RM: I can imagine that it must have been both healing and a very difficult thing to do, especially the self-portraits. Can you speak a bit more about the experience of staging these self-portraits on your father’s bed? The intimacy, familiarity and mediation of loss and love conveyed is incredibly powerful and deeply moving – the presence channelled, the absence embodied, the beautiful stillness captured in this photographic encounter.
ODH: Yes. Like my father, I am quite a private person too. When he died, I did not post anything on social media, nor did I share the news widely; I spoke only to those closest to me. I have never been challenged as much as photographing myself in my dad’s room. At first, nothing was turning out the way I wanted it to. At one point, I thought the bed was trying to tell me something, almost as though it wanted to be photographed by itself, without my presence intruding, interrupting its emptiness, its stillness. I kept going back to understand what I was trying to achieve, just sitting in his room, reflecting. I had conversations with friends who kept me on track with what I was striving to accomplish; they also helped me deal with the grief I was feeling. I experienced moments of insecurity about my practice and went through some very low periods, spending time with these objects intimately connected to him – his clothes, his shoes, his books, toiletries – and the realisation that he is no longer here, no longer with us, was hitting me hard. It was difficult emotionally.
RM:
I understand… Why the triptych format of the self-portrait? How, when and why did you make the conscious decision to split your body across different image planes, if you will? I am also thinking about the simultaneous splitting and doubling of the body that ensues.
ODH: The idea of splitting the body and making a triptych was not decided until the sixth or seventh roll of film, when everything started to come together. I initially made a self-portrait sitting on the edge of the bed with my back to the camera, and finally I understood what I wanted. I really liked the self-portrait from that day, and thought I had the picture I was looking for and was going to stop there. Then you and I reviewed and spoke about the pictures, and you suggested I return one more time, to try something else, to gently push myself even further. I thought about it for a while and decided to return to the house. I was on my seventh roll but felt there was something magical that day. I got up early and meditated, which is how I normally prepare myself for doing self-portrait work. Because I was never fully comfortable on the bed, the portraits ended up ‘tentative’ and fragmented: held together by the emptiness of the bed, and the sense of moving in and out of the frame, with only parts of my body in the composition.