Insomnia is a showcase of Ishmael Annobil's night photography, a genre benefiting from the insomnia he has suffered (and enjoyed) since his boarding school days in Ghana, in the 70s. It is also a celebration of the pioneering techniques he developed for photographing the witching hour, "when light stretches beyond visible distance to sculpt and refine shadow".
The collection focuses on London's nightscape, revealing an otherworldly side, where noise dissipates into whispers, the heavens seem to close in weightily to take stock, and buildings, streets, revellers, stragglers, hustlers, the lonesome, and the dejected become mythic, commanding our attention, awe, or fear.
Annobil's ability to see light in the most impossible places is very apparent in this monograph. It underpins his unique style - his images have a puzzling sense of antiquity and grandeur about them, making even the commonplace subject iconic. This forces the viewer to recalibrate the way they view the space around them.
An ardent film photographer, Annobil enjoys an uncanny knack for squeezing analogue qualities out of the digital medium, without making any concessions to its twee finery or artifice. The photographs in this collection represent some of his finest black and white work in both media.
Author Biography:
Ishmael Annobil is a London-based poet, photographer, filmmaker and journalist. His work in all fields is inspired by the dynamism of contemporary society - the cultural overlaps, socio-political processes and symbolism, realism, escapism, rebellion, and optimism. A believer in the purity of the frozen moment, he describes photography as "the art of capturing glorious moments in the flux of life; those split-second adjustments in state every being and thing makes in order to survive". Lucky to have been born Ghana in 1958, Annobil witnessed first-hand the greatest cultural renaissance in modern African history, when, along with everything else, African photography (which African practitioners had helped popularise in the 1860s) enjoyed a second lease of life, both as an art form and a 'propaganda' tool. A daring period when Pinhole Daguerreotypes persisted alongside their modern SLR and TLR counterparts. Annobil came face-to-face with that new photography, while working on the national newspaper, Daily Graphic, in the early 80s, and was "enchanted by the grand, alluring aura" of the black and white work of the staff photojournalists. He took up the art in 1985, with the encouragement of his brother-in-law, Julian Jackson, a prodigious practitioner in his own right, who also gave him his first lessons in the form. His first camera was a Cosina with a 35mm prime lens. Insomnia is Annobil's photographic homage to the magic of night as well as the sleep disorder he has suffered (and enjoyed) since his boarding school days in the 70s. It is also a celebration of the pioneering techniques he developed for photographing the nocturnal universe, "when light stretches beyond visible distance to sculpt shadow". His photography has been published in various publications, including The Independent Newspaper, and the prestigious French magazine M3, and extensively in the fine art monograph, Linda Karshan - Studio View. He currently runs Chiaroscuromagazine.com, an international arts and culture journal, and Stonedog Productions, a filmmaking collective based in Camden Town, London.
