Roy Whiddon

Roy Whiddon has been an amateur photographer for more than 30 years, working with both colour and black & white film, and more recently with digital images. He has also produced drawings and paintings in several media, exhibiting with the Canal Art Group and the Ottawa Art Association in the 1980’s and 90’s. In recent years, Roy concentrated his artistic efforts on life (figure) drawing, including running a life-drawing studio for artists at the Nepean Visual Arts Centre.

In the spring of 2008, Roy began to integrate his two principal artistic interests, figure drawing and photography, by photographing the nude figure. The strong positive feedback he received from fellow artists and friends led him to make figure photography his primary focus (no pun intended) in the visual arts, although he continues to draw the figure as well.

Currently retired from a career in information technology and consulting, Roy finds that photography provides an ideal balance of artistic and technical challenges. He shares a well-equipped studio with four other photographers, and does his own post-processing and printing to maintain creative control over the work. Prints for exhibition are produced using pigment-based inks on 100% rag, baryta-coated paper for maximum quality and permanence.

Artist’s Statement

In my figure photography, I try to create simple compositions that portray the beauty and grace of the human body. In some photographs I concentrate on form, often focusing on only a portion of the body. In other photographs I may suggest a possible story, with details left to the viewer’s imagination. I also experiment with the representation of movement or transition in a still photograph, incorporating multiple exposures and/or motion blur into a picture. I believe that the human body is beautiful and delightfully expressive, and I attempt to convey this in my images.