In favour of Heroines: Lincoln Clarkes’s Vancouver photographs

This article examines Lincoln Clarkes’ photographic series Heroines, exploring the ways in which it demonstrates that available models for writing about photography are insufficient. The author argues that the Heroines series’ blurs the boundaries between commercial, documentary and fine art photography. The article examines how these images supplement a tradition of documentary after postmodernism and its critique of representation. Heroines evidences an as-yet uncategorizable form, one that brings into relief the ways in which certain theories of photography fail to explain and fully interpret such photographs. On this basis, the article argues that the importance of Heroines lies ultimately in how it suggests new strategies of evaluating the political work of photography in the aftermath of identity politics.