Project 1: Venus blends acting and photography in a unique way to create haunting images, each captured in a single exposure on 35mm film.

“You could say that PROJECT 1: VENUS is about capturing a kind of apotheosis in an actor’s performance. The actor becomes Venus, if for one moment. That is when I take the picture.

Some moments are so good you miss them before they’re even gone. Maybe it’s greed for life, wanting to keep it all. I use a camera to preserve as many of those magical moments as I can.

I suspect the world is larger and more mysterious than I was taught to give it credit. This is why I like to have improvisation in my process. It allows the world to be the large and mysterious thing it wants to be. Then I try and dance with it. In return, it leaves its footprint in my work”.

Namdar Kashanian

Project Venus

by Namdar Kashanian

Project Venus started with scribbled notes and a sketch of a black and white photographic print of a woman with very short hair, based on a dream I had of that photo print. It lived in my notebook untouched for a while. This was year 2018.

Later that summer, in rehearsal for 4615 Theatre Company’s production of Macbeth, my friend Linda Bard surprised the cast with her fresh short haircut for her role. Her new look immediately reminded me of my dream and the subsequent note and sketch, so I told Linda about the idea and we decided to schedule a photo shoot.

We met at The National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, where I had reserved the theater space for this shoot. We had the stage, and us two actors. I had my Voigtlander, she had theatrical monologues and a cello.

The next few hours were spent with Linda, lit by stage lights, performing monologues and playing Bach on cello, and me, circling around her with my camera and taking pictures. 

My recent experiments with light trails and blurs in my Night Walks project prompted me to choose the black box theatre and the stage lights to isolate the light and get a more specific image out of the light trails and blurs. This also meant that my movements had to be a lot more precise. Every step I took mattered. Every movement Linda made mattered. Every bit of light and shadow mattered.

On the flip side, we were two actors on a stage. We were comfortable there. That’s our natural habitat. This made this photo shoot more like a performance. All we had to do was to play the scene properly. As we say in improvisation: Yes, and…

The resulting pictures were good. But some were somewhat haunting. Some didn’t even look like Linda. I decided to take that direction and continue the project with more photo shoots, gradually evolving the process and creating a method specific to this project.

The special moments I was searching for in my photos were the ones where we can feel the actor become the character. I always thought there was something godlike about that. I was looking for something godlike. My acting training says says “look for the love” in performances. I had to look for something godlike that’s love. I had to look for the Goddess of love. I had to look for Venus. So I set out to capture Venus on photographic film. She accepted my invitation and showed up in my photographs.

Where are the rest of the photos?

Venus is a project with many photos from a total of 6 photo shoots, each with a different performer. If you are interested in a viewing appointment, please contact me here.

If I have already sent you the password, you may also see a small selection from volumes 2-6 by clicking here.

Print No. 1 of #123 from Volume 1 was auctioned off to benefit 4615 Theatre Company on November 20, 2018. This is one of the only 2 authorized prints of this project. The other one, Print No. 2 is of #1067 from Volume 5 and hangs on a wall at a friend’s house.

All photography copyright © Namdar Kashanian