocative portrait of the place. The visits were much the same: Lawrence and Tudor-Bloch accompanied Jim while he wandered the garden, and then they would move inside for tea. “He would tell us stories about his life,” remembers Lawrence, “swinging from decade to decade.” Lawrence’s photographs capture the vast vistas, heavy with mist. They hone in on more intimate details too: beads of water pepper an overturned leaf; a brilliant-red flower bud glows. Images of the house’s interior also feature, as do delicate arrangements of twigs and leaves, positioned by Tudor-Bloch and given to her by Jim. The photographs are “anthropomorphic”: “Every image is a portrait of Jim. It could be a flowerbed of snowdrops or a pile of books, it’s how you represent someone through different things.”

Lawrence had always planned to make a book of the project, however, it wasn’t scheduled for this year. The pandemic changed that, and A Voice Above the Linn, published by Stanley/Barker, collates images he made during his many visits: a record of the gardens and their owner. Many of the photographs were shot during Lawrence’s first visit, which resonated with him profoundly. And several of the later stills were taken on his last trip, when he discovered that Jim had died. “I didn’t know because we wouldn’t plan our visits; he didn’t have a mobile phone or anything,” says Lawrence. “So we just wandered in, and I was snapping as usual, but then realised something felt strange; the garden was completely overgrown.” Jim was gone; it was summer, and a warm light bathed the grounds and the mountains beyond them.

Lawrence spent the first UK lockdown collating the material he had of the gardens into an edit for the book. The result is a moving record of Taggart’s later years and the Linn Botanic Gardens, which he devoted to them. Physically, the publication is resonant of a garden journal: “I wanted it to be like one of the journals he kept in his shed, gathering dust; I wanted it to be accessible, not too highbrow.” And four poems, written by the esteemed poet John Burnside, segment it. A short film, of the gardens and the surrounding area, shot by Lawrence following Jim’s death accompanies the work, with Burnside reading excerpts of his poems over it. These respond to the images through poignant prose, and together, image, text and film evoke the atmosphere of the gardens. transporting readers to a magical place, the existence of which is now unclear as ownership of it moves into new hands.

A Voice Above the Linn is available via Stanley/Barker; a portion of the book’s sales will go towards The Friends of The Linn charity, which supports the upkeep of the garden. Lawrence has also released a limited edition of prints from the series here.