Storytelling images

Ruwanthi ABEYAKOON

“I started off as a drama actress. After a few years I realised that it is not to act that I have the passion but to the stage. So I became a Stage Director. At first I took photographs only to enjoy. Then I posted them on the internet and everything went very fast,”

Hardly does she use words to express what she feels. Yet she speaks volumes through her images. Capturing simple details of ones life on the lens that reveals the story of their soul has become her profession. Dorothy Shoes, a talented young French stage director turned photographer was here to participate at the French Spring 2012 - a festival of French art and culture which was held recently in Colombo. Little did she think of where her photographs would take her, when she clicked the first few shots.

“I started off as a drama actress. After a few years I realised that it is not to act that I have the passion but to the stage. So I became a Stage Director. At first I took photographs only to enjoy. Then I posted them on the internet and everything went very fast,” Dorothy reminisced how her career of photography unfolded.

Since then she has been in a journey to discover the dark and lonely aspects of human existence which can be portrayed though radical poetic imagery. The 33 year old photographer who lives in Paris is a storyteller at heart.

She says ordinary images such as few eggs in a nest or a smiling child smiling takes her beyond what the eyes permit us to see. “I try to give the impression of speaking through my images. My photographs are centred around one person and his life. My exhibition ‘gens du voyage’ which concerns the lives of nomadic people is one such instance where I tried to give my voice to the unheard,” she said.

“There were new political laws to get rid of the nomads in France. People had a bad opinion about them. Through my images of Django and his own, a gypsy family I tried to give people another point of view. I wanted people to see the unseen aspects of the lives of nomadic people,” she explained. Dorothy’s exhibition was followed by the publication of her book “Django du voyage” focused on Django and his family. The book has won critical acclaim due to its thoughtful and sensitive treatment of deep-rooted issues pertaining to nomadic communities, such as the gypsies.

“Parallel to my artistic work, I study art as therapy and work in medical and prison environments. My photography is significantly influenced by these experiences and I use them as a medium for both exploring and interpreting the themes of integration, re-education, and exclusion. I get the inmates to imagine how they will reunite with their families and how they will live after leaving the prison. Then I capture these emotions on camera and bridge the imagination and reality together,” she added.

Dorothy’s work have been widely exhibited in Europe, North America, and Asia and had won two national prizes in France.

This talented photographer did not hesitate to share her knowledge and experience with Lankans involved in photography. While in Sri Lanka, she participated at two workshops in Colombo and in Jaffna on the theme “The photographer’s eye”.

“What matters in photography is not the high-tech cameras and equipment but the imagination and the message you want to give. The sensibility and emotion is the most important in photography. It is all about what you want to speak and how you can play with colours,” she said.

Dorothy’s next mission is to do a project with the blind. “This whole project will be about perception. I am also writing another book about traveling and life,” she said.

Pictures by Nissanka Wijeratne