There is a famous quote by American writer Susan Sontag: 鈥淭o collect photographs is to collect the world.鈥 It鈥檚 almost as if she was talking about Brendan George Ko鈥檚 (b. 1986) Scrapbook series. The visual storyteller, who was born in Toronto and raised across Hawai鈥檌, New Mexico and Texas, sees images as supplementary to the stories they represent. 鈥淚 lived half my life moving throughout America, with endless road trips, and faces of so many dear human beings … I see every photograph that I take, as a document: of a memory, person, time, place or feeling.鈥 For Ko, taking pictures is a way to bottle up life鈥檚 moments, and to savour the instances that are worth remembering. Portraits of friends, often bathed in light and shadow, meet high-quality close-ups of foliage that set the scene. Ko鈥檚 photographs are often rendered in enthralling saturated colour palettes, offering a crispness that invites viewers along for the ride.
