One of the world’s most celebrated landscape photographers is showcasing his work at Southbank’s National Theatre.
Charlie Waite has published more than 25 photography books and his award-winning images can now be seen in his Silent Exchange exhibition which opened yesterday.
Waite is the man behind the Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards and the exhibition brings together his most important landscapes to date as well as new works.
The exhibition showcase the photographer’s personal response to beauty in an exhibition of over 50 images – instantly recognizable thanks to their rare perfections of light, colour and composition.
In his first solo UK exhibition for six years, Waite aims to encourage an emotional response from the viewer based on the silent exchange between viewer and landscape.
“In this exhibition I am sharing my personal response to those moments of beauty that I have discovered as I travelled around the world – be they man-made or natural,” he said.
“The wonderful thing about photography is that it allows that moment of perceived beauty to endure, and to be shared. Each person will respond to the images in Silent Exchange in their own special, silent way. What evoked a response to beauty in me will have its own unique effect on each person that sees the image.”
Famed for the luminosity and inner quietude of his landscapes, Waite has often been compared to the great American landscape photographer Ansel Adams.
He has had a number of highly acclaimed one man shows throughout his career including the Goldstrom Gallery on Broadway, New York in 2001, Hope at the OXO Gallery, London in 2002 and Earthscapes at The Centre For Photographic Art in Carmel, California in 1999.
Born in 1949, Waite was inspired to take up photography by his father who was a keen portrait photographer and RAF Air Commodore CB CBE, whose brainchild was the Berlin Airlift.
Waite started out as a professional actor, but soon began a sideline photographing his fellow stars including Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham-Carter, Emelia Fox and Catherine Zeta-Jones amongst others.
Waite’s photographs are held in private and corporate collections throughout the world.
