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| Photograph: Zena Holloway |
A swan about to take flight from a snow-covered landscape or
a rhino charging menacingly; an otherworldly “creature” dancing underwater, her
dress splayed out like tendrils seductively ensnaring you into her surreal
world; a young novice monk meditating inside a Burmese temple, while shards of
light pierce the incense smoke above his head; three fine art photographers
take their viewers on unique, and often intriguing journeys, inspiring them to
look at the world with a fresh perspective.
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| Photograph: Zena Holloway |
UNDERWATER WORLDS WITH
ZENA HOLLOWAY
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| Photograph: Zena Holloway |
Renown internationally for her poetic photography, Zena
Holloway started somewhat traditionally. Having received an inexpensive
underwater camera as an 18th birthday present while she was working as a SCUBA
dive guide in Egypt, she taught herself some basics and started shooting marine
life before moving on to taking souvenir photos for tourists. Determined to
make a career combining her twin passions, she returned to London and worked
for a while in the film industry before getting her first professional commission
taking promotional shots of an aftershave for Faberge
The creative image of a model looking in a mirror but
picturing himself swimming under the sea combined the surreal with underwater
photography, which has become a hallmark of Holloway’s photography over the
last twenty years. “When you shoot underwater you become a vessel for telling
stories differently. Often you get things out of people — an expression, a
gesture — you would not get on land, which I find quite interesting. Their way
of posing and moving, may be quite different; they can be more contained in
their movement or quite extrovert,” she says.
Though she has also undertaken some shoots in the open sea,
she more often creates her dream worlds in the controlled environment of a
pool, and she prefers not to use SCUBA diving gear, but instead holds her
breath in sync with her models.
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| Photograph: Zena Holloway |
Editing plays an important role in the final image and this
sometimes means any indication the model is floating underwater (bubbles,
shards of lights, the water surface) is removed to create an even more
disquieting world that will draw viewers in. “People look at the image and
can’t quite process it, they are not really sure at what they are looking at.
And I like that.” she says.
As a fine art photographer, Holloway increasingly wants to
use her work to promote important agendas related to the environment. For her
latest series, Flowers for Jeju: The Last Mermaids, she brings attention to the
disappearing way of life of the haenyeo, the free diving fisherwomen who
harvest seafood from the waters that surround South Korea’s Jeju Island. Today,
most haenyeo are well into their later years, with some as old as 80, but
Holloway preferred to portray them as they once were: young and free.
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| Photograph: Drew Hopper |
THE LESS TRAVELED ROAD WITH DREW HOPPER
When he’s traveling, Drew Hopper seeks to tap the knowledge
of locals. “Often, like everything, it’s not what you know, but who you know,”
he muses, pointing out that connecting with likeminded people on the road can
prove more valuable than having expensive new equipment. With this approach the
Australian travel and landscape photographer has been able to get access to
sites and learn the best locations and times to capture beautiful atmospheric
scenes, such as a man by Pushkar Lake, India performing the Poornima Maha
Aarti, a prayer for peace and prosperity only performed on the night of the
full moon, or a novice monk praying by a giant Buddha inside a remote temple in
Bagan, Myanmar.
“To me, photography is all about the emotional connection
that an image can convey,” he says, pointing out that it can sometimes be quite
distressing, as when one morning he came across an Indian woman standing on the
steps by the River Ganges overlooking the body of a dead child floating on the
water. “It didn't feel appropriate taking a picture, but I knew if I didn't
then I would have regretted not documenting the sight.”
Hoppers admits being more interested in documenting what he
sees rather than creating pieces of art, adding “even if my imagery does appear
to be more ‘fine art,’ I feel it goes beyond just a pretty image,” adding that
capturing compelling images provides “a piece to a bigger and more in-depth
truth.”
A lot of preparation goes into his backpacking journeys,
though once on the ground he believes in “just going with the flow and letting
it unfold.”
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| Photograph: Drew Hopper |
One time in Hanoi, Vietnam, as he was just after opening the
balcony door of the hotel room he’d just checked into, he spotted a Vietnamese
lady walking down the street, balancing her yoke on her shoulder. He grabbed
his camera and took a beautiful overhead shot of the products she was carrying
as they were perfectly balanced, color wise: “I just love how spontaneous
travel can be, especially travelling as a photographer. Photo opportunities are
everywhere, and sometimes the best photos are those images you least expect.”
As a travel photographer Hopper feels it’s important to
capture images that define his experiences: “So if I’m feeling a sense of
mystery when visiting a majestic location then this is how I’ll represent the
place that I’m documenting.”
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| Photograph: David Yarrow |
WILD ENCOUNTERS WITH DAVID YARROW
David Yarrow lives the life of a true adventurer. He has
waded through a crocodile river in South Sudan to reach the Dinka cattle camp
in South Sudan and has come face to face with a grizzly bear in Alaska. He’s
had elephants kick his equipment as though playing soccer and he’s been chased
by rhinoceros.
From the vast African deserts to the frozen Arctic
tundra, Yarrow captures wildlife we have all become familiar with from the
comfort of our armchairs, yet still manages to surprise viewers with arresting
black and white images that offer a unique point of view, often from the ground
looking up. Instead of using long lenses like many other wildlife
photographers, Yarrow often leaves his camera on the ground – sometimes setting
it in elephant dung or covering the case in Old Spice, because the scent
attracts lions – and then activates the shutter remotely. This haphazard
technique has resulted in many broken cameras, but does allow him to bring us
face to face, so to speak, with his subjects, creating memorable photos.
He attributes his best shots to planning and perseverance
– he once spent 28 hours lying face down on a boat off the coast near Cape
Town; it yielded an incredible shot of a great white shark emerging from the
water to catch a seal. His unusual angles can require hours of research and
elaborate planning with countless attempts before finally getting the winning
shot. In fact the photographer has said he considers he has had a good year if
he has captured three great photographs, “because for an image to transcend at every
level requires a material amount of luck as well as creative courage and
technical fluency.”
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| Photograph: David Yarrow |
“Great photographs implicitly should be rare. They tend
to be moments in time that can never be repeated,” he wrote.
Most recently, he turned his focus away from wildlife to
venture into the floating slum town of Makoko in Lagos. Chest deep into some of
the world’s dirtiest water and surrounded by the smoke of cooking fire, Harrow composed
his photograph using two central characters in a long boat, which he cast
because he wanted to showcase, “both the beauty and dignity of black West
Africa.”
“In my mind, if a contemporary photograph is sufficiently
powerful in content and evocative in light and line to be looked at for a long
time, there is a chance that it has something which is art – not reportage. But
there is a third variable needed to elevate an image to a higher pantheon – the
dynamic of relevance. This is the most elusive of the “Holy Trinity” of factors
I strive to attain.”