Lost Innocence Voiced

Been thinking more about using audio in a photography project. Earlier I had an idea to do a series of wet plate portraits of young women new to the gogo bar world in Thailand and the Philippines called "Lost Innocence". The idea behind this project would be to do close up head shots of women after 4-6 months working in a gogo bar. The images would show how the sex trade affects them as people, how they lose their youthful naivety and innocence and become damaged people.

Now I am thinking that adding audio clips to this series might make the project that much more powerful. The girls telling their own stories would add a truth that would make the portraits speak that much louder. I am not sure how well that would work in Thailand as the English language skills would be limited but it would be quite effective in the Philippines (if I create the work for a North American audience the audio would have to be in English).

All this is up in the air right now, I am not ready from a technical stand point to do tintypes/ambrotypes, I am still learning the process. I do not have the money to pay for the costs of shipping wet plate kits to Asia, or for air flights, accommodations etc. I have never been to the Philippines before. So all of this is a long way off.

Saying all of that, it's still something that deserves more thought, telling this story is important. Getting work like this into the Alberta Gallery Of Art (or even a better more important venue) it could be seen by thousands and might help lead to a dialog and maybe even positive change.