PhotoLounge Presents: Ally Caple

ally caple | ig: @allycaple | website: allycaple.net

(she/her) is a queer photographer from New Haven County, Connecticut, who is now based in New York. She divulged a story to me about the ways in which the camera was present during her childhood, recounting how her mother used disposable cameras to document Caple in a way that allowed her to recognize aspects of her child-self in her present form. She grew up with a large extended family and found the first moments of her experience photographing expanded through her relationships with younger cousins, family members and families she nannied for.

These are images from her ongoing series May I Speak Freely which functions as a testament to safety and being heard. Her work is a quest to understand relationships in relation to herself and amongst those she photographs to find ways of expressing their complexities in love, care and freedom without having or fully comprehending the linguistics to describe them.

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The footing of her process is grounded in a mutual understanding between herself and her subjects. Caple casts a net of safety to those that step in front of her camera and offers respite in the shelter of her photographs.

Ally shared about a reading and writing process she practices that facilitates her image-making. She spent some time showing me a selection of books from her shelf and bedside that she’s been looking at and returning to.

Caple skimmed through pages, emphasizing the wear on some.

She shared a quote with me by contemporary writer Saretta Morgan she came across recently. This quote helped her identify new propelling questions and language to shape and mold ideas surrounding her work and the lexicon used to describe it.

Saretta Morgan: “I want to wake every morning into love, where love is the question of how I’m going to help you get free, where that means whatever it needs to mean.”