Barry Lategan is one of this country's most influential contemporary fashion photographers, and shows previously unseen work derived from a commission for the Millennium stamp. Meanwhile Bruce Rae's flower images as David Lillington observes "certainly are not about gardening.”

BARRY LATEGAN

Olympus Feature Barry Lategan Flowers

Lategan’s series of previously unexhibited flower images stems from a commission for the Millenium stamp. Lategan’s understanding of form and balance is evident throughout his work, and the simplicity of these flower compositions describes his visual expertise. While these flowers also take on new forms, as they kiss and embrace each other, Lategan’s vision can be compared to the ilke of Mapplethorpe.

Lategan was Born in South Africa in 1935, he came to England to study at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, his study was interrupted by a call to National Service in Germany, it was there he developed an interest in photography and returned to South Africa where he trained with Ginger Odes in Cape Town, returning to London in the early 1960s to open a photographic studio. Through the 80s he lived in the US and now lives and works in London.

Lategan is famous for taking Twiggys iconic first pictures-two of which are exhibited in the V&A Museum. Over the last 40 years he’s photographed some of the most notable celebrities including HRH Princess Anne, Paul and Linda McCartney, Imam, Germaine Greer, Calvin Klein, Sol Campbell, John Major, Margaret Thatcher and Salmon Rushdie.His Fashion photography has made it to the front cover of International Editions of Vogue and Harpers Bazaar, the 1988 Pirelli Calender, a tradition dating back to 1964, where he shot one model dressed in a tyre print body suit that creates a look straight out of a Dali painting.

His photographs have been exhibited and retained by The Victoria and Albert Museum, The National Portrait Gallery, The Royal Photographic Society of Bath, and The South African National Gallery.
Other Plaudits include a Clio Award for a T.V. commercial for Armani Perfume and a D&AD Award for the Millenium Stamp.

Prints are signed and editioned and start at £650

BRUCE RAE

Bruce Rae’s Flora as David Lillington writing in the October 1990 edition of “Arts Review” observes are “certainly they are not about gardening.” Rae’s flower images are not concerned with a Linnaean attempt to describe or classify, but uses flora as a vehicle to examine his own preoccupations with mortality- “I am interested in the point at which things emerge and then disappear; in the narrow span of existence between birth and death.”” The roses are open to interpretations which give them human attributes. It is possible to see them drooping, weeping, being young, middle aged or dying.”

In a formal sense Rae’s work concerns itself with balance, which is composition within the rectangle and tonality, which is a way of describing light. He believes that formal values are inseparable from the heart of his work.

He trained at Birmingham School of Photography in the mid nineteen sixties and at the Royal College of Art in the early nineteen seventies. His training at Birmingham was based on Commercial practice and believes without doubt that craft skills are central to any articulate Art practice. He uses wooden cameras of up to 10 inch by 8 inch formats and still uses traditional wet darkroom procedures.

The silver gelatin prints displayed here are in the main unrepeatable, most were made on a Kodak paper called Ektalure. Rae’s choice of materials contributes greatly to the distinct qualities of his work and most of his favoured choices are no longer available.