Photo Spread Intimacy - Purity - Stillness
Dónal Talbot is a photographer and artist based in Dublin, Ireland. His work is predominantly based in portraiture and uses its intimate qualities as a tool to showcase and empower the LGBTQ+ community through representation in art.
Often employing a soft lens, Talbot aims to capture his subjects in natural light and unedited backgrounds with the hopes of capturing a raw and honest depiction of their everyday lives. He wants to challenge his audiences to consider how we as a culture interact with ideas of intimacy and queerness, and the correlation between those two things. There’s a purity and stillness that his photographs capture, which aims to explore a softer side of contemporary queer culture.
His work can currently be seen in the exhibition Love, Lust & Freedom, with a selection of the images among those featured here. The 35mm and digital photographs were taken during Talbot’s time living in Brooklyn during his early 20's. This was a transformative time for the artist, as his sexuality began to blossom while he navigated the thriving LGBTQ+ community of New York City.
Talbot is currently studying for his MFA in Photography at Ulster University in Belfast and his work was recently published in the photo book New Queer Photography alongside a selection of 40 other international LGBTQ+ artists.