RICHARD LEAROYD Interview 2016

Born 1966, Lancashire, England. Lives and works in London, England. Richard Learoyds color images are made with one of the most antiquarian of photographic processes: the camera obscura. Literally translated from Latin as dark room, Learoyd has created a roomsized camera in which the photographic paper is exposed. The subjectoften a person, sometimes a still lifeis in the adjacent room, separated by a lens. Light falling on the subject is directly focused onto the photographic paper without an interposing film negative. The result is an entirely grainless image. The overall sense of these largerthanlife images redefines the photographic illusion. Learoyds subjects, composed simply and directly, are described with the thinnest plane of focus, recreating and exaggerating the way that the human eye perceives, and not without a small acknowledgement to Dutch Master painting. Learoyds blackandwhite gelatin silver contact prints are made using the negative, positive process invented roughl