John LeKay:  When and where did you take the photos of

the women in the Turkish baths?

Lala Meredith-Vula: I took them between a period of 1994 to

1996 in a tumbled down baths on the boarder with Albania and Macedonia.

JL:   Was it a problem getting their consent?

LMV:  It took me 6 months to persuade the owner of the baths to let me in just to draw first of all and once I had done drawings and paintings I think he and some of the women subjects could see that I was not interested in their faces but more the architecture of the baths and their bodies as subjects with in the baths. I was not making peep show images but dignified images honouring the body. Some women objected, the ones that did not care so much were gypsy women.

 

 

JL:  What about technical issues like the steam etc.?

LMV:  The first time I took the camera in the baths the lens steamed over and it took half an hour for it to warm up and not keep steaming over. After that I would warm my equipment up in the oven at 40 C before going in the baths. People have told me that I could have damaged my equipment of medium format and 35 mm cameras but they work to this day!

JL:  Did you shoot these in one day?

LMV: No it was many visits over the period of 2 years including the 6 months of visits to obtain permission.

JL:   You mentioned earlier that you did drawings and paintings of the women in the  bathhouse. Are  these independent of the photos or part of your creative process?

LMV:  The drawings are part of the creative process as photographers ( not using Polaroid or digital) do not have access to the results immediately - I used drawing to draw what I have taken and what I intend to take. The drawings, sort out my mind artistically. I never intend to show the drawings but occasionally people who visit my studio like the drawings and I have sold drawings before. I have also published some drawings so perhaps I will show them later on. 

 

 JL:  What inspired the photos of the women swimming under water?

LMV:  I love painting the human figure and I am always looking for ways that photography can look like painting or be more artistic. In some of these pictures the figure looks painted. Also, I am fascinated in surreal images: none of these images have been manipulated so it is complete amazing imagery yet a real happening.

JL:  Where did you take these photos?

LMV:  South of France and Sweden.

 

JL:  Did you shoot some off a diving board to get the birdseye angle?

LMV:   Some were taken from a diving board others the side of the pool. Ones without reflections were taken the moment the sun went down where as the bright reflective water ones were done in mid day.

 

JL:    Do you have a particular creative method that works for you? Do you tend to plan things out or work spontaneously?

LMV:  Both. I draw what I might want to capture from a situation and see what this visually means. Then if I have captured or noticed something spontaneous in the moment. I might later draw this to compare and see where I am going with an idea.



 

JL:  The women under water are really beautiful and semi abstract and remind me a bit of David Hockney's Californian splash paintings. Who are some of the artists that you find inspirational?

LMV:  I like the impressionist painters and how they deal with women and water. Degas and Bonnard’s studies of women in the bath and Cézannes bathers. I also like earlier painters Ingres who also did paintings of Turkish baths. Photographs that have inspired me have been American such as Edward Weston and Alfred Stieglits. Their use of the nude in everyday life.

 
JL:   Do you usually work in black and white and have you taken any of these women under water in colour?

LMV:  I try everything when I am beginning a project. I always take a colour slide film but its always the same result - the black and white holds more of my own emotion in the work and seem more exciting, where as the colour ones come out dull and flat and rather ordinary.

JL:  Is women and water a theme that you seem to return to?

LMV:  Yes. Not intentionally, often accidentally as with the women under water I was on holiday and took some fun pictures a few years ago when I got the results for the snap shot book I realized there was something more to be explored by the holiday pool….

JL:   Are you working on any other photos regarding this theme?

LMV:  I plan to do a study of women in the bath in the western world i.e my friends but have not started it.

JL:  What else are you working on?

LMV:  My new work is more about the other areas that I work on - about the diaspora, immigrants, refugees, and marginalized society. I am half Albanian and bilingual and l am exploring the plight of the refugee visually in photography. Both before they leave home in Albania and Kosova and then when they arrive in the west, Britain. Hopefully New York as well as I have many contacts your side of the pond.
 

 www.lalameredithvula.com