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| Evotia Tamua | |
| Matakana Pictures Exhibitions Artists | |
La Lune 15.October - 11.December 2005 I have been photographing my small village of Salelesi in Samoa for over 10 years now. What started as a photographic record of my family has now turned into a documentation of the whole village. Most of the people that I photograph are either related to me or are known to me. There is always some sort of a relationship. The three photographs I have chosen to show are a small part of a much larger project. Salelesi is my father’s village and where we spent our school holidays. I had only ever seen a photograph of my father’s mother and none of my grandfather – because none existed. I only knew what he looked like through descriptions from Aunt’s and Uncles. Only Samoan’s with money had their portraits taken, so I decided that I wanted to record my relatives through photography. Family is important to me and it made sense that I had a historical document of them. My usual style of shooting is documentary ‘fly on a wall’ but in 2004 I decided to take my medium format camera to Samoa for the first time and take B/W formal portraits of every family in the village. The results were images that looked like they’d been taken several decades earlier. The way that the subject is standing, not smiling, looking directly into the camera and shows no emotion, reminded me of the B/W images that most Samoan’s have on their sitting room walls. The difference between my photographs and the ones that were taken by the only photography studio in Apia at the time, is that I’ve photographed my subjects in their home as opposed to a plain wall. |
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Evotia Tamua 12. Untitled Price: NFS |
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Evotia Tamua 13. Untitled Price: NFS |
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Evotia Tamua 14. Untitled Price: NFS |
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