Gender Rebels photographer turns out to be highly photogenic herself

Iratxe Álvarez with her trusty camera.

Our presentation in Belgium, in Ghent in November, is naturally being accompanied by a Flemish PR campaign. You can see the first fruits of it here: our photographer Iratxe Álvarez, who captured ten young women so beautifully and so naturally for the book, is now in front of the camera herself. She looks remarkably relaxed.

Below is the interview by Marc Faes of the Flemish InternetGazet, who also took the lovely photograph.

The Dutch Sybilla Claus is an anthropologist, political analyst and journalist who has worked for, among others, De Telegraaf. She is not a photographer; for her most recent book, 'Gender Rebels', she called in Iratxe Álvarez, a photographer based in Pelt. The book addresses all the problems that 'the girls of today's generation' are wrestling with. They have never felt so insecure or so depressed. Around 40 women contributed to the book, and Iratxe portrayed ten of them.

We met Iratxe at De Stroming. She is originally from Valencia in Spain and studied in Germany, but in 2016 she settled with her family in Pelt. She has been involved in photography for at least 20 years, and for the past 14 it has been her profession. The story behind the person is what matters most to her; for Iratxe, a photo shoot is one of the best ways of telling that story. When she photographs someone she wants to have listened to them first; the 'seeing' only comes afterwards. That, she says, is how the strongest images come about.

She loves portrait work; through personal contact, she always tries to make her subject forget that there is a camera between them. For the book she had the girls and young women take off their shoes and socks, knowing that they would feel more at ease sitting down than standing up. Beyond that, she also enjoys working on shoots for events, families and companies. For families she uses the 'Day in the Life' concept, photographing for an entire day with no posing at all. The result is a unique record of their actual daily life.

Activist

It is no accident that Iratxe takes photographs for MO* magazine and for the NGO Home-Start Vlaanderen, which supports families in difficulty. She also describes herself as an activist. For MO* magazine she takes portraits of well-known figures as well. The photographs are always taken in people's homes, and she brings her entire mobile photo studio along every time. A shoot of this kind takes one to two hours, with the advantage that the sitter appears relaxed in the final picture.

In the world of images there are endless possibilities, so she never stops learning, Iratxe says. As a result, she keeps coming across themes she wants to know more about. At present she is exploring the possibilities of AI, and therapy through images also fascinates her. She is proud of the photographs in Sybilla Claus's book. It was rather more than a professional commission, because the subject matter touches her too.

Like Sybilla, Iratxe is concerned about the wellbeing of a young generation of women who so often report feeling anxious or depressed, who suffer from eating disorders, or who self-harm. A compelling book on a subject that is too rarely discussed.

Read the original here, or take a look at Iratxe Álvarez's own website.