The story of TRIBE
Added 2023-08-24 09:05:39 +0000 UTCIn 2011 and 2013 I had my first two solo gallery exhibitions, Shrouded and Freedom. At one point I was thinking of making it a thing I did every couple of years but not long after Freedom, the gallery I had used closed. If you've ever looked for a gallery space before, it's tough and that one was great.
So for my 2015 exhibition I took a different approach and launched it all virtually. Over the course of a day I released 33 images of 11 models (3 each) on twitter. Was it the same as a physical gallery show? Not at all. It felt a little anti climactic in some ways. I loved the images but putting them on a wall was a bit strange.
The shoots were fantastic fun. In reality I did 14 shoots but one model freaked out about doing a nude shoot because of his Pakistani culture and his parents possibly finding out. So I couldn't use that shoot. Another shoot just didn't quite match with the rest so I didn't include that one.
The third shoot that didn't get released ended up being re-shot with the model above. Fabien was amazing. Such a beautiful man but sadly he passed away within a few months of the shoot in a tragic accident.
The model who I had originally shot that concept with also had a freak out which he never explained. He just told me I couldn't release the images and that I needed to delete them. I never deleted them and told him truthfully that I needed them as reference for the re-shoot. He has gone on to build quite an instagram following, co-hosted a much ridiculed gay podcast that was culled after 4 episodes and now has an onlyfans career which I assume he's doing ok at. I won't work with him again though.
Exhibitions are an interesting beast to work on. There are always highlights and lowlights, crisis' of confidence and sheer terror at putting them out into the world. Let's see how this next one goes.
To see the full Tribe series, click here.
