– Photograph yourself from an arm’s length distance
– Hold the camera in your hand (Yashica T4) and turn the lens toward your body
– Distance from shoulder to camera: approximately 60 cm
– Preliminary intention in relation to composition
– No possibility to look through the viewfinder while photographing = lack of control over composition
– Preliminary intention: fulfilled / partially fulfilled / not fulfilled
I position myself as the subject of the photograph within a framework I have predetermined. I am both the observer and the observed. The motive is to pursue a perspective unfamiliar to me. Within this equation, the camera functions as a third eye, enabling a way of seeing that escapes my control.
I examine the distance between the body and the camera through notions of exposure and protection: proximity to the camera may place the subject under scrutiny, yet at the same time conceal or abstract it. The closeness between the lens and the body blurs boundaries and renders the visible unstable and unresolved. By utilizing the element of chance inherent in this approach, I investigate the dynamics between intention and accident, and between the visible and the obscured.
Ronya Hirsma (b. 1994) is a photographic artist based in Helsinki. In her practice she explores social relations, affective responses, and the structures and contradictions that shape behavior, with a particular interest in the subjectivity and instability of perception. Her works often engage with processes of revealing and withholding.
Hirsma received a Master’s degree in Photography from HDK–Valand Academy of Art and Design in Gothenburg in 2024 and also holds a Master’s degree from the Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art program at Aalto University. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions both in Finland and internationally, including institutions and festivals such as Saatchi Gallery (London), Liquida Photofestival (Turin), Pitted Dates (Helsinki), Fotocentrum Raseborg (Karjaa), NEVVEN, Röda Sten Konsthall (Gothenburg), and Photo Saint-Germain (Paris). Hirsma received the Iconic Artist award at Liquida Photofestival, as well as a Selector’s Spotlight special mention at International Photography Exhibition 166, held at Saatchi Gallery. Her work is included in the collection of the Hasselblad Center.
Copyright © Ronya Hirsma, all rights reserved
