Thursday, January 29, 2009

Photographer Feature - Robyn Cumming, Toronto


Many Shades of Pink by Robyn Cumming, Copyright Robyn Cumming

Tonight I was cleaning my inbox and came across an old e-newsletter from OttawaXpress, a weekly arts and entertainment newspaper that read religiously when I was living in Ottawa. I mostly read the visual arts reviews online now. This review was about Robyn Cumming, a Toronto based photographer. I won't rehash the review here, but I will recommend you check out Robyn's cool website. On it you will see five series of images. Many of them, like the image above from the series Little Legs, are humorous and disturbing at the same time. As a photographer, I tend to make images of beauty, but have always been drawn to the beauty in the disturbing. It is amazing how the lens can make a situation that is totally benign, seem almost horrific, thanks to the way it has been captured by the photographer to inspire your imagination. Many of Cumming's images looks like scenes from a play. Her work is referred to as "staged-reality". I particularly like the series Bound, which featured portraits of people and the things they are bound by, and then portraits of just the things. I also really like her bio.

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