Our online editor has selected the best entries from last month’s applications to Female in Focus. Juliette Cassidy is the BJP team’s favourite of the Editor’s Pick selection, winning a feature on BJP-online.
“I was amazed by Senegal,” says Juliette Cassidy, “the way the light shone on people’s skin, the country itself, and a lot of the clothes people wear.” Cassidy, a fashion photographer, took her second trip to Senegal last year. Shooting her series The Day I Went to Africa, the trip challenged her to step outside of her working routine and photograph away from her usual environment, which was centred around studios and London’s fashion circuit.
“I wanted to be emotionally and physically distant from what I was used to photographing,” Cassidy explains, “but at the same time, I wanted to maintain an element that felt familiar to me, which was fashion.” While in Senegal, Cassidy’s approach shifted. Instead of casting her subjects, as would be the case in London, she photographed individuals that she met by chance. With no deadline or commission brief, she allowed herself the freedom to shoot as and when it felt right to do so.
Going to Senegal was a way for Cassidy to distance herself from what felt like a meaningless period in her life. “I was in a place where photography wasn’t speaking to me anymore,” she says. Did the trip succeed in making her excited about photography again? “Since doing this project, I do think I have been able to reconnect with the medium.”
Female in Focus is calling for exceptional photography by women. Want to win a group show at United Photo Industries Gallery in New York? Apply today!
