Neil Drabble

Michael Mack

"Tree Tops Tall" is a series of pictures made by Neil Drabble over the course of the last few years. It is a collection determined not by the type or site of the trees photographed but instead by the fact that tree tops against a bright sky provide a motif for a certain state of mind, for a formal expression of the self. Each picture has been shot from the standpoint of a child, looking upwards with awe at the wonder and grandeur of the natural world--a perspective similarly communicated by book's large format and its uninterrupted sequence of 40 vivid color images, each spread across a double page. Applying his particularly intimate and studied approach, Drabble has produced a body of work that emphasizes the aesthetic pleasures of seeing and the boundless possibilities of finding beauty in our surroundings.

Tree Tops Tall

Lynne Tillman

"From 1998 to 2005 Neil Drabble photographed an American teenager, Roy, as he grew from adolescence to early manhood. On one level this extensive body of work can be viewed as a fascinating document of an always-compelling transition. Closer scrutiny reveals further nuances; a collaboration, a partnership, a personal portrait and at the same time a universal picture of adolescence. Drabble chose not to depict significant events that might appear in a family album nor definitive moments associated with documentary photography. Instead, these photographs concentrate on the listless, off-scene periods, the 'in between moments' of everyday life. This focus on the marginal passages of disregarded time situates the viewer at the heart of adolescence, defined as the period between childhood and adulthood, suspended between longing (for the deferred promise of adulthood) and regret (for the loss of childhood as refuge). By photographing the same person repeatedly and intimately over their formative years, a sense of mirroring began to emerge, reawakening something of the artist's own adolescent self, blurring the line between portrait and self-portrait"--Provided by publisher.

Neil Drabble

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