Tim as Stephen is a work in progress. The project began after receiving an email from Tim asking if I’d photograph him for his ongoing series Over the Hill, a project he started after being diagnosed with Parkinsons disease and which led him to collaborate with 420 different photographers over the past 9 years.
Tim intrigues me from the beginning and I am lured in by his desire to be photographed and his openness to allowing others to portray him as they desire.
I meet Tim for the first time at his house in Brighton, where he's quick to undress and pose nude for me in several different rooms, including his sons bedroom. After we finish shooting, he excitedly offers to show me his Vimeo channel and tell me how he spends his days.
As it turns out, for his own amusement, Tim likes to make videos of himself performing as a variety of fictional characters. He usually films these in his bathroom, alone, with his camcorder and later posts them on his Vimeo channel. We watch a few of these together and I think they are brilliantly funny, with his seamless transition from his character Colin, a simple man that has always wanted to be a fish…. to Mr Suave, a posh english pervert. He seems to make these for his own amusement, regardless of what other people might think and I admire him for that.
A few days after our initial meeting Tim contacts me again asking if I’d like to take part in another project….
I had an idea some time ago, it involves one of my characters… I thought that he could have a fling with a young girl for a week and each of us could speak to the camera about each day we spent together, but without a script or knowing what the other character would be saying.
I agree, of course, and so it begins. I too, become a character.
Through the exploration of these videos, our email correspondences and photographing Tim as both himself and his character Stephen, this series follows our developing relationship as it crosses the boundaries between reality and fiction and in Tim’s works explored the examination of feelings, hidden feelings and self worth and the relevance or irrelevance of sexual desire.
Tim as Stephen is a work in progress. The project began after receiving an email from Tim asking if I’d photograph him for his ongoing series Over the Hill, a project he started after being diagnosed with Parkinsons disease and which led him to collaborate with 420 different photographers over the past 9 years.
Tim intrigues me from the beginning and I am lured in by his desire to be photographed and his openness to allowing others to portray him as they desire.
I meet Tim for the first time at his house in Brighton, where he's quick to undress and pose nude for me in several different rooms, including his sons bedroom. After we finish shooting, he excitedly offers to show me his Vimeo channel and tell me how he spends his days.
It turns out one of Tim’s most frequent hobbies is to make videos of himself performing in character. He usually films these in his bathroom, alone, with his camcorder and later posts them on his Youtube channel. We watch a few of these together and I think they are brilliantly funny, with his seamless transition from his character Colin, a simple man that has always wanted to be a fish…. to Mr Suave, a posh english pervert. He seems to make these for his own amusement, regardless of what other people might think and I admire him for that.
A few days after our initial meeting Tim contacts me again asking if I’d like to take part in another project….
I had an idea some time ago, it involves one of my characters… I thought that he could have a fling with a young girl for a week and each of us could speak to the camera about each day we spent together, but without a script or knowing what the other character would be saying.
I agree, of course, and so it begins. I too, become a character.
Through the exploration of these videos, our email correspondences and photographing Tim as both himself and his character Stephen, this series follows our developing relationship as it crosses the boundaries between reality and fiction and in Tim’s works explored the examination of feelings, hidden feelings and self worth and the relevance or irrelevance of sexual desire.
