Auckland Festival of Photography 2021: Three Exhibitions
Isolation – looking out from within | Julia Fullerton-Batten | Outdoors – Wynyard Quarter Waterfront, Auckland
Auckland Festival of Photography presents a small taste of Julia Fullerton-Batten’s award winning series Looking Out From Within, 2020 as part of the Isolation theme.
Julia Fullerton-Batten created this series while London was in lockdown from Covid-19, finding participants by advertising on social media and in the local press. The resulting series are real-life constructions documenting in their own ghostly way the London lockdown with the sense of isolation palpable.
All of the subjects were photographed in their own homes, looking out through the imprisoning window. The photographs were organized over the phone and email before the day of shooting, then Julia, along with her son doing the lighting, photographed the subjects without any physical contact from inside the window on the day of the shoot.
Looking Out From Within won the Fine Art category of the 2020 International Photography Awards: www.photoawards.com
Structure alone | Yasser Saeed | Lake House Arts | Takapuna, Auckland
Photography Series: Reflections in Modernist Architecture. Saeed’s art has been noted for its abstract compositions, and his architectural photography is no different. Taking photos, not of buildings, but made of buildings, not wanting to relate any understanding at all of the design or functionality, only of materials, structure, layers and their interplay with light within the arrangements aligned in frame.
These photographs bring forth architectural elements from the urban context, but outside the frame through reflections on entire facades or trapped within the highlights in the glass, a principal part of this approach. A principal part of this approach is to bring forth architectural elements from the urban context from outside the frame through reflections which are projected onto entire facades or trapped within the highlights in the glass. Glares of natural light have been deliberately shown only in reflections or through multiple layers of glass in order to force the sunlight into a layered geometry, to complicate the already complex composition. In contrast, the artificial light does the same through the pattern and structure of the linear, well saturated fluorescent tubes and lamp lights that are laid out regularly on the architecture.
Shot from 2018, in Auckland, then in this past summer in Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid and London.
They were young once | Various photographers | Depot Artspace, Devonport, Auckland
Great artists start somewhere and it is their passion and commitment over time that imbeds their work in our cultural psyche, sense of place and belonging. They Were Young Once brings together the works of NZ photographers, both iconic and emerging in recognition of the creative journey and its origins.
