Coming up for Air

by Stephen Gill (Photographer)

Coming up for Air is the result of a long-term photographic body of work made in Japan between 2008 & 2009 over the course of three visits to the country. Though the images were made in Japan they are not essentially about Japan and are more of a reaction to my life in London at the time. Unlike the other more descriptive photographic series I had made, this time the information in the images has been starved or almost in some cases completely denied, like muffled sounds when swimming beneath water. A fictional aquatic world as if viewed from the other side of an aquarium looking outwards. The series is more of a reaction to the modern world rather than an attempted description of it.

Genres: Photography

106 pages, Hardcover

First published July 26, 2010

About the author

Stephen Gill’s passion for photography was sparked by his father’s quiet influence and fuelled by an early fascination with insects, birdlife, and the tiny pond creatures he’d gather to examine under a microscope. Music, too, has long been a steady companion. Together, these early obsessions nurtured a sense of wonder, and image-making became not only a way of exploring such curiosities, but a means of responding to his surroundings and to the subjects that intrigue or move him. Over time, it has become an essential form of articulation and expression.

As the years have passed, Gill’s relationship with photography has continued to evolve. While he values photography’s strengths, he remains increasingly aware of its limits, how straight descriptive photographs are often unable to convey more elusive emotions, feelings, or ideas that lie beyond the glass wall of clarity, projection and control. He works outside those limits, developing a quiet trust in chance and what can be withheld. In reducing information, he often finds that something vital — a presence, a spirit — can remain, allowing the subject to breathe without interference.

Gill continues to explore the idea that even the most abstract or ambiguous images can carry a truth, sometimes more illuminating than clear visual description, however factual it may appear. In a time when images flood every corner of life and certainty feels harder to hold, he chooses to relinquish much of the authorship and control, seeking instead to honour his subjects by handing much of the authorship back to them. He is often drawn to finding ways to collaborate with his subjects or to assist them to fully speak for themselves, without the images being suffocated by the medium or the maker.