Capturing the soul

PRIMITIVE civilizations used to believe that a photograph would capture part of your soul. It turns out they were right.
Proof is given at an exhibition at Florence Arts Centre, Egremont where  photographer Donna Brookes and others have put work on display.
Making The Usual Unusual is the title – and it does precisely what it says on the tin. Something as simple as a portrait of a young girl has been turned into something much more dramatic.
Donna – a Whitehaven photographer and, it would seem, part-time witch – does indeed appear to have captured some of the soul of her subjects. There’s a haunting, mesmeric quality about them. These are eyes that don’t just follow you round the room but stalk your mind for days afterwards.
Most ‘smiling family’ pictures today are tediously dull. You know the ones: taken against white backgrounds and with the requisite giant red ball in the foreground. They are pictures that tell you what everyone looks like but reveal absolutely nothing about the real person behind the smile.
One look at Donna’s work and her subjects shout their emotions at you with just a single glance.
Artists Fliss Watts and Iain Taylor are also exhibiting at Florence. These too are works that help you see the world in a new way. It’s an exhibition of breath-taking originality. Thank goodness. 

• Making The Usual Unusual runs at Florence until March 31. See www.florencemine.org