Rory Carnegie's photographic prints of animals from the ongoing series entitled 'Long Ago and Far Away' have an ethereal, painterly quality, reminiscent of nineteenth century oil portraits. Each image is a composite of multiple layers of landscape with the aim of creating something that "the viewer could delve into, a palimpsest, pulling back the layers as one might on an archaeological dig, or even uncovering layers as one examined oneself or others."
By photographing animals in a studio, and so removing them from their natural surroundings, he plays with our perception of a familiar looking beast, heightening the extraordinariness of species both wild and domesticated. Placed against the atmospheric backdrops of rural landscapes, a tiger's stripes become even more vivid and surreal, or a bird's plumage more striking and outlandish.
Rory Carnegie is an internationally acclaimed photographer who has worked around the world on numerous reportage and portraiture projects. He first picked up a camera aged thirteen, but didn't take photography seriously until he began travelling before university. He then used this first body of work on a collaborative book project about the Altiplano in Bolivia. From there, Rory has had work published in The Observer, LA Times, The Telegraph Magazine, The Sunday Times, GQ and The Independent Magazine, Creative review and the British Journal of Photography.