Nostalgia 031 : Nel

The first inspiration for the project with "Ladies behind Crystal Veil" came from my life partner Nel who posed for me in November, 2008. We both saw this brief photo shoot (fifty portraits in half an hour) as a bit of fun but after seeing the results, we were both enthusiastic. We did two more photo shoots in May and August, 2009 and then I realized that Nel with her prescription of minus eleven could only cover a fraction of my glasses collection. There was potential for a real photography project but that would require other models. I brought the subject with care and to my delight, Nel came with suggestions about ladies in the know that might be approached. The ball started rolling it eventually led to my first exhibition, showing portraits of twenty models who had posed for me. During the opening of the exhibition, ten of these models did a catwalk in some of their favourite glasses from their photo shoots. The event received an unexpected amount of attention from regional and national media (newspapers, radio and television) and then I realized that the project had even more potential if it could be carried one step further. The year 2011 brought another exhibition, this time in Germany and again with a catwalk and media exposure. Another step was to join Model Mayhem and see if any freelance models might be interested to do a photo shoot in prescription glasses. My first casting call led to no less than a dozen reactions which was far more than expected. Seven models did a photo shoot, raising the standard to an unprecedented level. Nel was a bit surprised by this turn of affairs but she kept supporting the project. After a sabbatical year (caused by a bad concussion, followed by the terminal illness of my younger brother Guus) the project became international. Three casting calls in Ireland yielded dozens of applications - again far more than expected - and this resulted in a dozen photo shoots. Some of these models were full time professionals and their high performance level urged me to take up editing the photo material. This proved to be a demanding and above all, time consuming task. Most of the past twelve months went into it. A couple of months ago, it was time for a bit of retrospection before deciding about the next step. I decided to see if some portraits from the early days of the project could be improved by editing.
The portrait of Nel shown here was taken during our very first photo shoot and it has always remained special to me because of its atmosphere. It was my first attempt to find out how a lady in blended myodisc glasses could be portrayed in an aesthetic manner. Nel had the advantage over later models that she could see well through these intricate lenses. Sometimes we look back on everything that happened after this very first photo shoot and we are still amazed. Nel did a bit of modeling (catwalk) when she was in her teens but never regarded herself a model. It's hard to describe how proud I was when she participated in the catwalks at the opening of my photography exhibitions. She did the catwalk with self confidence, a real ambassador showing other high myopic ladies that they can look great in strong glasses. Nothing to be shy about - rather turning a disadvantage into something special.