Archival pigment print mounted on aluminium Dibond.
One Size Only / 61 x 61 cm / 24 x 24 in
Hand-signed by the artist, with title, date, and edition number inscribed in ink on an archival label affixed to the reverse side of the mounted photograph
A photograph is first a description and only afterward a statement, and this one rewards the distinction. Carlos Idun-Tawiah finds a woman mid-worship in an Accra church and, rather than narrate her faith, lets the lens describe it: the wide brim of her hat lifting at one edge, the lace collar catching the light, a string of pearls, the eyes already closed to the room. Nothing is explained; everything is shown.
Its real subject is what the camera alone can do. A shallow depth of field dissolves the congregation into soft grey so the sharp plane falls only on her face and her lifted hand — focus itself becomes the argument, isolating one private moment inside a shared rite. Black and white subtracts the incidental, the colour of a dress, the hour of day, and leaves tone, texture and gesture, the essentials from which a viewer rebuilds sound and warmth.
Notice the two things a photographer truly governs: the edge of the frame and the instant of exposure. The crop is close enough to feel intimate yet keeps the blurred believers behind her, holding solitude and congregation in one rectangle; the shutter has caught the hand open rather than clenched, an offering and not a triumph. From the series “Sunday Special” (2022), the image is less a document of belief than a study of how description, precisely made, can carry what words for faith cannot.
A photograph is first a description and only afterward a statement, and this one rewards the distinction. Carlos Idun-Tawiah finds a woman mid-worship in an Accra church and, rather than narrate her faith, lets the lens describe it: the wide brim of her hat lifting at one edge, the lace collar catching the light, a string of pearls, the eyes already closed to the room. Nothing is explained; everything is shown.
Its real subject is what the camera alone can do. A shallow depth of field dissolves the congregation into soft grey so the sharp plane falls only on her face and her lifted hand — focus itself becomes the argument, isolating one private moment inside a shared rite. Black and white subtracts the incidental, the colour of a dress, the hour of day, and leaves tone, texture and gesture, the essentials from which a viewer rebuilds sound and warmth.
Notice the two things a photographer truly governs: the edge of the frame and the instant of exposure. The crop is close enough to feel intimate yet keeps the blurred believers behind her, holding solitude and congregation in one rectangle; the shutter has caught the hand open rather than clenched, an offering and not a triumph. From the series “Sunday Special” (2022), the image is less a document of belief than a study of how description, precisely made, can carry what words for faith cannot.