Victoria West is a photographic composite artist and portrait photographer based in New Brunswick, Canada. She is a multiple-award winner for her work, including being the first person to win Portrait Photographer of the Year from the Professional Photographers of Canada three years in a row (2019–2021).
I sat down with Victoria to discuss her unique process, her deeply personal and occasionally issue-driven subject matter, the role religion plays in her work (Victoria is an atheist), and more.
MP: Your photographs take quite a bit of time between shoots and editing. How do you know when you’ve found the right idea to commit so much time to? Is your process more conceptual or intuitive with regard to moving from one project to the next?
VW: Generally, when I start, I have no idea if my ideas are going to turn out or not. Usually, I’m doing things that I’ve never done before or I don’t really know how to do. I just decide it’s something I’m gonna figure out. I have never approached my art like a business. I have a portrait business, and in that, I care about how much time is being spent on things. When it comes to the art, it’s more like a compulsion that I have to create this thing. Regardless of how much time it’ll take, I’m going to try.
Whatever it is that I want to make, it’s usually pretty clear in my head. Then I think about what I can photograph to pull it together. I’ve got lots of ideas on my phone that I haven’t figured out yet.
MP: How do you document the ideas on your phone? Do you sketch these ideas? Or are they just notes to yourself?
VW: Little sentences that would make no sense to anybody reading them. I don’t sketch it. I can’t really draw. I just have random phrases written down. A lot of times, I will see the image, so I just need that little reminder of what it was that I saw in my head.
MP: With the piece “Exsaguinate,” I saw that you posted on social media a bit about how it came together and your comment was that people don’t naturally move like this, but you had spliced several photos together to create this realistic scene. Was that extreme pose in your mind at the outset or did it come of playing with the pieces?
VW: Actually, that particular piece is modeled on a painting, “Dante & Virgil” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. So I already knew what pose I was going to do. But that one was the first time I’d ever tried to duplicate somebody. I had a model, but it took me three photo shoots and 80 hours of editing. It went through photo competitions and no one knew that [both characters] were the same guy. But I have another one that was created in the same way, but I didn’t model it on anything. It’s called “Michael.”
MP: I’ve seen that one. Both characters are your husband, right?
VW: Yeah, so pretty much all of the naked guys are my husband. There are no models here [in Oromocto, NB,…
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