The internationally published Photographer Yasmin Soliman had her Miscellaneous Exhibition at the well-known venue The Arches on Wednesday, and I was lucky enough to snag an interview with the Glasgow based artist.
Is this your first Exhibition?
First external exhibition, I’ve had a few in relation to University. This is the first out with University.
Is it self-funded?
The Arches are really good. As part of our course we are assigned a task to self-promote ourselves by the end of the year so that we are ready for the big bad world really. It depends on what area of photography or the creative industries that you want to go into, so there’s Fashion but I also quite like Fine Art as well. I think that exhibiting your work is a great platform to push your work out there, get it seen and get people talking about it.
In regards to this, why I’ve done this, it’s because that it was a class assignment. Katherine who is the Art Co-ordinator here, she does like a monthly event. It’s usually for graduate students from the GSA (Glasgow School of Art) or performing artists, and she gives one artist each month an opportunity to showcase their work. So she has just been so kind, and I didn’t have to fund very much apart from supplying my own prints and I sourced my DJ. Everything like PR, she printed these off, paid for like marketing and postcards, business cards and things like that. This has just been amazing for like a first opportunity.
So besides from the Exhibition, you’ve also had your work in several publications like Vogue Italia and Youth in Revolt. How did those opportunities come about?
With a lot of the online international magazines it depends on how well you know the editor, if you’ve already submitted work to them and if you have a good rapport with them. To begin with in second year, I just submitted some work to, I think it was Vogue Italia, and then there is a submission process, you submit online and then if they like your work they kinda back and forth.
Actually my first ever series that was published online was iMute Magazine, it was the 3D series so that was pretty kl. So if it’s for up and coming photographers as well, if you just go online and look in the right places and there’s always like submission links and competitions and stuff.
So what would you say has been the best part of your career so far? What has stood out for you?
I’ve been given a couple of awards, like I was given the HN Award in second year. Also being published as well but I think the most exciting thing is just like the underwater series and all the good feedback I got from it, and then I shot a mini film as well, and just really the positive reception to the underwater series.
So when was it that you decided to become a professional photographer?
Years ago I played netball for Glasgow and then I was really into sport and then it just wasn’t really doing much for me any more essentially, for lack of a better phrase. And my grandparents and my family are really arty and into art and things like that. So kind of being surrounded by that environment from an early age, and I’m really crap at painting or singing or anything like that so I was like no no. So I picked up a camera and it just felt right and I did some test shoots with school friends from high school and I don’t know, it just kinda felt right and then just its great cause in photography you just meet so many people and it encourages so many different directions in your life that you would never pursue.
For example I’m shooting like a nude series all about the body and how we perceive the body. Like Jenny Saville, it’s been inspired by Jenny Saville’s work and I’m shooting like boxers next week and I’m going to like a boxing fight on Sunday and it just totally branches out your life, and for example you know that from fashion as well, you just meet so many people from knowing one person and, so it’s great.
So in this series about the body, will it be about different types of bodies?
Yeah, so it’s kinda like a classification of the human form and just a fragmented way of looking at the body. So it’d be like 20 different sitters who vary in size, ethnicity and gender, things like that. Just like kinda macro energy use, like the mini landscape of the body, and it’s just kinda like close-up yeah, it’s really peculiar but it’s like, it really does encourage the viewers to engage with it. It kinda repulses you but intrigues you at the same time, so that’ll be interesting.
So you’ve said that obviously you love Fashion, Portraiture and Documentary Photography, what’s your favourite type to shoot?
I really enjoy fashion because again like I said you meet so many different people and then some people are just so enthusiastic about it. So positive to be around and talented as well.
Do you keep in touch with everyone that you meet?
Oh yeah yeah , I’m hoping that people that come today, like some of the models and the make-up artist because I don’t think that this exhibition should just be about my work or about photography. I think in general as well like, there’s not a lot of photography events in Glasgow and I think it’s great that there’s an exhibition purely for photography.
Also I think it should be like a celebration of everybody’s work, like the designers work, the make-up artist’s work, and cause Glasgow is quite a small creative hub but it’s a hub nevertheless and I think it’s so good that we support each other, just to prepare ourselves. I mean fashion photography wouldn’t be anything, if it was just the photographer it’d be nothing. The model needs to be there, the hair needs to be on point, everything contributes and nothing should be under-minded (sic) at all.
I thought the underwater series looked like dancers in the water. What kind of music do you like and does it inspire you?
I usually listen to the radio in the car to work and I quite like deep house music, it just chills me out. It was inspired by renaissance art so like the nude, like Alma Tadema, he was a really old dead painter form years ago but his work is gorgeous. It’s very just like from the romanticism period, so it wasn’t so much music it was more painting and art. And also like how nudity within a painting is deemed more acceptable than perhaps in a photograph, because a photograph is more realistic like than a sculpture or an idealised painting so I kinda wanted to approach that in a more subtle way.
So what do you think about when taking a photograph, like what kind of things are an important element? What runs through your mind?
I think it kinda comes really natural now cause I’ve been doing it for so many years but it just, with fashion anyway it just depends on what your shoot is as well cause I usually try and do different techniques like for the 3D and the underwater and stuff. So before I even shoot anything like I’ve already set myself a challenge to kind of understand these new methods and types of photography.
For me it’s just to try and keep making it challenging and interesting and constantly push myself. But the skills of others as well because obviously the models have to be really athletic to like swim about in the water and stuff like that.
What other photographers and artists inspire you?
I think for underwater stuff I’d probably say Brooke Shaden. Jake Hicks and David Standish with his kinda two-toned lighting, they’re work is really gorgeous. Mario Testino was the first person to inspire me, his work is really gorgeous and his kinda platonic love affair with Kate Moss is just, I’d love to have that, like a model that I could just photograph and follow everywhere.
And now a question I like to ask everyone. It’s Avoid, Kiss or Marry with John Lennon, Austin Powers and James Franco.
I’d probably go, marry Franco cause you’d want to wake up to him every morning. I don’t know, I’ll say avoid Austin Powers and kiss John Lennon, on the cheek.
So is there anything you’d like to say to fans or aspiring photographers?
I just think what you put in is what you get out and if every shoot went to plan it’d be boring. What I live by is, what you put in is what you get out.
For more information and images from Yasmin Soliman, check out her page facebook.com/YasminSolimanPhotography.
