"There is a certain charge in Senta Simond's oeuvre that captures not just the body, but the emotional residue of being seen. If the Swiss-born photographer has long centred on how the feminine figure is felt as much as observed, then in her latest book, Blue Hour, she redirects that inquiry toward the masculine - in her partner, model Leon Dame. Published by Mörel, the resulting series is a study in the tension between performing visibility and simply being seen:"
"Shot across New York and California over several months, the images are at once cinematic and contemplative, a touch cheeky yet sincerely heartfelt. Spliced between portraits of Dame himself are honed fragments and blurred scapes of motion and machinery that lightly evoke the material world so often associated with masculinity. Yet at the centre of the series, Dame's presence, his instinctive self-expression, is the emotional axis around which the work revolves."
""It became very natural, this project together," Simond recalls, "I was never really interested in photographing men before but because of him, I started to look more at the male figure in photography." There was no plan or expectation from the outset: "We both love photography," she says, "it was our freedom to do something together, to explore anything we wanted outside of fashion.""
Blue Hour shifts focus toward the masculine through intimate portraits of Leon Dame, examining how the male figure is felt and seen. The project evolved from a private exchange into a collaborative dialogue that blurred subject and collaborator roles. Photographs shot across New York and California combine cinematic, contemplative portraiture with fragments and blurred scapes that reference motion, machinery, and masculine signifiers. The series navigates exposure and tenderness, image and person, privileging Dame's bodily presence and instinctive self-expression as the emotional center. The work intentionally operates outside fashion, emphasizing freedom, spontaneity, and emotional resonance over staged performance.
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