The Silver Series and a Safari into the Photography of Adeline Sides

By Megan Chapman, September 18, 2007

On the evening before the recent Chicago 6 Corners launch party, I had the opportunity to watch as photography editor Adeline Sides hung an exhibition of photography and paintings, including photographs from her recent “Self Safari” series. In the space of hours, Adeline managed to transform a small, over-furnished gallery side-room into an oasis of quiet, serving as a backdrop for the artistic display of still and moving images. (Full disclosure: we both worked on the party preparation and work together as editors at C6C – nevertheless, I am allowed to be impressed.)

Adeline Sides is a transplant to Chicago, having arrived from Germany via two years on the road traveling throughout the United States and years of study and work in Oklahoma and New Orleans. It might be worth betting that she knows the United States better than many in America.

Her professional career is similarly far-reaching and adventurous. A photographer by passion and an engineer by trade, Adeline seems equally moved by artistic vision and the nuances of technique and process.

Long before working on the "Self Safari" a series of intimate portraits in which the subjects themselves dictated what they wished to express, Adeline embarked on what would become a seven-year safari into the study of human form. Her “Silver Series,” which began in 1997 and only recently concluded, is now a full book looking to be published.

Adeline’s artistic inspiration and persistent attention to technique are both apparent in the story of this series. The “Silver Series” was born out of momentary inspiration, the crystallized image of a friend covered completely in silver body paint, performing on a New Orleans stage. As Adeline’s written statement reveals, she was caught in feelings of empathy for the skin searching for breath in the New Orleans heat and transfixed by her eye for beauty: “I am in awe of the way the light reflects from her body. The shadows are magnificent.”

Taking this moment into the studio, Adeline grappled over the course of seven years with statuesque form and streaks of movement, light and shadow, male and female – the balance of difference and similarity, between ying and yang.

In her first shoot, Adeline photographed one silver-skinned woman, Ottiliana Rolandsson, alone. In the second shoot, she worked with one male model, Drew Alexander. During these first two shoots, she focused her technique on the use and variation of light. “The lighting,” she explains, “was very intuitive and creative. I was lucky to have another photographer, Richard Vallon, as my lighting assistant. This allowed us to quickly develop a very dynamic approach to crafting the lighting.”

Working in a film studio, the lights at first seemed too harsh. The photographer and lighting duo were surprised and pleased to find that, with a few adjustments such as shifting them to come from a lower angle, the harsher lights were actually better at accentuating the effect of the silver body paint.

By the time of the third and final shoot in the series, Adeline was already living in Chicago. However, the “Silver Series” was uniquely New Orleans and she returned there to continue the shoot. She tells the story of her search (long-distance) for the perfect coupling of male and female models, clearly tickled even years later by the way chance worked in her favor:

"I already had the male model, Scott Chavez, who was the friend of my make-up artist Adelita Solórzano. Through Art Nudes, I connected with a female model but I did not get a chance to meet her in person until I returned to New Orleans the day before the shoot. I met with the two models in a coffee shop and immediately I could tell that the female model was a totally different body type than Scott. She was a full head taller than him. Physicality and balance were so important for this shoot, but those are things you can’t tell from a distance.”

Despite her concern, Adeline assumed that she would have to proceed with the next day’s shoot. “Then, on the day of the shoot,” she recalls, “I got a call from the female model. She called to cancel, saying that she did not feel she was right, but said that she had a replacement for me, a model friend who she thought would by perfect. I took the chance. Indeed, Cyd Casados, the female model, showed up at the studio and she was, literally, the female opposite of Scott. It could not have worked out better.”

"When I work on a project,” Adeline explains, “I want dynamic, creative people – people who will be involved in the process with me, rather than always waiting for direction. Both Scott and Cyd had this dynamism and keyed off well together.”

By the time the silver body paint was applied and both of their long heads of hair were slicked back into something akin to a silver helmet, the two models were practically indistinguishable. I can testify, for as Adeline and I paged through the mock-up of her “Silver Series” book, we stopped to look at one image in which the two models stretched away from each other, only their fingertips touching. Adeline indicated which model was which and then, a moment later, looked again and corrected herself – the muscular torsos and broad shoulder of each model were, indeed, strikingly similar and almost androgynous.

With two models, Adeline delved into capturing motion and stillness of human form. In several of the images, one form is stationary and the other is a streak of silver motion, illuminated in the darkness. Adeline explained how she would set a slow shutter speed and stake two points on the floor, between which the moving model would slide in the moment of the exposure. The results are haunting.

Adeline completed the third shoot in New Orleans before declaring the photo series complete in about 2004. I asked her how she knew that it was finished. She explained that the central image and inspiration for the series was born in that single moment, viewing her friend’s performance in 1997. She pursued the series until she felt she had captured that moment and the vision it had stirred in her. “It was not all planned,” she explains, “it took a universal harmonizing to get to the moment where it is just right. The progression for me is the evolution and completion of a project.”

Curating and editing the “Silver Series” book was another entire stage towards the completion of the project for Adeline. The book of photography also includes poems from a number of collaborating artist friends, many of whom wrote their pieces in response to Adeline’s images: Rebecca Francescatti, Elizabeth Levinson, J.D. Smith, William Lady, Nald, and Cyd Casados, among others. She worked with one of the contributing poets, Reginald McGuire (Nald), on the book design. Again it is clear that Adeline feeds off dynamic, creative collaboration. She comments that, without the help and project support of her Chicago friends, the book would probably still be just an idea.

"For me,” Adeline explains, “the ‘Silver Series’ holds a special place in my evolution as an artist. I don’t do much of this type of photography any more – in some ways, I moved on to something edgier, more journalistic. But, this series is somehow archetypal, beautiful in a classical way – centering on human form, sensuality, and for me, light.”

The series is also clearly a response to a particular environment, New Orleans. Adeline’s move to Chicago seems to have also shifted her artistic direction towards photojournalism, which she explains in her artistic biography, “sharpened my critical outlook on local and world affairs and lent a new depth to my photographic work and myself.”

The “Silver Series” is clearly a touchstone in her journey. “As I move in new directions, it’s a place that I can go back to,” Adeline says, “a reminder that art should always be able to stand alone.”

For more information about the “Silver Series” book project, visit www.adelinesides.com. More information about Adeline Sides’ other works and work in commercial photography is available at . For questions or to submit photography to C6C, please e-mail Adeline at [email protected].