Leon Kreel’s photography exhibition takes us to destinations that we have never seen before, and reveals the unexpected in familiar local places.
This exhibition will take you on a photographic journey from the drama and danger of stark landscapes and stormy seas to the intimacy of encounters with people in countries around the world where a picture really does say a thousand words.
Leon says:
My mother’s box Brownie started it all. I loved loading the camera with Kodak 120 roll film and was captivated by that smell of film. I spent hours and used up rolls of film taking photos of our dog, my friends, family and the surrounding landscape.
I look back on those days when I waited impatiently for the rolls of film to be developed by the local chemist. I still have those photos – virtually all black & white – in the old style albums with their black sheets and leather covers and remember clearly the fun of placing the images carefully using the photo corners supplied in the boxes of 100’s.
As the years passed my interest grew and I started to take photographs for creative reasons rather than record taking. Going on to use 35mm cameras, using the bathroom as a temporary dark room, seeing the images emerging in the developing tray and fixing them was an experience that lives with me to this day decades later. Today, it is no longer the dark room, its smell of chemicals and my technical struggles such as to keep the temperatures under control – that process – which enabled me (and also limited me) in image-making from image-taking so to speak. Instead there are new techniques – digital cameras, the computer, Photoshop. For me though, the inspiration and excitement still comes from being out there with the subject of my photograph – taking the shot.