SOME/IMAGE : LARRY PAUL SCOTT

elements of self part 22  september 5 2014 milan italy - photography courtesy larry paul scott

elements of self part 15february 21 2014 milan italy - photography courtesy larry paul scott

elements of self part 17 june 13 2014 milan italy - photography courtesy larry paul scott

elements of self part 12  january 20 2014 milan italy - photography courtesy larry paul scott

“Reality exists in the shadows and shades of grey”
                 - Larry Paul Scott


Just like the sounds of jazz he is inspired by, photographer Larry Paul Scott weaves together disparate strands, in his case images, by yoking together microcosms of the larger world to form grafted narratives. Through these small moments spliced together, Scott forces us to look again, with new ways of seeing.

For Scott, who has spent twenty years in front of the camera as a model, beauty is “simply honest, raw and perhaps at times uncomfortable”, the antithesis of what he calls the “dishonest beauty” of our media. In one of his photographs, a woman with a black eye smiles disarmingly towards the camera, as the blemish-free mannequins juxtaposed next to her stare eerily into the distance. 

His use of black and white, highlights his use of textures; fish net stockings on the curves of a woman’s body are echoed in the outer zigzags of a building’s facade, another woman’s bedhead is mimicked by the branches and twigs of a barren tree. Sometimes the narrative amuses; a sleeping man on the left, appears to dream of the seductive flesh on the right, while other juxtapositions are not so linear but make for compelling viewing nonetheless, all the time reminding us how much there is to take in, in this macro world, and how it is the little instances that comprise it.

larrypaulscott.com

Text by Shana Chandra | S/TUDIO