Small Trades
Chris Budgeon : Since emigrating from Canada to Melbourne, Chris has spent the last thirty years honing his photographic craft in Australia. Shooting a wide variety of disciplines has led to a career that’s been involved with countless great campaigns and projects. Highlights include being selected 6 times to Lurzer’s Archive Top 200 Advertising Photographers Worldwide, and being a National Portrait Prize Finalist 5 times.
“This series of portraits is based on the Irving Penn’s classic ‘Small Trades’ concept. We set up a canvas background, and shot a wide variety of people using classic portrait lighting. The talent is drawn from all aspects of Australian society, reflecting the multicultural, socio economic, geographical and generational diversity we live amongst.
Each subject is dressed in their individual wardrobe, uniform or costume, sometimes with an object that helps tell the story of who they are and what they do.
We then create a series of diptychs where you have two people connecting with each other in a split frame context, two portraits side by side. Every time the connection is refreshed, the image pairing is shuffled, and two different portraits appear.”
