A graduate of the American Film Institute [LA] and the Royal College of Art [London] cinematography programmes, Jake Polonsky has been working as a director of photography in London for ten years. While at the RCA he was awarded the Freddie Young/ BSC Cinematography scholarship, and won the Arriflex award from his camerawork in the Fuji Film
Scholarship of 1996.
He has shot hundreds of music videos, working with some of the biggest names in popular music - including Robbie Williams, the Kaiser Chiefs, James Blunt, Athlete, and Groove Armada - and was nominated for best cinematography at the CADS Music Video awards in 2002, 2005 and 2006, winning in 2004. His camerawork has been featured in the following magazines - Shots, Promo, Creative Review and Broadcast. In the sphere of advertising he has shot award winning commercials for many international clients. In 2002 he was named Best Young Camera/ Lighting Person by Broadcast magazine.
Among his short film credits as cameraman, he has photographed ' Grandpa' which won Best Film at the Greenwich Film Festival 2000, 'The Architect' - awarded the Most Promising New Talent award at the British Short Film Festival 1997, and 'Swallowed' which won Best Short Film at the 1997 Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
He operated for DoP Pierre Lhomme, AFC on the Merchant Ivory film'Cotton Mary' [2000]. In 2004 he shot episodes of the TV shows 'Spooks' and 'Hustle', both for the BBC. In 2005 he photographed the thriller 'Secret Smile' for Granada starring David Tennant and Kate Ashfield and last year the opening episodes of 'Primeval,' a new prime time series for ITV starring Douglas Henshall.
In 2004 he directed his first film,'School of Life'. The film has been to film festivals around the world and was awarded several prizes including Best British Short Film at the British Independent Film Awards 2004 and the Technovision award for best photography at the Capalbio International Short Film Festival. It has been sold and broadcast around the world.
Polonsky has been a fine art photographer for over twenty years; recently his artworks have focused on panoramic infra red landscapes in the countryside of Kerala, South India. He has been collaborating with Melvin Cambettie Davies on his prints over the last five years, and they have arrived at a particular combination of split toning and printing which amplifies the magical quality of the infrared images.
Jake's work is focused on the evocation of pure and ancient landscapes. These artworks are about recording an unspoilt landscape, where evidence of modern human interference has been kept to a minimum.
In attempting to preserve these environments by creating timeless pictures he evokes images from photography's origin. Working with infrared film and split toned prints, he is creating the feeling of an historical image, the sense of someone observing these places with a camera for the first time.
He hopes to create a sense of the need to preserve these places and their beauty for future generations.
'Unlike the highly expensive precision tools I use in my cinematography, the Russian Horizon cameras I have been using for this work are plastic, part of the same aesthetic that has brought the Lomo and Holga cameras to prominence. It is in a way a very disposable camera - often I feel I make images with them despite the cameras rather than with their help. Yet the kinds of pictures they allow me to take seem to have a real affinity with infrared imagery.
Kodak HIE infrared film is itself an endangered material. Originally used for aerial reconnaissance it is incredibly sensitive, requires delicate handling, and its lack of an anti-halation backing makes it very liable to flare. But this also gives a magical quality to my subjects - the blown out highlights of living vegetation literally glow with light. And though through experience I have a good idea of what my results will be, working with HIE is not so much documenting or recording landscape - because the material itself has this unknown quality [we are after all photographing part of the spectrum not visible to the naked eye] - as transforming it.'
Jake Polonsky is represented by Fotografique.
Exhibitions
1994 – Photographers Workshop Exhibition - 103–104 St. Marys Road, OX4 1QD, Oxford – 01865 202 102.
2006 – Mario’s Café - 6 Kelly Street, NW18PH - www.marioscafe.com
2007 – Square Art Show - Golden Square Production Gallery, 11 Golden Square, W1F 9JB . - www.goldensq.com/squareArt/gallery/4
2007 – Association of Photographers Gallery – 81 Leonard Street, London, EC2A 4QS, - www.the-aop.org/home.htm