Went to meet friends at Stratford-upon-Avon today. We decided to have a look around the recently renovated Royal Shakespeare Theatre and came across a fabulous exhibition.
Tom Hunter's A Midsummer Nights Dream was inspired by the Shakespeare play of the same name. The photographs are visually very striking, dramatic , and full of minute detail cleverly referencing the play's themes. Translated into a modern setting, using a troupe put together from his local neighbourhood, each subject plays a role in the visual masquerade , motivated by the work of Romantic painter Henry Fuseli (see below) .
His website is well worth a look at , the images draw inspiration from Johannes Vermeer and are carefully considered in their use of light, hues and composition. His subjects, inhabitants of Hackney, London, show an inner poise and demonstrate his affinity with the people and area. Using an established approach he creates thoroughly modern and individual images. Describing how his personal style evolved Tom comments "One of the attractions of photography for me is this notion of realism, the belief that the camera never lies. Vermeer gave us a window into a real world but also a world imagined through his art. It is exactly this that attracts me to photography. The images are real, yet created by the person manipulating the camera." Tom Hunter.