National Photographic Portrait Prize 2010 Finalist
From a new series titled A portrait: Visitors to my village, this image of Gurkirat continues my life-long preoccupation with portraiture involving a full-frontal gaze to the camera. The genesis of this particular genre dates from the beginning of photography itself. That self-conscious stare back to the photographer, so evident in early photography, has always held a fascination for me. In this series of portraits of young visitors from overseas that are here to study, I have used a purposefully stark mise-en-scene and a judicious sense of colour in an attempt to pare these portraits back to this very conscious essence.