TITLE: Half the Sky: Portraits of Women

Over the course of my life the best photographs I have made are all images of women. This was not a deliberate strategy and I wonder now what is it that motivates my artistic journey. Do we represent what we love and desire or are we drawn by history to pursue archetypes which transcend the limits of existence? As a child I venerated the Mother of God and then as a soldier I felt the ancient belief that death would come for me in the form of a woman. Laying in agony in a military hospital I thought I glimpsed her and perhaps it is her image I have sought ever since. What is certain is that this path to portray women is now my conscious choice.

It is a Chinese saying that “women hold up half the sky” but history testifies that there is an added weight to their half. These portraits are my attempt to witness and do justice to real women who bear that burden of time. My use of film in black and white is a reference to the entire history of photography which has done more to objectify and denigrate women than all other art forms combined. It is my goal to move beyond objectification to show what is true, and strong, and beautiful in every woman whose photograph I take. These creations are thus both real and imagined, a mixture of desire and truth which is the heart of photography as art. If successful my images will resonate with both immediacy and transcendence and become objects of beauty themselves. As I approach my own mortality this pursuit is my passionate defiance of the ugly, violent world we live in.

AUTHOR: Stephen Boyce (United States)