Sam Deards Photography
I don’t often find myself wandering the backstreets of Belgravia. In fact, I would say it was probably the first time I had found myself doing so. Fortunately, however, I had a destination in mind and thanks to the wonder of Google Maps, knew roughly where I was going.
Down a backstreet, off another one and then squeezed between a quirky looking pub (note to self: revisit pub) and a cornershop was a small court in which vines climbed and iron table and chairs sat. In the evening light, it looked like it could have walked out of a Fitzgerald novel or similar.
My destination, however, couldn’t really have been more modern and less turn of the century – an exhibition of (digital) photography. Sam Deards has started to make serious inroads into the photographical work using a combination of a good eye for photography, the omnipresent convenience of small, but powerful, digital cameras and even his iPhone. I honestly couldn’t tell which photos were taken on which piece of equipment and frankly it didn’t matter.
He has managed to combine an eye for urban landscapes, detail and turning the mundane into the fascinating. All, to my mind, the sign of a true photographer; someone who is constantly on the lookout for the unusual composition, the interesting light condition and even weather that makes an otherwise dull scene come to life.
Printed on a variety of materials, framed in his own, handmade frames and all hugely engaging, his photos are really captivating. I can’t really do it justice with words (I don’t have time for a thousand…), but his photo of the degrading paint at the bottom of a Royal Mail Postbox really stuck out for me as very unusual and really quite beautiful.
