‘A man would rather leave behind him the portrait of his spirit rather than a portait of his face.’ This quote from Robert Louis Stevenson says a lot about the work of Neil Seligman. His subjects choose fabrics for the photo session and interacts with it. Moving, dancing, waving the fabrics. But with their eyes closed. Subjects don’t pose for the photo’s. Why? The photo’s are part of healing sessions and the photo’s play a role in capturing the subject. Life changes, and sometimes the changes aren’t easy to communicate with words. Art, and colors, can help communicate the often subtle ‘why’ of the shifts in life. With a white background and the colored fabrics as a prop, Neil makes overexposed photo’s that give the blurry painting effect dominated by colors. This input helps in looking beyond ‘the mask’ that life often is.
Neil Seligman is a reiki practitioner and this healing method inspired this method of taking portraits. They’re not a record of the healing sessions. They’re an input in the sessions that uncover the energetics of the life of the subject, and the different frequencies in the trajectory of life. It’s not color psychology, but this method does appreciate the connection between colors and feelings. But then at a more personal level. The colors the photo’s are connected to the subjects personal feelings, whereas color psychology is more about how colors affect people in general. This method is new for Neil, and he’d like to develop it further. He’d like to work with interior designers. Where interior designers tend to use colors according to certain rules such as applying green or blues in spaces that need to be calming, Neil would like to help make the color choices at a more personal level.
