Carmen De Vos (°1967) is an experimental freelance photographer with a penchant for imperfections. With her photo’s she rages against the hilarious twenty-first century obsession with the pseudo-fantastic silicon human being and his utmost perfect body. Stubbornly she resists the pressure of the digital image and its endless editing possibilities. The people she photographs are not nearly perfect and often very ordinary human; which endears her. She cherishes life with all its unexpected twists, the human fantasy with all its hooks, the inefficiency of the human memory. She enormously longs for what she’s afraid to loose: real human contact, the slowness of being and creating, the tangibility of materials.

She is a slow photographer. She registers, portrays and thinks up odd stories. Almost without exception she uses old Polaroid camera’s, long time expired film and self-made filters. Her tools and methods - such as film bleaching and deliberate film obstruction - are not precise and are not even geared towards a perfect representation. They often yield results - such as colorization, deformation, unsharpness - which she could never have predicted with any certainty, because their imperfections do not allow for calculation. Polaroid adds a physical history to the picture by itself. The limited technical capacities of her gear restrict her. To find her way within these limitations and inconsistencies frustrates her as much as it challenges her.

That this path can be rewarding prove the assignments as flying portrayer and reportage maker for several newspapers and magazines since 2008.

She’s currently working on a new photo novel and on portrait book of Flemish female artists.

© | by Carmen De Vos

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