Sam Harris
The Middle of Somewhere
The Middle of Somewhere is the next chapter in my on-going family diary. It follows on from Postcards from Home (2008-2011) and revolves around my two daughters Uma & Yali growing up. We live in a remote part of the world, the south west corner of Western Australia.
Bio
Sam Harris is a photographer and educator. As a teenager he taught himself photography, turning his London bedroom into a makeshift darkroom. Throughout the 90’s Sam photographed portraits and sleeve art for numerous recording artists. He also worked as an editorial photographer for publications such as The Sunday Times Magazine, Esquire, The Sunday Telegraph Magazine and Dazed & Confused. The over commercialization of the music industry during the late 90’s was the catalyst for a change in direction, both personal and photographic.
Sam’s photobook Postcards from Home (a self published limited edition) has received several awards including the Australian publishing industries Galley Club Award ‘Australian Book of the Year’ 2012.
Graceful, poetic, simply stunning. There is such a quiet elegance in Sam’s photography in spite of some of the confronting subject matter. He subtly brings us into his home sphere but we don’t feel like voyeurs, simply a part of his life journey that we travel together.
Awesome work as always Sam. This like “postcards” has the same feeling. Hard to explain what that feeling is but it has your “voice” and vision….it’s you. No way about it. Your work is like a fingerprint. Unique.
I take inspiration from your work specially now since I am a father to a little girl just like you used to be when you started…now you have two little ones!
Well…one not so little anymore.
Great to see more work from you here that’s for sure!
Thats how its done.
Great work Sam. Really nice set of images.
Great work. I like how you combine close portraits with other more general shots and scenes without subjects, and also the color and light you have got. I am trying to do something similar with my family and it´s not easy!.
cheers
Great stuff as always Sam! I’m so pleased to see your projects getting the recognition they deserve…. :-)
Gorgeous gorgeous intimate brilliant stuff as always Sam. Love what you do.
Just as with Postcards from Home, utterly sublime…..
the radiance of what it means to love and grow and watch the world gather around you, even as those very things and people you love grow up and away…
a love song of the most profound kind…
and pictures that sing out the beauty and the light and the loss in the most simple and profound ways…..
may the light last longer than the shadows Sam…
with great love,
bob
these are probably the best photos i’ve seen in an essay in a long time. simply miraculous. thank you so much, i love them.
Impressive Sam…………..imo 19 20 21 a great standalone triptych
Spending time with these images is such an immersive experience.
Symphonic.
ALL
a massive thank you! it’s very special for me to show my work on burn. it’s a home of sorts, even if we’re not always here. and a family of sorts too. by now, many of us have met some place around the globe…
i am truly surprised and humbled by all your responses. i know folk here speak there mind, no mater. so thank you all!
DAVID
and thank you for being the catalyst that you are. without road trips and burn… who knows how things would have evolved for me. your support, writing and projects over the years have helped make the difference.
cheers, Sam
SAM HARRIS
your work touches everyone….you have photographed something very personal, yet it is universal in its appeal…your mirror is our window….well done Sam….so many photographers feel they must go somewhere to make photographs…you prove that home is indeed where the heart is…
cheers, david
A beautiful series, Sam… I like the way you see…
Excellent work Sam, I really love that opening shot! This essay has a wonderful “feel” to it…
A mirror, a world, a love song.
Simply wonderful, Sam.
Sam – Thank you. After spending last week in the hospital undergoing major surgery and it’s aftermath, I am home enduring what is going to be a longer than expected period of recovery. It is family, wife, children, grandchildren and cats that is making the experience not only bearable but even in painful times often enjoyable. I am late getting to your essay but I found it and your own family connections wonderful to view. In many ways your family reminds me of my family. Excellent essay.
I’ll chime in as well. Sam is consistently great with color compositions and this work is top of the line.
I like PaulT’s idea of a symphony in the story, what with Sam’s eye, his family, their home and environment being the orchestra. I like even better looking at this wonderful essay as a concerto with three parts, the complexity of the compositional construction in most of the photos being offset by the slower, more straight-forward shots…just like the classic concerto structure of fast-slow-fast.
So many of these images are gob-smacking in the way they stretch their pictorial boundaries, making Sam a virtuoso photographer in my opinion.
Applause, applause, applause!
As MW says here, Sam is consistently great with colour: consistently. Bringing colour, composition and subject matter together is difficult. Sam makes it look easy, but it isn’t. Thank you Sam, wonderful set of photographs, wonderful family.
Mike.
Sam…
I’ll put it quite simply. When I search for inspiration with my family work I always end up with two photographers…Sally Mann when thinking in BW and you Sam Harris when my mind is working in colour… Now, this time you’ve stretched the pictorial boundaries (thanks for the phrase Jeff :)!) so well I’ve got a feeling Mann’s work is going to look slightly dated.
Dear All… well, i really don’t know what to say… i’m touched and a little freaked out by all your comments.Thank you all! i live with this work day in day out. quickly i become numb… it’s a slow process. so it’s great to have this work finally out there and to receive feedback. however i did expect some criticism. in fact i like it, it helps me grow. having said that, it’s reassuring to know i’m heading in the right direction… i am humbled by your comments and support. with gratitude, Sam
I rarely visiting aisles like this one “photographic essays”…hihihii…but I see SAMMY,oh,yeah…and I have some criticism…
I am waiting patiently all these years…WHERE is MY BOOK? hellooooooooooooooo@#%%^
ok,now,on a serious note:
Massive respect for being YOU…”you hit home” !!!
I LOVE YOU and ALL MY BURNIANS (FROSTY…enjoy your health)!
Wonderful, Sam. Wonderful.
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Sam,
This makes me happy and smiling. :)
Thanks for nice work.
Although I am very late coming to this party, it is one I would not have wanted to miss for the world. Sam, I saw this essay when we were together last June at LOOK 3. I loved it then but I love it even more now. There is a flow to this edit and sequence that feels like a dance. It’s a visual dance but more importantly a dance of the heart. Your artist’s eye and father’s love are one. It is that sense of integrity that touches everyone, no matter who we are, no matter our age, no matter what usually divides us. I long to hold your book in my hands, to have it by my side to inspire me in my photography and my life. But don’t rush the process. This is a very significant book, one that deserves to be published by the best of the best. May it be so.
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