Performance - Bell Ringers, William Shipley Scholarship
This series was the result of months of hanging around in cramped bell towers documenting the activity of local bell ringing groups during their weekly rehearsals.
"Performing to the camera is no longer the focus in these portraits, instead the subject's attention to their performance creates an un-awareness of being photographed. They are caught in a moment of contemplative concentration, the inhale before the action, the pause before the breath, that will imminently become an intense group performance, unseen by the audience but heard in a grand scale across the town. The ambiguity of the subjects' out of frame gaze in these portraits speaks less of bell ringing but more about the strained relationship between subject, audience and photographer. Who are they performing to, are they aware of being photographed, at what point does this activity that usually takes place behind closed bell tower doors become a visual performance?" ko-ax exhibition, Mascalls Gallery, 2008
They were originally exhibited by projecting the images to reference the fleeting moment that is captured in each frame. An expectation for the images to change and the absence of any physicality, creates a tension for the viewer that might not otherwise exist when confronted with prints.
"Performing to the camera is no longer the focus in these portraits, instead the subject's attention to their performance creates an un-awareness of being photographed. They are caught in a moment of contemplative concentration, the inhale before the action, the pause before the breath, that will imminently become an intense group performance, unseen by the audience but heard in a grand scale across the town. The ambiguity of the subjects' out of frame gaze in these portraits speaks less of bell ringing but more about the strained relationship between subject, audience and photographer. Who are they performing to, are they aware of being photographed, at what point does this activity that usually takes place behind closed bell tower doors become a visual performance?" ko-ax exhibition, Mascalls Gallery, 2008
They were originally exhibited by projecting the images to reference the fleeting moment that is captured in each frame. An expectation for the images to change and the absence of any physicality, creates a tension for the viewer that might not otherwise exist when confronted with prints.
