Her spirit and energy infected the park, her father looking on happy and proud. I’m still spinning from having traversed half the world, the coffee I’ve just had has yet to kick into my system and I’m not sure what time zone I’m in. The girl falls. Her father picks her up, their blue eyes come together like steel beads shot against their flaxen hair. I feel the pang of fatherhood, my own boys a whole half world away so I ask to make their picture. His voice is instantly English, his original home also half a world away but also here now in Sydney.
National Portrait Gallery Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2022
Being included in this exhibition has been a goal of mine since I started this journey. To be included in this year’s selection is beyond a dream and feels like the most wonderful validation of both my own effort and Ivan’s lived experience. Thank you National Portrait Gallery!
To see the full selection of images from the exhibition click here.
Midnight Cowboy
Early morning, just around sunrise, in Brighton is a magical time but following Brighton Pride it is more like a Lewis Carol fantasy. People drift like dandelion seeds on the breeze, drunk with fatigue, their sleep deprived forms delicately balanced between the drug induced euphoria of waking and the collapsing crest of a wave of sleep.
I met Oli wandering in just such a daze, crookedly rolled cigarette hanging delicately from the corner of a mouth turned up into a James Dean-esque sneer, Stetson cocked on his head and bare chested. He oozed sex appeal.
Ivan - The Divided Self: The View from Within
At night, sometimes I can smell sweet blossom in my room even though there are no trees near by
The Boxxer
Unbridaled Youth
The boy was serious with an earnest look in his eyes and a rigid posture. The girl was riotous with unbridaled youth, her hair close cropped at the sides making her look androgynously handsome. In the context of the close bonds of the friendship group, they were clearly neophytes in their affection for each other.
Standing together for the photograph the third leaped in, spontaneously, with a vigour that dominated the fledgling relationship. Wrapping her arms around her friend as if to possess her, she commanded the scene.
I'm not a landscape photographer...
…but part of me would like to be. I very much love the way Don McCullin shoots the landscape, in dark and ominouis black and white and with his wonderful use of light and dark. I also really like the work of Nicholas J R White, shot on large and medium format film of course. I like this shot, taken around West Wittering, purely becuase of the textures and painterly quality. It informs me of how film will record the light but otherwise it’s a dull and uninteresting shot.
