Galina Kurlat Safe Distance

Safe Distance explores the intimate relationship between photographer and sitter. This relationship becomes as much about the process of making the images as the final photograph. The slow, tenuous process of creating large-format photographs invites the sitter to orchestrate his or her own compositions.  Each gesture, conscious or not, informs the viewer, while the direction of the subjects’ gaze becomes their choice to reveal or hide. Using Polaroid positive/negative black and white film, a fragile medium that has a tendency to react to changes in temperature and humidity, Kurlat deliberately manipulates the negatives while allowing others to degrade, resulting in a controlled serendipity to dictate the final portrait.