Gareth Jolly & Simon Joannou
Likely Places & Unlikely Places
Photographs

Exhibition: 26 September to 14 October 2006

Gareth Jolly

I'm a black and white photo-documentary photographer.

My photography is about finding a moment in something of strangers. Something that might otherwise be unseen. Something that would otherwise be lost as people catch themselves, re-arrange and move on and out of frame. Some moment of isolation, self absorption, clarity, truth … even symmetry.

Transience, then, is what my photographs are about. Once the moment is gone, it cannot be recreated. I don’t use set pieces, models, actors or friends. Filmic would not describe my pictures. My photographs are not, nor ever will be, ever so slight variations on a studied theme.

My influences include Cartier Bresson, Walker Evans (for his subway series), Bill Henson and Sebastião Salgado.

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Simon Joannou

Unlikely places invite intrigue, exploration and discovery. These sites take you on an adventure in looking and looking again to refocus and see new things in an otherwise, overlooked space. Unlikely places are found everywhere: on the edge of towns, the end of a road, the middle of a park or under a bridge.

Viewing these landscapes through the lens of a camera allows me to compose my perspective insuring balance and order. A diagonal traces a pathway through an image, the verticality of the trees push upward to the air of the sky, while the horizontals calmly restore a sense of equilibrium.

Chasing the light of dusk or dawn brings atmospheric qualities and an accompanying sense of flatness. In this light, the landscape’s features come alive: textures and colours, emptiness and stillness, disquiet and unease. Qualities that evoke, suggest, surprise and inspire the ongoing quest to discover more unlikely places.

Groundfloor Gallery 2006