Stephen Gill is a London-based photographer. He has developed a practice in which materials gathered from the places he photographs—such as plants, soil, insects, and everyday objects—are incorporated into the photographic process itself, allowing the location to physically affect the image.
Outside In brings together a series made for New Documents at the 2010 Brighton Photo Biennial. Photographed in Brighton & Hove, the works were created by placing items found on streets and beaches—seaweed, plants, insects, false eyelashes, jelly bears, fish tails, and other fragments—inside the camera, causing accidental images to overlap with landscapes and portraits.
Rather than adding elements to the photographs afterward, Gill allows fragments of the place to enter the image at the moment of exposure. Some negatives were also marked by focusing sunlight through a magnifying glass or by being soaked in the sea, making the physical environment of Brighton part of the photographic work.
Outside In Stephen Gill Photoworks / Archive of Modern Conflict, 2010 172 × 212 × 15 mm Signed
