Guy Tillim - Second Nature

After being dedicated to political subjects for most of his career, in 2010 South African photographer Guy Tillim (1962) turned to travel photography. His work seems to have freed the genre of landscape photography from every cliché that had ever crept into it.

Humane, subtle approach

Tillim's images display an analytical precision that never fails to stir up emotions. His photographic career began in the latter years of apartheid, and this period continues to affect his work. In the ten years that he worked as a freelance photographer for local and foreign media, including Reuters and Agence France Presse, he moved away from photojournalism and towards a much more humane and subtle approach to his themes.

Modern landscapes of paradise islands

Eventually, Tillim decided to pursue a non-political subject, and in 2010 he bought a catamaran and sailed from New Zealand to the Polynesian islands. Following the tracks of the British explorer Captain James Cook, and more than a century after the painter Paul Gauguin (and numerous other artists), he sought to portray the modern landscapes of these 'paradise islands'.

Intensely light, vividly colourful

His intensely light, vividly colourful, windblown landscapes reveal them as being new, up to date and full of life. These are images that seem to have liberated the genre of landscape photography from every cliché that had ever crept into it.