Carlotta cardana - Guest Speaker
Today I attended an online lecture where Carlotta Cardana was the guest speaker. Carlotta is an Italian editorial and commercial photographer based in London, where she has resided for the past 10 years. She studied photography in Italy before moving to Argentina to live with her brother for a few months, where they went around the streets interviewing people. After this Carlotta had fallen in love with Latin America and so decided to move to Mexico, where she built up her portfolio. One. of the first things that she did when she moved to Mexico City was go and look at the magazines to see which magazines were commissioning portraiture. Carlotta’s work has been exhibited in various international galleries and festivals, which linked in with a piece of advice that she gave us. The advice was to start making connections now for example agents and galleries.
The subject of her personal practice is looking at the oppression and economical disruption in different communities. She also explores the relationship between humans and nature and indigenous spirituality. I was really captivated by her project titled ‘Kabukicho Nights’. The project focuses on the male workers of Kabukichō, Tokyo’s red-light district. Carlotta explained that the women of Japan have become more independent and come to the host clubs looking for a ‘boyfriend experience’. Most of the men that work there come from low income households and the job offers popularity as well as quick money. A lot of the workers use their earnings to get plastic surgery to encapsulate the looks of popular pop stars, they get their beards surgically removed and eye surgery to get a more western looking shape. She interviewed a worker who explained that the job can be hard, some of the women think that they are the only ones that the worker talks to and sometimes they have to sleep with the clients where they use the term ‘business sex’. I found this project really interesting as I have never really really heard of a place where women can go to get a man’s attention and the expectations of looking a certain way. It shows the vulnerability and struggles of the men in that industry but at the same time they look extremely powerful and glamorous.
I loved Carlotta’s talk as she had lots of advice to offer especially as a woman working in the photography industry. She explained that people often assume that she is assisting on shoots as she is a woman but she reminded us that you have to stay professional as you are representing a brand and magazine. She also mentioned that it is good to keep up to date with trends by purchasing magazines weekly or monthly so that you can see what people are looking for.
View Carlotta’s website here: https://carlottacardana.com/
Charlie McCormick fot T: The New York Times Style Magazine