Daryl Hembrough was born with Pfeiffer Syndrome - a condition where the plates of the skull are fused together from birth which leads to severe deformities of face and head. He spend his childhood and teenage years almost exclusively in hospital, under-going more than 140 surgical interventions so he could live to be an adult. Daryl and I are working on a series of studio portraits for which he takes on imagined roles and personalities: severely handicapped not by his body but by society’s expectations for him, these personas question who and what he is allowed to be beyond the stigma.
It is people that are at the centre of my photographic enquiry: their vulnerabilities, uniqueness, complex emotional worlds and physical manifestations of the workings of their minds and souls, which inspire and engage me. Incorporating techniques of fragmentation and diffusion at the point of capture helps me to create new and engaging ways for audiences to view traditional subject matter, and also allows my subjects to experience themselves in new and unexpected ways. To date my work has been shown in Tokyo, Berlin, Cincinnati, Miami, Paducah, Kentucky and Bristol UK.
