Photographer has been documenting unspoilt landscapes around the world over the last five years with Russian panoramic Horizon cameras and Kodak HIE infrared film.
Horizon: Russian Cameras, Keralan Landscapes
Curated by Duncan Caratacus Clark
Jake Polonsky has been documenting unspoilt landscapes around the world over the
last five years with Russian panoramic Horizon cameras and Kodak HIE infrared film.
This series focuses on the state of Kerala at the southern tip of India, a unique
combination of plantations, canals, mountains and coast.
Polonsky has been a fine art photographer for over ten years. He has been
collaborating with Melvin Cambettie Davies on these prints, and they have arrived at
a particular combination of split toning and printing which amplifies the magical
quality of the infrared images.
Polonsky's work is focused on the evocation of pure and ancient landscapes. These
artworks are about recording an unspoilt landscape, where evidence of modern human
interference has been kept to a minimum. In attempting to preserve these
environments by creating timeless pictures he evokes images from photography's
origin. His combination of infrared film and split toned printing creates the
feeling of an historical image, the sense of someone observing these places with a
camera for the first time.
'Kodak HIE infrared film is itself an endangered material. Originally used for
aerial reconnaissance it is incredibly sensitive, requires delicate handling, and
its lack of an anti-halation backing makes it very liable to flare. But this also
gives a magical quality to my subjects - the blown out highlights of living
vegetation literally glow with light. And though through experience I have a good
idea of what my results will be, working with HIE is not so much documenting or
recording landscape - because the material itself has this unknown quality [we are
after all photographing part of the spectrum not visible to the naked eye] - as
transforming it.'
Opening 8 november 2007
The Association of Photographers
81 Leonard Street, London
free admission