Jonathan Pellow
My photography is driven by a rather child-like fascination with shape, form, and light in the world around me. Whether the subject is architectural or natural, my images frequently touch on one of two themes. In one case, I explore my perception of the subject through some striking juxtaposition with its surroundings. The juxtaposition may be one of scale, for example—perhaps a small figure against an expansive edifice, a human in relation to a product of human engineering and construction. In other images, on the contrary, I isolate the subject entirely from its context and contemplate it instead in abstracted form, inviting the viewer to imagine context and meaning of their own. The textured bark of a tree might evoke a topographic view of rugged terrain, or an architectural façade towering above the camera might be reimagined as a landscape stretching to a distant horizon. Common to both themes is a desire to set aside the cursory recognition that allows us to move through the world efficiently—the natural tendency to take in a subject at a glance, ascribe significance relative to myself based on knowledge and past experience, and move on in an instant without a conscious thought—and instead to engage with the infinitely rich visual fabric around me, for its own sake, with curiosity, wonder, and delight.
My photography is driven by a rather child-like fascination with shape, form, and light in the world around me. Whether the subject is architectural or natural, my images frequently touch on one of two themes. In one case, I explore my perception of the subject through some striking juxtaposition with its surroundings. The juxtaposition may be one of scale, for example—perhaps a small figure against an expansive edifice, a human in relation to a product of human engineering and construction. In other images, on the contrary, I isolate the subject entirely from its context and contemplate it instead in abstracted form, inviting the viewer to imagine context and meaning of their own. The textured bark of a tree might evoke a topographic view of rugged terrain, or an architectural façade towering above the camera might be reimagined as a landscape stretching to a distant horizon. Common to both themes is a desire to set aside the cursory recognition that allows us to move through the world efficiently—the natural tendency to take in a subject at a glance, ascribe significance relative to myself based on knowledge and past experience, and move on in an instant without a conscious thought—and instead to engage with the infinitely rich visual fabric around me, for its own sake, with curiosity, wonder, and delight.
