A Photographic Truth

A digital video projection based on a photograph of Hawkhurst Church, Kent made in 1852 by Benjamin Brecknell Turner

“A Photographic Truth 2001”, On location in Hawkhurst, Kent 2001


A Photographic Truth 2001, was commissioned for the Canon Photography Gallery at the Victoria and Albert Museum, is effectively a moving digital photograph; a projected image in continual transformation across time, moving through changing light conditions whilst exploring the potential of the original photograph’s reflected symmetry.

A Photographic Truth 2001 uses digital video technology to rework the original photograph’s composition, combining elements from different time-frames, locations, and weather conditions to blend the recent and distant past with the present, linking contemporary technology with the new technology of the Victorian era. Projected onto translucent paper, the subtly shifting digital image also links the two new photographic exhibitions at the Canon Gallery: “Rural England Through a Victorian Lens: Benjamin Brecknell Turner”, and “Where Are We? Questions of Landscape”.