Jennilee Marigomen, a fine-art photographer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, is somewhat shy and reticent about discussing her work. Shy and reticent, that is, until asked whether she shoots digital or film. “I shoot film,” Marigomen says with sudden firmness. “I have to shoot film. It’s just one of those things. Film takes in such a wide range of color, and I really love the softness.”
It is the color and softness of her work — along with a subtle eye for finding the sublime in the everyday — that is fast earning Marigomen international recognition. (Her first book, “Second Nature,” published in 2011, can be found in the Museum of Modern Art’s book collection.) But though they have an otherworldly quality, many of Marigomen’s photographs are taken informally and spontaneously, as she moves through her daily routine. “I try to shoot as much as I can,” she says. “And usually the photographs that end up in books and shows are just things that I just happen to see walking around. I guess I am always taking pictures.”
Whisper Editions is delighted to feature an exclusive set of two prints by Marigomen. One photograph depicts a small starling whose iridescent feathers seem to glow. The bird’s feathers are echoed in the second photograph, which is of a foggy window at the Dunlevy Snackbar, a café in Marigomen’s native city. “It’s just a typical Pacific Northwest day,” she says of the image. “The objects behind the window, when blurred, were like a rainbow. It felt very Vancouver to me.”