Vendredi 03 Août 2012 15:13:22 par actuphoto dans Expositions

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.'