Sam Ferris: IN VISIBLE LIGHT
“In visible light is a personal project that interrogates my perceptions and experiences of living in Sydney – a city where the cost of living has never been higher and the sense of anxiety never more acutely felt.
For me, it is there in the minutia of the rush to or home from the office – the stress of finding a work/ life balance to ‘have it all’; it’s there in the tedium of the daily commute; the packed street corners at peak hour when masses are corralled but never connected; it is there in the moments of collision or happenstance that exist for a fraction of a second, never to occur again; and it is in the brief gestures or expressions that let slip the facade. With every moment, I feel the compulsion to photograph – to delve deeper and see life through the disclosing tool that is light. Pouring down its streets and reflecting off the expansive glass surfaces, it seems to punctuate my experiences of the world.
A culmination of more than 10 years of work, this is Sydney as I have witnessed it.”
(Sam Ferris)
To celebrate the release of In Visible Light, 8×8 and 12×8 prints are available alongside the book. Exclusive C-Type photographic prints, signed and dated, of selected images from In Visible Light.
About the Author
Sam Ferris has been shooting on the streets of Sydney for more than 10 years. He is an organizer and co-founder of the AUSSIE STREET FESTIVAL and a member of BURN MY EYE Collective. His work has been published in Internationale, Photo Review Magazine, Capture Magazine, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, Lonely Planet, Fellow Traveller the magazine of China Rail, and as an Editor’s selection on Lensculture.
“In every spare, waking moment I have, I am making photographs or thinking about them. In my sleep, I’m dreaming them. I walk the Sydney streets and my intent is – and always has been – to discover and make candid photos of our times, in public places, that are un-staged, unmediated, and representative of not only what I see but also of what I feel — my emotional experiences of the world.”
In 2019 Sam was named as the winner of ‘Australasia’s Emerging Photographer’ in the category of Documentary/ Photojournalism. Sam’s images have been exhibited in two featured street photography exhibitions at Head On Photo Festival in Sydney as well as in exhibitions in Europe, the USA, and the UK. He has been a Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize finalist (2019) and prize-winner at Street Photo San Francisco, a finalist in Art and About’s ‘Australian Life’ Photographic Prize, as well as a finalist in Miami Street Photography Festival and Brussels Street Photography Festival.
His ongoing project on living in Sydney entitled ‘In Visible Light’ was featured in the academic text ‘Photography as a Social Research Method’ (2016), and recently alongside his heroes Trent Parke and Jesse Marlow, Sam was one of three Australian street photographers selected for the book ‘100 Great Street Photographs’ (2017), edited by David Gibson and released by Prestel Publishing. Sam holds an Honours degree in Arts and a Masters of Teaching. He is represented by Black Eye gallery, Sydney.
He lives in Newtown, NSW, and works full-time as a high school teacher.
