Work in Progress Episode 1: Happiness in the studio!

By the end of every year - when temperatures drop, and the first Christmas decoration enters the stores (Read: October) my urge to photograph drops as quickly as the leafs from trees do at that moment. I'd like to believe that I'm in tune with a "natural cycle" - rather then being a lazy photographer. Spring and Summer vibrate outgoing energies - Plants and flowers blossom etc. - and I enjoy being outside and taking photographs (Not of Plants or flowers) However, when the sun starts to hide behind a comfortable blanket of clouds, and temperatures start mimicking your Fridge (or worse, the freezer!) then a more introvert atmosphere asks for my attention. Staying in, and doing work there is what I feel like doing then. (So far the hippie talk)

So it might not be such a suprise that that i've spend the last couple of weeks in my studio, mostly drawing (especially with -12 celcius outside!).
In short, I've been working on a series of black and white ink drawings of laughing people. With photography as a starting point.

One day, i saw a photograph in a newspaper of a women who was covering her face with her hands. It looked kind of puzzeling - their was no other information in the frame that could indicate her emotions. It looked like she was laughing... Or was it cyring? I became interested in exploring this image - it had something powerfull.

I decided to draw close-ups of laughing people covering their faces, in ink -- wich gives a rather theatrical and depressing atmosphere. The initial reaction to the drawing is that it looks like the persons are crying - while in fact they are all laughing (and if you look closer, you can tell). Sounds rather simple, but I believe it has something powerfull. Two very extreme and opposite ways of expressing emotions have actually a very thin line (not talking about crying from laughing here) but more the fact that happiness and sadness are rather close to each other. We constantly "Ping-pong" between both. Taking a lollypop away from a 4 year old is enough to make him/her cry.

And arent we usting these expressions as a mask as well? Sometimes people laugh to cover their sadness - or pretend to be sad to get attention...

My idea is to present 10 or so images in a row, and include the title ("10 People that are laughing") somewhere at the end. So first people read it like crying (thanks to the black ink) and then they see the title and can read the images again (but then as laughing)...Here are some pictures i've snapped yesterday. Once i've got enough drawings that i'm pleased with - I'll present a final installation and some better pics. Work in progress....