Sofia Ajram

"Women influence my photos. Women are sexy. Women are seductive, powerful from the core in a wild way that’s virtually inexplicable. I like to document that sexuality.”

The gaze in photography is all about exploring power dynamics between people. Sofia Ajram is a believer of everything supernatural, she gives the viewer a key into a different reality, where people and landscape become one.  Colour and atmosphere are key in creating a magical scene. Ajram is constructing and playing with female roles within her images, where the women are becoming something much more than just their physical presence, as the quote illustrates “Women are sexy. Women are seductive, powerful”. Ajram wants to capture true value for the women she works with, the unusual poses and compositions mean that the women is not passive, she is by far the opposite and is constructing her own “magical” identity putting the gaze back on the viewer.
          In these two images, we seem to be viewing an intimate moment, by projecting images upon the scene Ajram changes the way we perceive them, she may do this by using slide projection or post production. The two people here seem to be in balance, equally in dominance together in the act of sex. They are engaged and looking directly at each other, the intra-diegetic gaze is used (3^rd person) and we aren’t actively involved. As Ajram states she wants to document this sexuality. Their bodies are wrapped around each other and are physically connected, they are clothed and they are in the same extent of undress. Ajram is creating a fantasy of female identity and she is attempting to make a comment upon the emotional power which women can achieve through sexuality. Maybe Ajram is contradicting the idea of the women being passive and the man being dominant because, by placing the women in equal control of how she is being viewed and how she is the active participant in her own sexual desire.

The second two images are single portraits of two women. I find these beautiful, the tonal contrast and shape like composition create a graphical feel to the scene and I feel in a sense gratified by them. In the sense that they take me somewhere else, they allow me to escape the everyday. I think this is what Ajram wants to show, that we can achieve something that is above the everyday, or in her eyes supernatural. I think this idea of released desires is one of the main pleasures I gain from these images. The women in the first image is laid delicately and appears to be morphing or in a state of being, the alluring dots and black and white make this image far beyond the everyday. It is dark yet light in a sense it makes me feel as though this women is capable of anything she desires and wishes.

The final image I think is more direct, the women`s eyes are not visible and I think this is slightly sinister. An extra-diegetic gaze is suggested (not made obvious) so I feel that myself as the viewer is being looked upon. I think for Ajram a lot of her work acts as a self expression, and possible holds an element of the cathartic. She is using imagery to create alter egos or to tell us a story which we can fill with out own dreams and wishes. I think that these images are inspirational, they are contemporary and edgy. They catch my attention and "entertain" me visually yet still manage to make me think about female identity and how it can be shaped by powerful, sexual, and equal women - in control of how they are viewed.