Swimmer, Kolomna, St. Petersburg, 1999
Swimmer, (Descent from Cross), Kolmna, St. Petersburg, 1999      Christopher Harrington

This and more images available in my Silver Sale.

In Ireland where I have lived since 2003, I have encountered many in the art world resisting photography as recognised art. I have written articles advocating for photography as art while also been told at granting stage that it is not art.  This year, great event:  a first~ever photo show is mounted at the National Gallery of Ireland https://www.nationalgallery.ie/art-and-artists/exhibitions/view-ireland-collecting-photography

In Leningrad/St. Petersburg in my 20s, I absorbed the work of Rodchenko and many contemporary photographers like Boris Smelov, a mentor who died too young.  I looked to the ballet of the Kirov/Mariinsky Theater and the bustling street life for observations of movement and music.  And, I memorised the halls of the Hermitage Museum offering locations of strong collections of light as recorded by Impressionists, Reubens, and Rembrandt.

I began to see all of St. Petersburg's arts tradition infused into daily life of people I lived with and observed on the streets. My own compositions seemed to start to dialogue the sum of material increasingly impossible to ignore as I progressed with my work.

This image was made in the local Kolomna public pool. At this location, there were issues to resolve, both in terms of the subject matter and in terms of technical challenges of a large, dark space. In addition, the people swimming when during a therapeutic swim. It was dark enough, so there were issues to resolve both in terms of light and depiction of the subject matter in an interpretive sense. While working, I recall a moment of clarity and inspiration, borrowing from a well~known Rembrandt painting at the Hermitage. I made this image of the swimmer as if descending from the cross (both over him and under him) drawn on the bottom of the pool.