Acclaimed photographers Stephen Jeremy Maxwell Bray, and Michael John Eldridge have chosen Turkey as the premier of their new work ‘Trees and Sky’.
Trees and Sky is not simply an exhibition but marks the start of an on-going project aimed to help people reconnect with the elemental aspects of life, which for many are obscured by the pressures of everyday life.
The exhibition images are a number of large prints featuring the Sibillini Mountains of Le Marche, Italy, and the rugged hills that are to be found on the Lorima Peninsular, Turkey.
Bray and Eldridge met 35 years ago in a college in England where Eldridge taught photography, but they lost touch after the class ended.
Bray went on to pursue a dual career as both columnist and photographer for a number of publications, as a side-string to his main career as a psychotherapist. Since coming to live in Turkey in 2000 he has taught a generation of Turkish professionals Family Therapy and continues to play a significant role in the field.
Eldridge left his post as Director of Post Graduate Studies in Photography at the prestigious Bournemouth College of Art in order to work with Sue Mann (ex Art Director of Vogue) in her company ‘Synektics’ a London based media company, U.K. During this period he worked with many famous photographers including Lord Snowdon, the former husband of Princess Margaret. He met the American landscape photographer Ansel Adams, whilst teaching in California as a Fulbright Scholar.
Bray’s images appeared regularly in ‘Cahoots’, a regional magazine about alternative lifestyles published in the North of England, and also in ‘The County Forum’, a Dorset based publication. More recently he was published in ‘Holiday Magazine, Turkey’. He also worked in the U.K with the advertising photographer Shaun Cullen, and portraitist Nigel Port. His work is finding its way into a number of private collections.
Eldridge and Bray have been taking photographs since they were boys and together have put over 100 man years into the study and application of the medium. They share a remarkable kindred-like relationship that enables them to take up their ability to work and banter even after prolonged absences of contact.
Remarkably Eldridge, at an age when most people would be firmly retired, has just launched a second career for himself as a Creativity Coach, which enables him to continue to teach young people ways to enhance their lives and careers.
Over the years they have taken part in over 20 Exhibitions in Europe and North America but hitherto have never shown their work together.
Bray took the opportunity to launch ‘Trees and Sky’ in Marmaris when Özgur Uğan, of Netsel Marina, Marmaris, suggested that Netsel Gallery would be a perfect venue. Eldridge was keen to bring his work to Turkey, having visited the country in his youth.
Plans are already in hand to take the exhibition to Urfa, where Bray will make some new images to add to those he has taken in and around Marmaris.
Trees and Sky is opening to private view on 28th May at Netsel Gallery, Marmaris and will be open to the public from 29th May until 10th June.
2 Comments
Thanks it takes people like you to help us realise just how much contentment and beauty we are surrounded by. Thank you
There is a truth in the elements and living things us humans most of time merely assume. The tree is perhaps the paramount living thing on Earth and it receives the greatest abuse and finest love from us Homo Sapiens. Some live within its breast and see magic in the reality of moving time. Also, the color blue, that azure semblance that holds a color akin to poetry is the surrounding orb of the blanket that warms the whole world. These two men, friends of old, have come together to show us how normal living can just be . . just be. And the light from the sky is the illumination providing means for the recording of it all.