I was thrilled to be invited to showcase my portrait of a boy swimming in a river near Chernobyl, Ukraine, at this year’s Portrait Salon galler(ies). The Portrait Salon exhibition toured the UK throughout 2014 and 2015 and my portrait was exhibited in London, Edinburgh, Bradford, North Wales and Birmingham.

My photo was in great company and it was wonderful to see such an array of beautiful and thought provoking portraits in one place. The exhibition in Birmingham was at the Parkside Gallery at Birmingham City University.

The portrait shows a boy jumping out of a river that runs through the contaminated Chernobyl Nuclear Exclusion Zone in Ukraine.

Chernobyl Swimmer – exhibited in Portrait Salon Exhibition, part of my ‘Chernobyl: War without War’ series.

(You can see the whole ‘War without War’ Chernobyl series here)

Coincidentally, among the many striking photographs exhibited at Portrait Salon, was an image by Phil Le Gal.  I had to good fortune to meet Phil in the Calais refugee camp recently as he worked on his ongoing project ‘The New Continent‘ (which is well worth following).

Phil Le Gal seen through his Medium Format camera, which I failed to focus properly! We met in the ‘New Jungle’ refugee camp in Calais.

Here is Phil’s excellent portrait that was also in the Portrait Salon Exhibition. The image is part of his series ‘Days of Mercy‘ which “attempts to decode the practice of ancient religious rituals deeply buried in the heart of Brittany“. Wonderful stuff.

Phil Le Gal’s photograph that was also shown in the Portrait Salon exhibition (by Phil Le Gal)

I have been to many exhibitions before, but it was really exciting to see my own image among such a wonderful group of photographs!