Life Time

Long known for his radiant black and white naturist portraiture, Jock Sturges has also been quietly working in color for more than two decades. Life Time presents a broad range of this color work for the first time and carries forward his extended portraits of families in Northern California counter-culture communities and on French naturist beaches. Working with the same models and their families in his long-term studies of growth, change and relationship, his large format images borrow significantly from classical periods in both photography and nineteenth and early twentieth century painting.

The large color plates in Life Time represent almost perfect one to one translations of the original transparencies and are rich with detail and physical and psychological nuance. Sturges describes his work as “identity driven” because his portraits represent collaborations that stretch over entire life times. The confident ease with which all his subjects present themselves to his camera is evidence of rare levels of trust and friendship.