Lee Towndrow is a designer turned photographer from Canada who has travelled and lived all over the world, eventually settling in New York – where he continues to produce beautiful & interesting work. usually i’d select my favourite images when featuring a photographer, but Lee’s individual projects are so interesting and really deserve to be seen in their entirety. i particularly loved his ongoing series of Paper Portraits, as well as the personal projects Anachronisms No.1 & Anachronisms No.2 – where old men and young kids essentially switch places. No.2 (the one with the kids) is especially beautiful to me, as it was shot on film using only natural light. impressive!
Paper Portraits
“Lee Towndrow was looking for a way to reinvent the portrait. He began experimenting with the colored paper common to photography studios in a more three dimensional way.” – Bransch
Anachronisms No.2
“In these large-scale colour photographs, I construct a series of anachronisms as a means to study intimacy and the fashion image. I’ve been watching the relationships around me changing. When we’re young, we’re unfamiliar with closeness and intimacy, and yet it all comes very naturally to us. And as we age, we tend to distance ourselves from others, choosing in some cases to become personally intimate only with a partner. I was interested in what it might look like when those roles were reversed.”
Anachronisms No.1
“Lee Towndrow has inverted our expectations by casting seniors in the role of a band of youthful, carefree, streetwise hooligans. As a testament to his theatrical and photographic skills, Towndrow’s series is replete with detail, expression, emotion and narrative. We feel like we are part of The Juniors. But do we want to go back and relive our youth?” – Heather Morton
all photographs by Lee Towndrow
