By
Lily Sullivan

BEN RAYNER'S FIRST BOOK


In his first hardbound book Half-Day, the photographer Ben Rayner explores color and patterns through candid portraiture, urban settings, and natural landscapes. For Rayner, the book, offered in a limited edition of two hundred and fifty, is an artifact, capturing moments mainly from 2014 and 2015, all on 35mm film. “Half-Day is about escapism,” he notes, a quality that is present throughout his work. The layout, simple yet impactful, allows readers to delve into the images while imagining the space outside of the frame. Most of the spreads feature a pair of photos, evenly centered on each page and bordered by white space. Larger, full-page images spaced throughout o er a pause from the diptychs and occupy a deeper sense of time and place.

Rayner is obsessive about carrying a camera, constantly shooting the moments he comes across and editing afterward. He photographs his own personal images while traveling for work, going from Los Angeles to New York to cities throughout Europe, typically for commercial assignments. It is in the downtime from these projects, the moments in between, that the book’s images are captured— during his own half of each day.

The ninety photos in this collection were chosen from over 2,500. It was through this selection process that the book’s narrative developed, with images paired by composition or based on color. “I shoot the world as I see it in the moment,” Rayner says, “and make sense of it after.”

Half-Day is available now at BenRayner.BigCartel.com.

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By
Lily Sullivan
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