All images ©Dean Hollowood
These are a few images that Dean Hollowood submitted from his lovely little project Still Closer. The work, he says, is "informed by a long period of hearing loss and is a reflection of life viewed through the minutia of my domestic surroundings."
He kindly fills in the details and explained further:
"Ten years ago I was diagnosed with a degenerative middle ear disease. My hearing gradually deteriorated to the point where I could no longer recognise sounds outside my immediate environment. This had a profound effect on my physical and psychological outlook. Silence changes the way you look at the world, it enables us to observe and reflect without being disturbed. More importantly the work is an expression of the emotional response to silence encompassing notions of melancholy, isolation and humour.
Shot in landscape I reference cinematic psychodramas, each study is initiated through chance, part snapshot part staged. Focusing on the sculptural and abstract, and paying particular attention to colour I exploit the available light to fetishise the subject through the act of photography."
Dean studied at St Martins and went on to work in editorial and design, clients included the charity Shelter along with the Guardian and Sunday Times Magazines. More recently he has focused on self initiated projects and have exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, John Kobal Exhibition prize winner, The Lowry Centre, Salford and Four Corners Gallery in Bethnal Green. The project Still Closer was awarded the jurors choice prize at the 2008 Santa Fe Review project competition, and is about to be exhibited as part of the Format Festival, Photocinema in Derby.
