Steph Wilson

0:18Hello still can't get over that massive penis but so I'm gonna start with just talking about my stuff I have only really been in London now for like two years after coming back from Liverpool after being there for about five years and was really lucky to get an internship at Dazed which kicks off with everything. And I think kind of naturally I've fallen into this thing of trying to create incorporate a political message of my work thing is I used to be purely just fine art photography and a painter but I found that with fashion photography it was kind of like a bit of a sneaky way of getting in a message that maybe reached an audience that may not have seen otherwise feminism being a big one and so yeah it's so to embed those kind of political messages in my shoots so it's just a bit covert and a bit sneaky and reaches I guess it's not preaching to the converted in a way I found that when I was doing my fine art photography and my painting the only people there really gonna fear the ones that kind of probably likely to get it as it is anyway I know my sister and her mates are sort of 80 it wouldn't really be interested in some very abstract fine art stuff come across my photography and like online on days then on it's nice that and stuff and maybe it's more likely to infiltrate their minds a bit more so that's fun and yes works I hope sometimes another thing is also incorporating humour or wit in my work as well I often find it makes things a bit more digestible as opposed to a very dark heavy scary story I think the whole thing with the viral illness of kitten videos is based on people just wanting to feel cute and nice and so yes they're adding a bit of humor I guess just enjoying looking through a photo series it just it just makes it more absorbable obviously got to be careful because like a really heavy topic like racism you don't wanna make it funny because it's not funny it's racism but you know stuff like I think feminism or thing could be seen as very dowdy and heavy and scary and shaven heads and very you know terrifying for people so to kind of have a slight funny angle of it especially white feminism you know.

2:45I mean I'm aware that hairy armpits aren't as bad just like female genital mutilation I'm not going to try and make that comparison and make it this very heavy heavy thing so you know it kind of kind of creating a balance it needs a need to it needs a message but then it can also be it can also be light-hearted and funny at the same time it's kind of almost like I don't know adopt the dark humor it sort of rings bitterer yes which leads on quite nicely to a series that it's nice that posters and it had like a little second wave of popularity because of it I was just having it all kind of came about because I was just having a Mexican with my friend who's also a photographer el Hardwick we're thinking of something we could do together. And I kind of jokingly said you know what even the silly idea like you know making real-life emojis and sticking them on the girls tits and she is like hmm and I was like no I think that's quite nice so I am so I'm I'm at with a friend actually he's the night editor and I was telling her about it and she's like yes that's really great so yeah. So she commissioned it and no it's nice thing that you're actually gonna go somewhere when you really love what you're doing I often shoot shoots purely for the sake of it because they're funny because they're yes I think that I like but knowing that they're gonna go on a platform where they're actually gonna be seed it's it makes it a bit more worthwhile like there's a publication I might be working with soon I won't drop any names seeing as it's probably a competitor to it's nice that.

4:17But they've got like an 85 percent coverage in America woman readers every day which is insane and so to get something out there with some kind of political message to that kind of widespread audience is something that I would have never have done with just you know painting and having a thousand people come to your gallery opening anyway.

4:37So I was really happy that days wanted to take it on.

4:39So yeah this is the emoji one and this is well you can see I kind of didn't want to I didn't want to confuse a nuance we've added in the little actual emoji at the bottom just in case it was a bit like tricky and all the emojis were kind of inspired by like the regularity they were used and the aesthetic and stuff the little sparkle thing was dubbed by Elmer sparkle fart because it very perfectly or though maybe not in this case like in reality but very perfectly covers up the arse crap because of the two spikes and the top and the bottom just in case you didn't know it's great for an all censorship on Instagram flowers and the obviously had to get the aubergine in there we found it very pretty marbled aubergine and this photo was quite tricky to take there I mean looking back at the outtakes I mean they weren't pretty I mean yeah.

5:34I think it was a lot of ball on show so and the guy this poor suffering boyfriend of the girl on his left sort of was dragged along and I had to change his name because his band were like are you kidding like we're meant to be this really cool like shoegazing band and you've got your knob out on days with an aubergine so anyway his name got changed and then as the egg tips which ironically was the really popular image but it was just riffing off Sarah Lucas and people get really smug on their like comment on a on a on a thing or I'll be speaking to them they'll be like yeah you know Sarah Lucas did this before like mmm as if like you're so not original and I think I know you know I love that you know Iran there's a kid turn one because you know you can only sensor a with a apparently and I went and bought a kitten and got it quite a lot of for it because I only buying animals for shoot isn't seen as that good but you know I got to have a weak with a sweet kitten and she went to a very sweet friend and gave me more money than I bought her for so you know when win-win so who all of a the models this is Lizzie Farrell who aka Glacia girl I don't know if you know who worked but she's also very much about incorporating her political message which is mostly kind of eco-warrior like you know was it called the range the bad things happening Goble warming that's the one thanks al but yes so she does that stuff and she and she was totally up for having her boobs tweaked and so there you go her which she also she's like really hot so she does really well with her stuff because it kind of helps apparently and then there's be as well who kind of fortunately unfortunately got the snail on a tip it was very very soft nipple afterwards so that was fine the independent actually shared this series recently officer it's nice that and the comments are very funny very likes it's white man comments there was one what was it a woman has to be slightly deranged or desperate for money drainage or desperate for money to have photos taken with fried eggs laid across her nipples and the fact that they all did it for free was kind of funny too because it was like they opted into it and the idea that someone could I mean there are no worse things you can do for money like I've done worse things.

8:18So it's really it's like it's it's not too bad nothing like that but which moves on to the next series which is totally exclusive hasn't been published yet don't know if I'm allowed to do it might get in trouble for doing it.

8:39But it's fine another one for days which is called the bell curve based on. Basically I used to have very very bad anxiety and panic attacks so this one goes much more personal even though I am personally attacked by Instagram for having my tits all the time it's kind of not as far as having panic attacks on a train so I thought I'd do this one which is kind of like a cathartic experience and kind of like a purging of like that 10-year period of basically but making it kind of beautiful as well like rather than paying homage to it just distilling it in this shoot kind of I'm just rambling essentially it's just to get the coping mechanisms and the symptoms of anxiety which of mine and my friends which I asked about which the response was crazy so many people suffer from it it's really awful and I put the thing on Facebook just saying how do you cope you know what are your symptoms yada yada a few of them I'll take you through now such as one of my friends said that she visualizes a big balloon that she blows up to control and and slow her breathing which I thought was a really beautiful visual but then looking at the image recently actually it kind of made me think of I know you consider a panic attack is this big balloon.

9:51That's eventually gonna pop if you blow too hard so it kind of has these connotations of anxiety but then for her it's this relaxing coping thing which I found really interesting another one which I loved was a friend Alice who squeezes her arm when she's anxious creating and she described it as creating half moons in her skin which she finds relaxing watching heal and I was like that's so poetic and so I had to do it the makeup artist had to like jab her synthetic nails in the model skin like it looks nice it wasn't but this one you revert back to a kid when you're anxious you know you kind of depict you can't become dependent on like your mom and your boyfriend of things we've got this really sweet little girl in sweating with the makeup artist Rebecca wording hims amazing red ears which I quite liked things like blurred vision here this one's a bit weird I bought a dog I like buying blood behind animals no I bought a dog for me for pets for life okay not for life he's now at my mom's but I bought a dog when I was the neighbor pool because I wasn't leaving the house for like five days and I was like this weird skeletal creature like walking around the house like not leaving and like only eating a cheesecake once a week so I was too anxious to eat it so nice I sound like I'm an AAA or something but no and so I brought Toby the little dog to make me leave the house at least once a days take him to walks it's kind of like a little therapy session fake dog but some people think it's real which makes me a bit worried about what people think I'm willing to animals through but you know I did buy the cat the fight-or-flight I actually got a Puma from the zoo and I'm joking as it's fake its fake it's okay but that cost me officer shoots budget and then insomnia that was a killer stop me doing my a-levels cause I had such bad insomnia by the end of it. So that was kind of an important one and you know like when the cartoons keep their little eyes open with the toothpicks you know.

11:59And then the last one I mean there's a lot more by the way.

12:02This is just a sneak peak there's actually like 50 which I need to cut down which my friend Alice is gonna have to do for me the one my other favorites was treading on eggshells you can't really see it because it's kind of bleached out that I went and spent like 200 quid on ducking blue little blue egg shells and I I would say I baked a lot of cakes but I didn't I did just get rid of the eggs so you know let's just keep it. Anyway.

12:28So yeah the treading on eggshells kind of metaphor blah blah and that comes out soon. And it's just really I mean it's really nice that I can just be up there and jabber away.

12:39Anyway it goes like two ago I would not have been able to do that saying that I have done about three fair foods today but you know it's fine given the last time I want to be projectile vomiting on the front where I say off comes anyway thank you