Kicking off the Fall season here on www.ALANILAGAN.com will be the official posting of the StoneLight project from November 2007. It will be found in The Projects section, assuming I recall how to upload all the pics and set up the thing (always a crap shoot for the technically-non-proficient).
The creation of StoneLight was a mostly peaceful, almost spiritual, affair. Shot in various cemeteries, and various stages of undress, it could have been a troublesome nightmare, but somehow it all worked out, and I managed to not be arrested (always a shock for certain people). It was also the first time I really focused solely on photography, with nary a line of prose interspersed. This project was all about the visuals, and its mostly black-and-white motif highlighted the shadows, the light, and the contours of the stone and the body.
The juxtaposition of the sacred and seemingly profane – in this case the blend of nudity and cemetery scenes – has always fascinated me, but the more I shot, the more the sacred aspects took over, and the nudity became a natural part of the landscape. Naked angels, along with fleshy cherubim and seraphim, floated in many parts of the cemeteries I visited. In fact, the amount of sculptures and tombstones featuring nudity was astonishing.
Shot over several weeks, the making of StoneLight was also a private and peaceful rite of passage. I’d hop in the car with some loose-fitting tracksuit on, find an empty cemetery, and see what scenes opened up for shooting. Out of respect for the dead, I always turned off the music as the car rolled into each cemetery – my small nod to the sacredness of the space. It may seem odd to grant that respect when in a few minutes I would shed the clothing and stand in the midst of all that quiet wearing nothing at all. In the service of the project – in this case an attempt to become one of the stone sculptures, frozen in time and space – it was necessary to be nude.
When God granted me entrance to this world, it was not in a three-piece tailored Tom Ford suit fit for an infant, it was naked as jaybird, wet and matted with the birth fluid of life. The debate will rage as to whether I’ve maintained any of that innocence, or simply exalted in original sin, but nudity has never been a bad thing in my mind, and here it reflected the natural wonder of the carved stone, and the elemental nature of the cemeteries themselves.
As I’ve mentioned, the StoneLight project was my first foray into a serious attempt at photography. I learned a lot, and had the freedom to experiment. There is a rawness to the work that I both love and cringe at, but it was the start of a long learning curve. This was also the work that got me my first solo photography exhibition, and subsequent managing duties at the Romaine Brooks Gallery, so it will always hold a special place in my heart.
STONELIGHT
Only in The Projects
Coming Soon…
