New Portraiture

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o P w Ne

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Daniel Bosworth Colm McCarthy Pablo Conejo Peter Spurgeon



Photographs by: Daniel Bosworth dan@danielbosworth.com

Design by: Mandana Ahmadvazir designer@viewfinder.org.uk

Colm McCarthy info@colmmccarthy.net

Also available as a colour, e-publication: www.viewfinder.org.uk/shop

Pablo Conejo pablo@pabloconejo.com Peter Spurgeon peterspurgeon@totalise.co.uk

Published by: Viewfinder Photography Gallery 52 Brixton Village London SW9 8PS

Curated by: Kathleen Brey kathleen@viewfinder.org.uk

www.viewfinder.org.uk

Edited by: Kathleen Sadler kmgsadler@live.com

Š The artists and authors. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily the views of the publisher or the editors.

First published April 2011



Daniel Bosworth www.danielbosworth.com

London Cycling The project has been running since late 2009, working with the London Cycling campaign’s bi-monthly magazine to create a cross section of London’s cycling community. We ran 4 portraits in the back of each issue alongside information on the subject and their bike. With cycling booming as an alternative, clean, cheap and healthy way to get around it seemed a relevant subject with social and political substance. Working with a 5x4 camera means the process is much slower and removes any notion of a decisive moment. The distance to subject is measured out, the camera always at the same height and levelled to remove a layer of subjectivity. The process is quite mechanical and gives a dry image that avoids any pretense of the photographer’s input. The series set out to create a democratic view of contrasting characters pulled together by their relationship to a common interest.

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Colm McCarthy www. colmmccarthy.net

Portraits I wanted to choose images which did not fit the classical definition of portraits. The first two, of photographer Liz Mares and actor Aidan Gillen, are of people I know quite intimately, so I wanted to use fragments, details, and body language to convey their personalities without actually showing their faces. The second two, while highly contrived and stylised, are very much honest depictions of the subjects' inner conflicts. The first described herself as "the scientist of broken things. I can fix other people, but I can't fix myself". I thought that was a beautifully sad sentiment, so I constructed the picture around it. The other wanted to convey the conflict she felt as a biracial person. I hated making this picture. It was a very long, angry and confrontational session. I couldn't look at this picture for a long time, but in retrospect it's a very disturbing and unsettling image which very much captures her mental state at the time. Sadly beautiful.

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Aidan Gillen­—2007

I Am What You Are Made Of—2010


Liz Mares—2010

The Scientist of Broken Things—2009



Pablo Conejo pablo@pabloconejo.com

Metro The metropolitan railway is a mode of transport for relatively short distances where its users tend to get immersed into their thoughts. It is a place where millions of different people are forced together for a short time, where every kind of individuals intertwine without any interaction. Train carriages are square spaces where something intangible as thoughts constantly flow around them with freedom since they start running every day. Whether its travelers carry out a frenetic rhythm or not they must stop until their destination is reached. Due to its mostly underground condition, a particular atmosphere is created. The fact of being a total outsider from Japanese society allowed me to depict such impressions in different Japanese metropolitan railways from an external angle, perceiving the atmosphere as something dreamlike.

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線路 1


線路 2

線路 3



Peter Spurgeon peterspurgeon@totalise.co.uk

Sipson and the third runway The village of Sipson lies just North of London Heathrow Airport. It was threatened with demolition by proposals to build a third runway and sixth terminal which emerged in 2002. This project documents the village, its residents and their protests against the runway. The portraits in this exhibition show some of the long-standing residents in December 2008. Lynne Davies had lived in Sipson for 39 years and was determined to face the bulldozers if the demolition went ahead. Jack Clark was the oldest resident of the village and remembered going poaching in the fields surrounding the airport. He passed away in April 2009 aged 97. Linda McCutcheon moved to Sipson Road in the village 42 years ago when she married her husband, Terry. She chaired the Harmondsworth and Sipson Residents' Association. In March 2010, a High Court judge has upheld an environmental coalition’s case that a third runway at London Heathrow would breach Britain’s legally-binding climate change targets. The Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government dropped the third runway proposals two months later.

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Viewfinder Photography Gallery 52 Brixton Village London SW9 8PS www.viewfinder.org.uk


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