the essential
Hélène Perry's RAW project reinvents the black and white portrait by capturing the raw and natural beauty of women, far from usual standards. Photographer and yoga teacher, this Toulouse native puts her experience at the service of timeless artistic photos, taken in her studio.
These are large black and white photos, all in American shot, which capture the intensity of a look, the velvet of a skin spotted with freckles, the blur of a hair, the expression of a smile… Here, all the models are anonymous women, who, through Hélène Perry's lens, radiate beauty. On the other hand, when it comes to immortalizing the ingenuous reel of a child or the bond filled with tenderness between a mother and her offspring, the Toulouse photographer switches to color, always with the same intention.
“Raw beauty”
All of these photos are part of Hélène Perry's RAW project, the aim of which is none other than “to reinvent the black and white portrait”. Moreover, in photographic language, the term RAW designates the raw image as it was recorded by the sensor. It is precisely this dimension – capturing the pure beauty of the photographed object – that the artist focuses on. “I want these photos to be totally raw and wild to take women out of the context of usual beauty marked by a pretty blow-dry, beautiful makeup… and go towards something more natural, more raw, which reveals both strength and inner beauty”, announces Hélène Perry.
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DR, – Hélène Perry.
Through this RAW project, the Toulouse woman also wishes to restore its letters of nobility to Art photography “especially in the age of the smartphone where we take 150 photos in a row without paying too much attention to them. I had want to return to the origins of photography, when we took real posed portraits and where we had something that remains as a work of value to be passed on from generation to generation”, continues Hélène Perry.
His studio, in Toulouse
The Toulouse woman takes her photos in her photo studio, at 9 rue Caffarelli, in Toulouse. This huge room, formerly a stable and then a car garage, also serves as her yoga room when she puts on her other hat as a meditation teacher. Her models arrive as they are, “no makeup, natural hair. We take care of everything with hairdresser-makeup artist Peggy Valor who is in charge of the beauty. I take care of the styling and art, including developing a table of intentions adapted to what the person wishes to reveal about themselves, I only add raw materials such as foliage, leather, wood, ethnic jewelry in natural materials”, explains Hélène. The photos are then printed on Fine Art papers.
DR, – Hélène Perry.
Hélène Perry has been working in the fashion industry for over 30 years, as a modeling agent, and in photography for two decades. Today she is the head of the Anakena modeling agency, based in Toulouse. With RAW, she strives to reveal feminine beauty. “My years of experience and my approach through yoga allow me to access everyone's sensitivity to let them express themselves. For me, a successful photo is a photo that provokes an emotion. We can be beautiful outside the canons of beauty”, concludes Hélène Perry.
