Meghan Daniels

Cinematographer, Photographer & Videographer

Where does the name Slangetjie come from?

I ran away from my mom and cousins in Ratanga Junction once and they eventually found me at those reptile shows they use to have there. The snake handler had asked for volunteers so I was on stage with a small snake around my neck.

What’s your relationship with snakes?

Nothing other than the nickname

Would you say that you’re a rebel? In what sense?

I’d say more of a freak than a rebel. I don't really feel like a fit into a category. I feel like saying yes to 'rebel' does that. Do I rebel, and am I rebellious? Yes. But I am also a lot more. I feel like 'freak' is an open term that encapsulates all aspects of me - even those unknown aspects. 

If I’m going to let people dictate what I do then...

I’m most likely in a position where I don’t know much about something and I’m learning a lot

What does the name Meghan mean?

Meghan without an H means strong and capable.

I think it’s insane that...

The mantis shrimp has 12 colour receptors and that Queer relationships are still criminalized in about 72 countries.

Your spirit or favorite animal?

DOGS

Can you tell when someone is expressing someone else’s vision or feelings instead of their own through the projects or art they “produce”?

Sometimes, sometimes not.

With your work, your photography and especially that, that contains nudity, do you feel you’d still be able to tell the same story, the same message if you were to be on the other side of the camera?

Yeah, totally. I often photograph myself especially in times of change or mental health dips – times of vulnerability. I know, or at least am trying to know, myself the best so it makes sense for myself to do this.

I feel like the female body is...

For me, I find it beautiful, confusing and often times distant.

Lake Selection by Meghan Daniels

What do you usually expect your audience to feel when they look at your work? Please explain respectively.

I never want to dictate what people feel when they look at my work (no matter what that body of work is). People will feel what they feel and that’s good and healthy. I guess, if I had to say, and particularly for my personal work, it would be for people to feel less alone.

Do you ever get inspiration for a shoot or shot from random words, things, people?

ALL the time! I am that friend who will stop abruptly and hold everyone back so that I can video record a flashing, broken light or a dead bird in the street.

What comes into mind when you hear or see the word “escalate”?

Video montage of couples on escalators in shopping malls.

Why are some of your subjects faceless in your photography?

Sometimes its to respect the friends and lovers I photograph. Sometimes subjects want to stay anonymous so we shoot one another in ways where their identity is disclosed. By shooting close parts of the body, the person I photograph (or alternatively myself if it is a self portrait) almost, in a way, reclaim our bodies (bodies that have either undergone trauma, or discrimination, or suppression, etc). By presenting our bodies, we affirm I identity in spaces - if that makes sense? 

Before photography and videography, what was Meghan doing?

I’ve been doing this for so long that I can’t even say!

Do you have a style or genre of photography?

Journal entries, beautiful grit.

Do you stop working on your projects when you feel like you’re not connecting with it anymore or maybe at all? Or they don’t make sense to you?

In terms of my personal work, my camera is like some sort of diary – I don’t really see it as me ‘photographing’ per se but instead documenting and processing and figuring shit out. So if things don’t make sense to me that’s probably when I’m shooting the most. If there are periods where I don’t shoot that’s okay and all part of the process.

What would you like your first film to be about or based on?

I have a few documentaries in mind. I don’t want to give too much away. In general, the films I would like to make and are making revolve around gender, sexuality, intimacy and mental health.

What are some of your frequent thoughts that have just as frequently reflected in your photography?

I think the same applies here: things that revolve around gender, sexuality, intimacy and mental health.

When you're not taking pictures or working, what are you doing?

Drawing, writing, reading, boxing, trying to be around dogs, listening to music, night drives, masturbating (wait…did I say that out loud?)

For whatever reason, you get blackmailed to go live on a farm? Would you?

No. Two words: Land Redistribution.

The Lake Selection by Meghan Daniels

Where did you learn about everything you know about filmmaking and photography?

Technically: Mostly through experience and time and patience and through other friends and people in the industry. Conceptually: life.

The best thing about collaborating with other artists is that?

I get to learn about and see through completely different perspectives and views. I get to be put in place and challenged.

Why is mental health important to me? To keep learning. To keep building down after breaking down. For survival. To keep going. This is all captured through friends and family I photograph who undergo similar experiences. The images are almost a way of saying, "Hey, we're surviving this shit together". 

Meghan Daniels

@meghan.daniels

April 2018