Artist Post - Helen Westergren (2/4)

Colin Grey

Colin Grey is a commercial and fine art photographer who mostly works with portraiture but his photosets occasionally include supplemental landscapes. Grey mostly shoots with square-framed analog cameras, but sometimes he switches this convention.
Grey is obviously drawn to portraits when making photographs. He primarily shoots the people he is most closely related to. He continued one photo series for over 27 years, documenting his parents and his relationship as he grew up and ultimately as his mother died. He also has documented his daughter Nina's adolescence, taking a great number of photographers of her while she is at various shopping malls. Grey is not interested in taking idyllic portraits of the people he photographs but instead looking at their place in their, and his, world and exploiting that. He places other objects and people in the frame create new relationships within. Most of his projects are extremely long-winded and in a way archival, tracking the growth and development of the people most dear to him.
Because he does not show as much interest in landscape, it is a bit harder to speak of them because there are less. When they are included it is in an attempt to document the place where people are inhabited. The photo I have included is from his "The Parents" series and is presumably a view from one of their homes.