British born Rick Giles uses his photographs as a form of social documentation. Based in the U.S, Giles has an enduring interest in people and places and his work has taken him across the country in search of new subjects. Throughout his body of work the artist has persistently endeavored to enter into the situations he presents in a direct way. The resulting images have a beauty and power fuelled by the artist’s closeness to his subjects.

For the project Hitch (2001), the photographer hitchhiked for two years across the United States, photographing the people who picked him up. The artist established strong ties his subjects, lending his images a wonderful degree of spontaneity and intimacy, qualities often missing in portraits of strangers. In The Classifieds, a series ongoing since 2003, Giles explores life in New York through the classified section of the Village Voice. Through photographing those who place the advertisements, and juxtaposing the image against the advertisement itself, Giles delves into the innermost mechanisms of the metropolis.

His recent work of 2008 is based on the phenomenon of light and might be seen as a step away from the style of his previous social documentary work. However, conceptually to Giles, it runs harmoniously. Instead of documenting other people it is more of a documentation of the artist, shifting life to the country.

Shot over three seasons in the artist’s rural home, each image is unique as the light and movement of the camera can never be exactly replicated.The artist does not digitally manipulate any of the works, drawing attention to the abstract potential of the lens when it meets with the intangible forces of nature.

Giles has shown at the National Portrait Gallery, London and had solo shows at Eleven Gallery in London. His work as both an artist and a fashion photographer has seen him grace the pages of Vogue, The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ and The New York Times.