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Paul Carruthers
Paul Carruthers
Paul Carruthers

Paul Carruthers

Country: United Kingdom
Birth: 1970

Born on Merseyside in 1970, Carruthers was a footballer first and creative second. Only after a knee injury ended his playing career did he begin to see the world through a different lens. Wandering around the streets of Liverpool with his trusted Fuji, Carruthers’ early work examined the funny, the absurd and the beautiful. A move to Devon in the 2000’s saw him begin the approaches for which he is most famous for today.

Serene landscapes and still water marked his style during this period, with an emphasis on strong contrasts and stylised seascapes.

He became the British Life Photographer of the Year in 2017, with his photograph Lifeguard earning national news coverage. His photographs have toured Australia and Asia and he has been recognised by a number of prestigious magazines and competitions: most notably the Head On Photography Awards and the ND Awards.

His seminal series Grockles explores the relationship between tourist (or Grockle, as they’re known in Devon) and local, and has garnered widespread accolades. Often taking a humorous tone to serious subjects, Carruthers’ work has tackled wide ranging topics including tourism, the housing crisis, light pollution, and more. His keen eye for light, shadow and colour, demonstrated through award winning images like ‘Vitamin C’ and ‘Better Call Saul’, is subtle in its use of its environment to illustrate meaning behind the centered characters.

Through this work, Carruthers was recently crowned as Oneeyeland’s number 1 UK street photographer. His work continues to highlight one of the unseen crises at the heart of the UK, and in typical British style, to explore the humour, absurdity and beauty that are present in seaside communities across Devon and Cornwall.

Statement:
Imagine you’re on a Devon high street under the hot sun, or on the edge of a breakwater as the water strikes the stone. This is beautiful country, patchwork country. Fields knit together like coloured felt. Expensive boots strike against cobbles, or are stripped away and discarded in favour of sandy feet. The water is still; the water is uproarious. The locals wipe away a sheen of sweat.

There is everything. Beauty and silence, underpinned by the absurdity of hordes of tourists descending upon a part of the world that for many years was home to nothing but fishermen, or, when times were bad, shipwreckers. Second homes sit dormant for most of the year. Industries strain under the pressure of the boom and bust of the holiday season.

For an artist, this is a treasure trove. Nature and people both exist simultaneously in ideal form and under great stress. I’ve explored a number of projects over the years, from the horses of Carlisle Bay in Barbados, to Lost in Venice, but my greatest body of works lies in both my landscape series Devotion, and my street photography series Grockles. It is in these that I paint an honest picture of a region and its people.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Barbara Cole
Canada
1953
For the last forty-five years, artist Barbara Cole has been recapturing the otherworldly mysteries of early photography in a body of work that flows in and out of time. Born in 1953 in Toronto, Canada, Cole, eager to shape a place for herself at an early age, quickly turned to art. Immediately out of high school, she began modeling for a newspaper and soon became fashion editor for the following ten years. Her early start in fashion and self-taught practice have informed her intuitive photography that undulates between tradition and invention. Her inventor's spirit is evident in her preference for raw, hands-on photographic methods. From turn-of-the-century cameras, shadow boxes, darkrooms, and tintypes-she engages directly in shaping her images in order to impart deeply personal truths. The underwater photography for which Cole is most known started in the late 1990s. Once, submerged in her pool, she opened her eyes and what she saw reminded her of the Polaroid film she was so fond of until it eventually went out of production. She has been searching for timelessness ever since. The wavy, enigmatic waters are often juxtaposed against weightless figures, forming her signature, velvety dreamscapes. In these figures we see human beings who are just-just-on the verge of forming complete selves, suggesting we are always in the process of recreating ourselves, always striving to reach new heights. As an innovator in her field, Cole ventures into territories full of light and shadow, memory and dreams, with imagery that is nothing short of exaltation. Whether reincorporating twenty-year-old images in current underwater photography, or reimagining a modern format for the turn-of-the-century tintype, Cole's work shortens the distance between past and present. For Cole history is written in water. Cole has held numerous exhibitions across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. Her work has also been extensively commissioned internationally for corporate collections. She has exhibited in the Canadian Embassy in both Tokyo and Washington D.C. The acclaimed documentary series, Snapshot: The Art of Photography II, features an episode devoted exclusively to Cole's photographic practice. Cole currently lives and works in Toronto. Articles Exclusive Interview with Barbara Cole Barbara Cole and Wet Collodion Photographs Galleries Bau-Xi Gallery Galerie de Bellefeuille Art Angels Holden Luntz Gallery NOX Contemporary Art Space
Agata Vera Schiller
Agata Vera Schiller was born in 1980 in Inowroclaw, Poland. Grew up in the countryside surrounded by loving family and beautiful nature. She has graduated at the Faculty of Journalism in Poznan in 2003. Lived for several months in Scotland, spending time drawing and taking pictures of landscapes with her first camera Zenit. In 2006, she has made Masters at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, drawing workshop. Moved to Warsaw and began postgraduate studies at the Department of Interior Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, which she graduated in 2009. Worked for several years as an interior and furniture designer. In 2010 she moved to Beijing for 3 years, working, living and taking lifestyle pictures. In Beijing began her journey in darkroom focused on discovery old techniques of classical photography such as wet plate. Beijing is also a place, where was held her first solo exhibition „Sol oriens” in 2011 at the Polish Embassy in Beijing, and then at the Chaoyang Culture Center in Beijing. She took part in several collective photo exhibitions in Poland. Her photography is not only a lifestyle photography looking for a beauty in simplicity of Scandinavian interior style and magic of everyday life. But the closest to her heart are nostalgic portraits of women, found somewhere between the worlds, living in a dreams. Agata’s fine art photography is characterized by tension between sensual experience and intellectual construction. Agata currently lives and works in Warsaw as a freelance photographer.
Edward Burtynsky
Burtynsky was born in St. Catharines, Ontario. His parents had immigrated to Canada in 1951 from Ukraine and his father found work on the production line at the local General Motors plant. Burtynsky recalls playing by the Welland Canal and watching ships pass through the locks. When he was 11, his father purchased a darkroom, including cameras and instruction manuals, from a widow whose late husband practiced amateur photography. With his father, Burtynsky learned how to make black and white prints and together with his older sister established a small business taking portraits at the local Ukrainian center. In the early 1970s, Burtynsky found work in printing and he started night classes in photography, later enrolling at the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. From the mid-1970s to early 1980s, Burtynsky formally studied graphic arts and photography. He obtained a diploma in graphic arts from Niagara College in Welland, Ontario, in 1976, and a BAA in Photographic Arts (Media Studies Program) from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto, Ontario, in 1982. Burtynsky's most famous photographs are sweeping views of landscapes altered by industry: mine tailings, quarries, scrap piles. The grand, awe-inspiring beauty of his images is often in tension with the compromised environments they depict. He has made several excursions to China to photograph that country's industrial emergence, and construction of one of the world's largest engineering projects, the Three Gorges Dam. His early influences include Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Eadweard Muybridge, and Carleton Watkins, whose prints he saw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the early 1980s. 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His remarkable photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes are included in the collections of over sixty major museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, the Tate Modern in London, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California. Burtynsky was born in 1955 of Ukrainian heritage in St. Catharines, Ontario. He received his BAA in Photography/ Media Studies from Ryerson University in 1982, and in 1985 founded Toronto Image Works, a darkroom rental facility, custom photo laboratory, digital imaging and new media computer-training centre catering to all levels of Toronto's art community. Early exposure to the sites and images of the General Motors plant in his hometown helped to formulate the development of his photographic work. 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As an active lecturer on photographic art, Burtynsky's speaking engagements have been held at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; George Eastman House in Rochester, NY; The Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal; the Art Gallery of Ontario, the TED conference; and Idea City and Ryerson University in Toronto. His images appear in numerous periodicals each year including Canadian Art, Art in America, The Smithsonian Magazine, Harper's Magazine, Flash Art, Blind Spot, Art Forum, Saturday Night, National Geographic and the New York Times. Burtynsky's distinctions include the TED Prize, the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts, The Outreach award at the Rencontres d'Arles, the Roloff Beny Book award, and the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award. He sits on the board of directors for CONTACT: Toronto's International Photography Festival, and The Ryerson Image Centre. In 2006 he was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of Canada and currently holds seven honorary doctorate degrees. Burtynsky is represented by: Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto; Paul Kuhn Gallery, Calgary; Art 45, Montreal; Howard Greenberg Gallery, and Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, New York; Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Hong Kong & Singapore; Flowers, London; Galerie Springer, Berlin; Von Lintel Gallery, Los Angeles; and Weinstein Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Source: www.edwardburtynsky.com
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1954
San Francisco native Ernie Luppi became involved with photography in 1973 when he started using his mother's Instamatic 126 camera that he and his brothers had given to her as a Christmas gift the previous year. During this time, Ernie was attending the City College of San Francisco and decided to switch his major to photography. The CCSF Photography Department offered one of the finest programs in the area and it helped Ernie unearth the creativity within him. To this day, Ernie is an avid black and white film and darkroom enthusiast. In 1975, Ernie graduated from CCSF with an Associate of Science degree in Photography and has spent the past 39 years in retail photography sales, first working at Adolph Gasser, Inc. for 23 years, followed by 16 years at Keeble and Shuchat in their respective film and darkroom supply departments. Ernie's photographic vision is varied. It ranges from travel, portraiture, street, and the urban landscape. Ernie has often quoted, “I am a jack of all trades and a master of none,” but really he is just curious about everything that he sees through his camera lens. An association with RayKo Photo Center was established in June of 1992 when Ernie had a solo exhibition of photographs, all of them gelatin silver prints, that he had taken during trips to Italy in 1981 and 1991. For the past decade, with the guidance of gallery director Ann Jastrab, Ernie has been a member of RayKo's Photographers Marketplace. Ernie's images have also been selected for RayKo exhibitions such as the documentary show "With Our Own Eyes", "The Perimeter of the World: Contemporary Travel Photography", as well as several Plastic Camera Show exhibits. He continues to photograph daily and can usually be found in his darkroom.
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Debbie Miracolo
United States
1953
Debbie Miracolo is a photo-based artist interested in transition and passage of time. A former graphic designer with a fine art education, she creates inventive images with a sharp attention to detail and composition, often with a generous sprinkling of emotion and whimsy. She attributes her outlook to memories of an introverted childhood infused with make-believe worlds and storybooks. By transforming rather than documenting truth, her interpretations of humanity, nature, and train travel serve as seductive invitations to linger, question, and weave a story of one's own. Growing up as an only child in a home with her European parents and grandmother made her childhood reality different from that of her friends. She was introverted, shy, and intimidated by the world around her, but found that creating art alleviated some of the loneliness she felt and helped her to express her feelings. By the time she finished high school she had become skilled at drawing and painting. At Rochester Institute of Technology she earned a BFA, studying printmaking, photography, and art history, and later moved to New York City to pursue her artistic dreams. There she began a 15-year career as a graphic designer in the busy publishing and advertising industries. With the birth of her two sons and subsequent move to a Victorian house in a suburban New York town, she shifted all of her energy, diving into motherhood, and for several years the creative spirit within her lay patiently dormant. As most artists know however, that spirit never truly leaves, and as her children approached adolescence she could sense it regaining strength. Feeling drawn to photography once again, Debbie made the decision to revisit the medium as an art form. She began taking classes and workshops at the International Center of Photography, gaining mastery of the craft and honing her own personal vision. From there, there was no turning back, and she has been making and focusing on her art ever since. Debbie's work has been published, notably on the cover of Geo Wissen Magazine and most recently, in F-Stop Magazine. Her images have been exhibited in a number of galleries in New York City, Boston, St. Petersburg, Fl. and Middlebury, Vt. as well as online media. About Imagined Moments from the Porch "It was a bewildering, absurd world I found myself in during the first chaotic months of the Covid-19 outbreak. Through incongruous juxtapositions, metaphor and a bit of whimsy, these photo composites of my neighbors portray the surreal, confused and off-kilter feeling I had then, and which still lingers today. With many of us sheltering in place, pedestrian traffic had increased remarkably in my quiet town. People paraded by on the street, some of whom I'd never seen before; young and old, parents with children, and more and more dogs as the weeks went by. I began to photograph what I observed from the steps of my front porch and, over a period of four spring and summer months, the project evolved. The idea to reconstruct the photographs came to me when I needed to switch out a person, and with that one manipulation, it became clear that I would take the series in a more imaginative direction. As the virus numbers increased and the news became more alarming by the day, I digitally rearranged my characters in more unlikely ways. It was as if my wish to change reality and my doubts about what to believe were coming through in my images. Imagined Moments from the Porch is a kind of theatrical narrative made up of fictional scenes I compose to depict my off-beat version of these dark, confusing, and upside-down days." -- Debbie Miracolo
William Castellana
United States
1968
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