Jo
Bradford

Amongst the wealth of wonderful art on display at this year’s Photo Fair at Somerset House, we had the pleasure of meeting Jo Bradford, and being introduced to her beautiful work: exploring light, colour, and the nature of visual experience through ‘camaraless’ photography.

As with many of Jo’s projects, ‘Colour Stories’ began in the darkroom. Drawing on her carefully crafted method for capturing the essence of geometry and light, Jo exposed instant film to precisely timed flashes of colour to create this vivid and evocative series.

Using a combination of varied exposure-lengths, and by moving masks across the film to manipulate and modify the path of the light, Jo creates rich, beautiful images from fleeting moments. Driven by a desire to explore the preservation and communication of singular experiences, Jo’s process is an endlessly-evolving product of almost two decades of experimentation. Physically manipulating the light’s interaction with the instant film, Jo produces analogue art with fascinating results. Not only does she use photography to explore abstract concepts, but also the medium itself: deconstructing photography to its most fundamental elements of shape and colour captured in time. Through the seemingly complex and scientific structure of Jo's art, we’re completely fascinated by the joyful and colourful images.