RORY LEWIS

Rory Lewis has shot many of the biggest stars of the stage and screen, yet his latest project is a homage to medieval religious art. Keith Wilson discovers how the works of Renaissance painters influenced Rory’s award-winning style…

- Keith Wilson

LIKE MANY of us, Canon professional photographer Rory Lewis was expecting to spend a few days at The Photography Show at the NEC in Birmingham in March, but COVID-19 changed all that… “I was supposed to do a workshop for 18 people, fully booked, so people were asking, ‘is it going ahead, are we moving the date?’” Well, currently, the world is staying indoors as we unite to overcome the pandemic, yet Rory seems well prepared when we both take a breath and settle down to have a talk: “I’ve just done a massive shop on Waitrose, got that delivered, and just done a massive shop on Amazon, so I don’t have to go out for anything. I’ve got tons to do, I want to work on my website and I’m publishing a book, so I need to put that together.”

The lockdown meant Rory’s latest exhibition Selah, scheduled for an April opening in London, was also postponed to later this year. ‘Selah’ is a Hebrew word for taking a pause after a major event or incident, so it is strangely ironic with the current times – there’s never been a more appropriate time to understand its full meaning. Rory’s collection of classically-lit portraits feature a cast of actors who were asked to interpret the meaning of selah, when applied to varying situations. Together, these are the meditative faces of reflection, lit in a Renaissance style, made more powerful by the shadows of recent events…

Why did you choose the word ‘selah’ as the idea?