Amateur photographer Chris Court,
winner of both the Close-up and Lifestyle sections of this year’s Cayfest
island-wide photography competition, held his first solo exhibition last
Thursday.
Sponsored by Tortuga Liquors in
Governor’s Square, the two-hour showing and accompanying wine tasting generated
a lot of interest and helped introduce his art to a wider audience.
The exhibit showcased the graphic
designer’s wide-ranging interest in wildlife, landscape, seascape and travel
photography, with images taken locally and during his many travels overseas.
Saturated with colour and superbly composed, the photographs reviewed by
visitors were displayed on photographic canvas. “I love the look and feel of
canvas gallery wraps,” he said when asked about his preferred means of presentation.
“It holds vibrant, bold colours. They don’t need framing, and they have a
modern look, but fit in with almost any décor. The downside is that they can
get expensive to print, especially at larger sizes.”
Andrew Murray, one of the many
visitors who flocked to the one-night-only exhibit, said: “ What struck me most
about Chris Court’s photography was the clarity and detail of his work and the
variety of subject matter…”
The New Zealander’s long-held
interest in capturing vignettes of the natural world was first sparked by a
happy childhood spent browsing through his parents’ back copies of National Geographic
magazines and Time Life books. He finally took up the camera seriously four
years ago when crewing on a yacht that was making a Pacific crossing. The trip
prompted him to buy his first digital SLR camera to record the experience for
posterity.
Over the years, Mr. Court has
developed his skills, resulting in a number of his photos being published in
coffee table books, newspapers, magazines and adverts.
Accessible and shot with an
unerring eye for the rich diversity of nature and to a lesser extent the urban
environment, his work has continued to gain mass appeal boosted by his recent
wins, word-of-mouth and his website: http://photo.net/photos/chriscourt
The photographer’s work can also be
found in a number of private collections.
Happiest when working on a
photography assignment, he said that what he prizes most is photography’s
ability to offer a window into a “strange and beautiful world”.
“My first love is macro photography
also known as close-up photography. It’s a window into a completely different
and often exquisitely beautiful viewpoint on life. The world takes on a whole
different perspective when you can count each shimmering scale on a butterfly
wing, the grains of pollen in a seemingly gigantic flower, or specks of dust
suspended in a water droplet,” he said.
While photography is usually a
solitary pursuit, Mr. Court also enjoys the camaraderie and technical know-how
found as a member of the Cayman Islands Camera Club, which meets on the third
Wednesday of the month at Breezes.
As a way of documenting reality,
photography has evolved with the advent of SLRs and the photographer’s
familiarity with Adobe’s Photoshop software allows him to fine-tune images to
get the results he wants. “As a general rule however, I try to avoid extreme
image manipulation, and restrict my post-processing to tonal and colour adjustments
to set the mood of an image,” he said.
“Shooting digitally has also opened
the way to HDR (High Dynamic Range) and Panoramic stitching techniques that I
use to generate images that would otherwise be impossible to capture”.
The art, food and wine tasting
evening featured Clos du Bois wines and Dolce Vita appetisers.
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