Street Focus 13: The Reunions with Chris Porsz
Podcast: Download (Duration: 33:14 — 30.4MB)
Street Focus 13: The Reunions with Chris Porsz
I am pleased to share with you a conversation with my good friend and UK photographer Chris Porsz.
Chris Porsz is a paramedic by night and a street photographer by day. When he is not exploring other large European cities with his camera, he wanders tirelessly the streets of Peterborough, England in his quest to find familiar faces he photographed 30 years earlier in order to shoot a reunion. His project is quite unique and, as he is nearing his goal of 50 reunions, we sat and talked about the ones that touched him the most. For Chris, it's all about the love for mankind and the desire to record the history of his hometown one photograph at a time.
Please visit his website to see more of Chris' work and his book, watch him in action in this short film. Listen to an old episode of the Candid Frame podcast through which I discovered his work originally.
A few images from Chris Porsz's reunion project:
To keep up with everything Valerie is doing, you can visit her website and find links to her social media platforms. Thank you for listening to Street Focus!
What a fascinating urban project. I loved listening to this episode and seeing Susan Jones’ photos of these apartment dwellers.
Great interview, Valerie. Chris is a fascinating character and the fact that he has a relaxed attitude to the so-called ‘rules’ of street photography generates a lot of discussion around his images. He loves to engage with his subjects and often asks them to ‘perform’ for his camera. His reunions take this staging aspect of his work even further. And yet he loves to operate un-noticed as well and captures some startling candid images. His posed shots are often quite obviously posed but if Chris tells you a shot wasn’t staged, well, you know it wasn’t. He is very honest.
Some street photographers value un-posed shots above those that are set up. Chris doesn’t seem to make that distinction.
Thank you Valerie and I was honoured to be invited to your podcast that has already hosted some great photographers. As a good friend and mentor Martyn you know me better than most and coming from a top photo editor and film maker I place great value on such kind and generous words of support. The beautiful website you built for my images drives me to walk the streets and put the miles in. I am indebted to such good friends as Valerie and Martyn for without their help my images would remain hidden.
Approved
Thank you Chris and Martyn!