I was once in a relationship with a Man of Adventure. His bookshelves were filled with what I came to refer to as Men! Who Did! Great Things! His heroes were explorers, extreme athletes and a long list of bon vivants of varying health and alcohol tolerances. In the course of our time together, I came to know the names of each of the seven summits, that the Himalayan sherpa Tenzing Norgay probably was the first to ascend Mt. Everest over Edmund Hillary (but the secret of who did what first died with them), that the arguably most grueling one-person race in the world is the Véndee Globe. While not romantic in the most traditional sense, his quite literal lust for life underscored for me what the idea of romance was in the most far-reaching sense.
Thomas Prior is also a non-traditional romantic that follows the foolish and courageous. Prior's most recent visual investigations have been photographing people engaged in recreational activities in places or circumstances that are both beautiful and dangerous. The images he has given us to consider in this edition of HHS! were all taken on Maho Beach, which is an area situated on the Caribbean Island of St. Maarten. If you're not an adrenaline junkie or in a relationship with one that might advise you on such things, what's unique about Maho Beach is that it is situated directly adjacent to an airport, and the approaching jets fly oh-so-close to the beach such that it makes for anything between a dramatic horizon line, at the very least, to a life-threatening case of jet blast at the very worst.
Untitled, July 2010 from the series Maho Beach by Thomas Prior
Untitled, July 2010 from the series Maho Beach by Thomas Prior
In images from Prior's Maho Beach, people are shown in postures of alarm, excited agitation and fear, running across the picture plane with their bodies shown at harrowing (or harried) angles, hair standing straight up on end, blasts of sand shooting vertically in a wall in front of covered faces. My immediate associations are cult b&w Japanese monster films, where entire populations are scurrying for cover while under attack from the likes of mutant villians Mothra or Godzilla. Such shenanigans are exactly the kind of canvas that Prior goes looking for in his projects. Recently featured as a PDN 30 Photographers to Watch, Jacqueline Tobin interviewed him for the accolade, writing:
The "mixture of the super dedicated people and beautiful open landscapes" drew him to these subjects, he says. "The locations are simple, yet not at all boring. They're visually incredible, but made more amazing by humans."
In many of his images, Prior seems to catch people in somewhat awkward moments. "That kind of awkwardness is what I naturally react to," he says. "I like people awkward and landscapes ordered. This style runs through all of my photos and it's how I've always made pictures."
Untitled, July 2010 from the series Maho Beach by Thomas Prior
A 2009 HHS! Honorable Mention, we loved Prior's work so much that we made editions of two of his images from his series Blackrock Tower (check out our recent post on the 20x200 blog on extreme weather as artistic fodder). This latest body of work, made this summer, even, is perhaps even more impressive. I can't wait to see what he turns up next (and for those savvy among you, we all might get to find out what that next is if you're on the 20x200 newsletter mailing list for next week, hint hint).
You can view all of Thomas Prior's bodies of work on his website. He also maintains a blog.