Hyla Levy
Rachel is Groovy
This is a portrait of me and my recent life. Forget about the Warhol soup cans, this truly is Hyla Levy’s portrait of me. I’ve been around Utata for about a decade, I’ve been writing these front pages for a few years now, and to the best of my knowledge no editor has ever selected a picture of themselves for the front page. It takes a certain amount of ego.
Hyla conceived of this image. We walked into a gallery with walls plastered with Warhol’s iconic art, the gallery floors were black and white stripes and so was my dress, (there were also silver Chesterfields matching my silver shoes) it was enough to make my friend Hyla, who almost never shoots portraits, ask “shall I take a picture of you?”. The stripes are strong, the repetition is so pop art. That would be enough to make this a good front page choice.
I don’t know that there has ever been a portrait of me with so much hidden narrative. This is a picture filled with clues to my recent past, the dress, the shoes, the purse, the fading scar on my left leg. It’s also that moment, a busy art gallery, a lecture, the conversations that came before and after, the fact that Hyla always carries a camera. Many of you who read this are always behind the lens, absent from the group photo, the family reunion, even on a “photo walk” your faces are hidden behind a camera. That’s usually me, I shoot portraits of other people. I look at this and realise that every now and then we should all become part of someone else’s picture.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, Rachel Irving and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
