“Most of the kids I photograph all know each other, either from the clubs or are personal friends, or have been partners at one point… They’re all intertwined in one way or another. If you look at the portraits, you see some of the same faces again and again, connecting everyone together.”
Photographer Poem Baker‘s Hymns From The Bedroom is a series of portraits featuring a selection of friends and acquaintances, who exist on the brink of creative success and in a haze of twenty-something wonder. Raw, real and refreshingly diverse in its content, here Poem exclusively tells Twin how some of her favourite shots came about, and who the subjects are.
Stef & Jacq, 2011 (main)
“This was taken in a hotel room in San Francisco. Stef is a waitress from Sydney and Jacq a stripper from Brooklyn. I’ve known Stef for some time, and we all ended up going on a road trip together in the USA. I think they were going through quite a difficult time when I made this portrait, they had been together for about a year and were having to split up because of visa issues… They were hanging out in their hotel room and they called me to come around with my camera, they wanted an intimate portrait… This was a very candid shot: no set-ups. I walked in, had a glass of wine with them, and got this in about four or five frames!”
Daniel, 2012
“This was taken in Hackney. Daniel and I met while wandering the streets at London Gay Pride in 2012. I recall seeing him walk down the street and I was immediately struck by his uninhibited persona. He’s a performance artist. We began to collaborate on portraits that explore an alternative concept of gender… I’ve been shooting with Daniel for about five years now. This portrait was set up, more so than usual, he had a clear idea of how he wanted to be photographed and I just tweaked it a little. But no big set-ups… Just me, him and my flash gun!”
After party – Harry and friends, 2015
“This was taken at an after party in east London. I got called by Harry, who is in this particular picture, to come and photograph him and his friends. I turned up at about 5am, when everyone was chilling, smoking and playing music. Again it’s another candid shot. In situations like these you really don’t want to set stuff up, I just like people to do their own thing… The photographs are there, you just have to blend in and get everyone relaxed around your camera.”
James, 2011
“I met James at a friend’s 21st birthday, my eye caught his tattoo on his chest that read ‘Sunday Morning’. Being a huge fan of Lou Reed and Andy Warhol we struck up conversations and met the next day. At the time he was living in Walthamstow. We walked around his neighbourhood as it was a lovely sunny day and somehow ended up in the graveyard! That’s where we took this picture!”
Vera , Sam & Elise, 2014
“Sam is a hairdresser, and this is a candid moment of him hanging out with his friends doing their hair before a big night out clubbing in London! I’ve been photographing Sam since the start of this project, he was living at home with his parents and dating James (who is in the previous picture) when I first met with him.”
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