I didn’t choose photography, it chose me. My Dad had a makeshift darkroom in an old caravan in our Australian backyard in the 60’s, and after the heat of the day had died down, the magic red light would go on and I’d help him out by swishing the chemicals back and forth until the image appeared. There wasn’t much ventilation in the caravan, and if the day had been particularly sweltering, I sometimes felt intoxicated by the smells, a sweet memory I have always kept.

When I was 10, Dad decided to lend me his old Voigtlander - with aperture, speed but no light meter, it always left me guessing. Today my equipment is a lot fancier, but most of the time I’m still left guessing. That’s the way I like to work, keeping technique simple and uncomplicated, and concentrating on the image I can see.

After struggling to finish my secondary studies in the early 80’s, I was lucky enough to be accepted into a prestigious Art School, where I suddenly found myself surrounded by people of my own kind. Any form of creativity was acceptable, and using whatever means I thought appropriate. I became rebellious but within the safety of my group, and my creative drive accelerated. I majored in fine art subjects, working with all mediums from ceramics and painting, to film-making and animation. But it wasn’t until I re-discovered photography that I realised I couldn’t run from it anymore.

Four blissful years later I emerged from Art School with a deeper understanding of my relationship with the image. Another stroke of luck landed me with a coveted position as one of four stills photographers at the ABC Radio and Television in Sydney, where for five years I captured images of actors and celebrities for publication at home and abroad. These were the golden years, and as a post-graduate from art school, it was hard to believe I was working with what I loved most.

Today I live in Paris’s hottest red-light district, the infamous Rue St. Denis, a densely populated and colourful area. By day, it’s the Jewish rag trade, and at night the shoppers are replaced by the prostitutes and their clients. I think what attracts me most about my neighbourhood, is the strange paradox between the Jewish rag-trade with all it’s false-Chanel boutiques - and the sleaziness of the night trade, that resembles more a Pedro Almodovar film set than a Paris street scene. From my window I can see the girls waiting downstairs in the doorways, and it has always fascinated me how these women display their bodies up and down the street like gaudy trinkets in a second-hand shop.

So my idea to tell the story of Bordello came about from my environment, and using the 1920’s as my inspiration, gave me a more poetic and nostalgic means to fabricate the stylised imagery. Indeed, my interpretation is an idealistic and romantic view, but nevertheless engages the viewer in more than a narcisstic meander through the mind’s desires. Clearly, although I created my own interpretation from historical references and old images, as well as shooting in real bordellos for authentic décor, I primarily wanted to use the idea as a gateway to something more profound – a kind of a visual celebration of the mystery of seduction. The first question people usually ask when they see Bordello is “Are the girls real prostitutes?” This pleases me, because in my images there is a definite hesitation between genuine emotion and something more staged – a shift between real and surreal. But where does the reality begin, and where does it end? Wearing masks, playing a role or real life – is this strange, theatrical world any stranger than the universe we call our own?

It was very important to reproduce my photographs for this series using a hand-rendered technique, so I chose the Fresson charcoal process which gives a more authentic, painterly quality to the images. Although I’m an avid supporter of traditional printing techniques from silver gelatine, to platinum, gum bichromate and carbon, I feel, however, that it’s important to expand our horizon beyond the safety-net of tradition towards the obvious future of image and it’s application through digital technology.

Vee Speers