The Peculiar And Beautiful Photography Of Toby Coulson

Toby Coulson’s body of work combines various photographic skills: documenting places, taking portraits, and shooting fashion editorials that engage the viewer with their captivating compositions. Coulson skilfully probes the places where people and landscapes intersect, creating images that suggest an intriguing narrative that lies beyond the frame.

Born in New York, Coulson moved to England at the age of four, and grew up in the countryside of South Devon. The now London-based photographer works on commissions and personal work across the globe, which includes features in British Vogue, Wallpaper* Magazine, and Tate Modern’s art magazine Tate Etc. “I am fascinated by the beauty and strangeness in the everyday,” Coulson tells IGNANT. “Nature, people, and their influence on the landscape. To me the joy of photography is to wander with a camera, encountering unknown people and places ahead.” Many of Coulson’s images, rich in color and detail, prompt a shower of questions in his audience—a horse out of context, hedges with illusory shapes, a bold red house standing out from its neighbors: what is on the mind of his subjects? Do the landscapes know of something more than meets the eye? The answers remain to be seen, yet the dream-like quality in Coulson’s work grants us the understanding that perhaps an explanation is entirely besides the point.

Borrowed from Ignant