Stephen Waddell

The act of simply looking is often elusive. Granted we see the world around us as effortlessly as we breathe, yet we often move through the visual realm without reflecting upon the pleasure of this sense: a pleasure rooted in everyday life and available to us in the photographs of Stephen Waddell .

Vancouver photographer Jeff Wall wrote of Waddell's photographs in a piece titled, The Contemplation of Sight Itself , “he [Waddell] concentrates on notation and suggestion, a delicate and circumspect observation of people in their labor, leisure, and their solitude.” Waddell's photographs are taken in a vein similar to that of the un-staged street photography of 1960's New York , yet unlike much street photography, Waddell's subjects show little or no awareness of the fact that they are being photographed. He is a voyeur of sorts, catching people when they are not looking, yet Waddell achieves his observations without any trace of invasion; in viewing a Waddell image, we never feel as if we are intruding upon anyone or seeing something that was not meant for us to see. In fact, the opposite occurs, and we are presented with a glimpse at the life of another human being. There is a poetry in this delicate gesture as if Waddell's camera has supplanted his eye, and we are simply seeing what he saw, without mediation.

Waddell began his art career as a painter and made use of photographs as studies before they developed into an independent practice. Traces remain, and Waddell's painterly eye easily configures the color, line and composition of the photograph in much the same way as he would a painting yet without the same luxury of time.

Stephen Waddell was born in Vancouver and studied at both Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia . He currently lives and works in Berlin .

Stephen Waddell
BOY ON A STUMP, BOUGAINVILLEA, FRANKFURT SCENE, LOOKOUT, ROMAN STAIRCASE