#Freckles exhibition celebrates spots in all their brilliance
FRECKLES. You either love them or hate them. Now an award-winning photographer is taking the term freckle face and turning it into a compliment.
IT’S not easy growing up with a face full of spots.
Just ask this freckle-faced journalist.
As a kid, I tried every home potion you can think of to remedy myself of the ‘curse’.
I scrubbed my face with Jif and Steelo, dabbed lemon and even chlorine on the thin layers of my skin. But, of course, it was all to no avail.
I was buggered. I was banished to this sun-kissed land forever.
Now an award-winning photographer is taking the term freckle face and turning it into a compliment.
Brock Elbank, from London, has launched a photoseries called #Freckles which celebrates the skin spots in all their brilliance.
Elbank, who has previously run a #Beard series, has photographed 90 subjects but is aiming for 150 portraits.
The portraits will go up for display at Michael Reid gallery in Sydney and Berlin next year.
The majority of the subjects are ‘real people’ and not models — and all are photographed without make-up or styling.
The snapper said many of his subjects come in feeling vulnerable but leave feeling liberated after seeing their completed portraits.
“On the whole, most people shot so far are comfortable with their freckles. (But) many have struggled with them in their childhood, then grown to live with them. Some though are still uncomfortable with the extreme of their freckles," Elbank told News Corp Australia.
“One recent subject covered theirs up all their lives until recently, but has told me that since we worked together seeing the very positive feedback about them and their portrait, that they’ve relaxed a bit more, which is great to hear.”
The vividness of the photos have prompted some to question their authenticity. But Elbank says he uses no UV light, simply a post-production process that takes four hours per portrait.
“What would be the point of a freckles series with people who don’t actually have freckles?,” he said.
“All they (the sceptics) have to do is view their (the subject’s) Instagram page to see how freckly they are.”
Elbank was inspired to do the series after photographing his son’s freckly friend while living in Sydney in 2012.
He shared his images on Instagram where he has more than 43,000 followers.
Elbank says he wants people that see the photos to “appreciate how amazing people really are”.
“I walk through London, sit on the tube and see such wonderful diversity in how we look,” he said.
“I love anyone who stands out and to them this is may be a burden, but to me looking slightly different, or really different is a positive.”
If you have freckles and are interested in taking part, simply send a recent colour photo to Brock Elbank at studio@mrelbank.com.
The photographer will be in Sydney for his Beard exhibition at Michael Reid’s Gallery in early March, which was shot as #Project 60 to assist Australian melanoma charity Beard Season.
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