Text and photos by Shwe Wutt Hmon
I always love being behind the lens more. But there’s also something I love about getting in front of the lens and posing for others, at my own comfort. I often recall a vivid memory of me being photographed in photo studios when I was young; since primary school for the enrolment photo. Though I hardly practice studio photography since I became a photographer myself, my fondness for photo studios never faded away.
At one point, I started dropping by at photo studios in towns during my travels to get my photo taken. I learned that many of those photo studios have been getting smaller and dimmer, eventually shrinking. They are barely surviving. Many of them set up in very small corners, hanging those imperfect blue, red, grey and white backdrops and letting the space be as messy as it is as a result of the photographer or the whole family having to share the space as their shelter or home.
I continue to visit different photo studios across the country during my travels. I document the portraits of these studio spaces, from their signature blue backdrops and the little details to what is happening inside them and how the photographers are passing their time amidst a very slow business. The most fun part is getting photos taken by the photographer, following their instructions on my poses and sometimes collaborating with some crazy ideas, waiting there, spending time with them, seeing them working on the picture, photoshopping and finally collecting the humorous pictures of me.
There are times I can’t stop smiling, witnessing how most of them badly but very lovingly photoshop me, transform me and the image itself and set the beauty standard of a person and a woman through their studio photograph. I would make sure I photograph their portrait inside their own studio through my own lens before I leave, and I would give them their pictures when I visit next time.
“When The Curtain Falls” is about finding and building personal connections and relationships between myself and the photo studio spaces that I love so much and the people who keep protecting these memorable places; a solace to my fear that these photo studios will be vanishing in a not-so-distant-future.
”When The Curtain Falls” was started in 2018 and is an ongoing project.
Shwe Wutt Hmon (born 1986) is a Burmese photographer and artist whose works focus on collective histories, familial ties, knots and threads of human relationships, exploring the inner psyche through intimate storytelling about people and places close to her heart. She tells personal stories through which she connects and examines broader social aspects; vice versa, her social documentary work reflects and draws from her own position within the issue. Shwe uses photography as her primary medium and incorporates archives, video, text, poems, paintings and drawings of her own or in collaboration with others.
Shwe is the recipient of respected art and photography awards including the Objectifs Documentary Award 2020 (Open Category) and the Julius Baer Next Generation Art Prize. Her works have been exhibited internationally in art spaces and festivals such as Singapore International Photography Festival, Photo Australia International Festival of Photography and Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.
