Photofusion Salon15

My portrait of Gill Golding from the series Landscape Portraits has been selected for the Photofusion Salon15. It is really great that I am able to show some work from this series.

It would be even better if showing this single portrait at Photofusion leads to more opportunities to show the work. I would still like to present these portraits placed alongside panels containing more information about each subject. Some postcard sized images of their work, texts which inspire them, quotes from them and perhaps other forms of memorabilia. I have Taryn Simon’s A Living man declared dead and other chapters in mind as an influence here.

I have yet to pen my statement to go into the catalogue for this work, but I have in mind something along these lines:

Landscape Portraits is a series which explores how the context within which a subject is placed  influences how a portrait is read. The portraits are of friends. All are landscape photographers. I asked each of them to choose a location somewhere in the landscape as the setting for their portrait. I wanted this to be a place that has special significance for them — a site that they have returned to on many occasions to make photographs. In this way, the setting not only functions as the stage set but also adds meaning through its psychological connection with the subject. As landscape photographers, they all have a particular awareness of the physical environment around them. Some are drawn to the natural landscape others to urban spaces. These preferences are apparent in the individual portraits. I make it clear through supporting information that the background has a particular significance, i.e. the subject chose it as a favourite place. The viewer is invited to make a conscious judgment about how, if at all, this knowledge influences his or her response to the portrait.