I had already met Dinara when I was shooting an assignment for the ARDI disability centre and she was present. Nevertheless, as always in the initial stages of a new project, I agreed to meet with the subjects and discuss the rationale and content of the photographs. I met Dinara and her mother, Bibigul, at their home – without my camera, just a notebook and pencil. Continue reading “Dinara Sharipova – first visit”
During our second meeting, Dinara was keen to show me all that she is capable of doing with her feet instead of her hands. Although I have already seen her embroidery, she felt compelled to show me again. Continue reading “Dinara – second visit”
The next time I visited Dinara, we tried to recreate the photograph where she has written her name, but somehow I could not get a decent composition. It was an overcast day and the light was poor as well. I don’t like working with flash since it creates ugly shadows and is tiring and distracting for the subjects. Another issue with flash photography is that it can cause seizures, and since people with CP are prone to seizures, strobe lighting is out of the question. Continue reading “Dinara – third visit”
During this visit, I showed Dinara some of the images I had already taken, and rephotographed some family album snapshots. We also photographed the embroidery work that Dinara was preparing for her upcoming exhibition. I took the opportunity to make some shots of Dinara at work – both at her computer and doing embroidery, but the embroidery shots were not as strong as the previous session.
Although not strictly speaking a visit, since this particular time we met at the exhibition centre where Dinara’s embroidery was being shown. I promised to take pictures of the vernissage, which I did as a personal favour, but I don’t know if I’m going to show these images, since they detract from the normalcy I am trying to get across through the work.
Carl Whetham photography 