Being There

A collection of photographic pinhole portraits captured at KALEID project Space, London. Guests, passers-by and the curious were invited into a temporary studio and asked to remain completely still for the duration of one minute: this was the required duration of the film exposure. It demanded of the sitters a sense of unexpected commitment, their self-expression in the face of alterity. A long exposure picks up the inevitable movements created by any living body: breathing, blinking, tiny shifts; this camera's gaze, though seemingly gentle - no viewfinder, a tiny hole instead of a lens - is also unflinching. It sees and records the smallest change in facial expression. To remain fully composed for a whole minute is a challenge and is not always possible; it is an exposure in multiple senses of the word. I see in these images slices of time compressed into the flatness of photographs. They are complex personal records of time and place; sixty seconds of life, a gift.