INNER SPACE: Rochester's Galax-eye discovers a world within
"...in a way, they come from a world of their own, contained in a living sphere - the eye."
Like the waves of windswept sand on the surface of a lonely planet across the galaxy, the images captured by Conar Moorey are space-like in their appearance. And, in a way, they come from a world of their own, contained in a living sphere - the eye.
Photographing the iris has become a passion for Conar and the aptly-named Galax-eye, with his practice in Rochester High Street attracting interest from near and far. Turning what he discovers into stunning images and artworks, Conar has taken his work to galleries and live events to encourage people to discover their own inner space. We caught up with Conar to find out a bit more.
HOW DID YOU START OUT?
It actually started on a bus tour in New Zealand. There were about 35 of us on this bus, and me being a little weird, I could see we all had such different-colour eyes, so I asked to take a picture of everyone’s eyes. But the camera was rubbish and it didn’t come out that well, but I thought, well, I want to do this professionally. I got a good camera and started out.
The first event that I did was the Rochester Art Fair - that was in March.
WHAT WAS IT THAT CAUGHT YOU IMAGINATION?
Our eyes are like the gateway to our health as well. You can see if you’ve got astigmatism, or cholesterol problems. Obviously, I’m not going to go and diagnose people, but you can see all this when you're looking into the eye. There’s lots of different things going on.
SOME OF THE SHOTS YOU HAVE ARE LIKE LOOKING AT ANOTHER UNIVERSE…
That’s why I called it the Galax-Eye because it just looks like something out of space. It’s just so unique - not even identical twins have the same eyes. Not even each eye on one person is the same. They’re always different.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST FASCINATING EYE YOU’VE PHOTOGRAPHED?
It was while I was at the Kent County Show, this chap came up and said that when he was last at the opticians three different people came to have a look at his eye because it was so unique, but he had never seen what it looked like. So I took a picture and he was just blown away. He had like a Dalmatian eye with loads of orange blobs, or freckles all around a bright blue eye. And then there was a little bit of green and yellow in it. So that was ‘Wow! You win!’.
IS THERE SPECIFIC EQUIPMENT AND TECHNIQUES TO USE?
Yeah, so there’s a technique to it because you can’t overexpose the eye. There’s a certain spacing in that you need to be away from the eye, with a special way of lighting the eye up.
Of course, you have to ask about light sensitivities, which a lot of people have.
But I’ve always been into photography and learned how to use cameras for macro photography because that was the thing I was most interested in.
