Those of you who follow my work will know that I am fascinated by reimagining Old Master painting in photography. So I was fascinated and delighted to come across the work of Nicolas Dhervillers who is travelling the same path, though it must be said he is some distance ahead. The picture above is taken from his current series Hommages which itself builds on two earlier series, My Sentimental Archives and Tourist 1 et 2.

The pictures in the current series takes characters drawn from such diverse sources as Poussin to Julius Leblanc Stewart, and places them in deeply atmospheric and timeless settings. The pictures manage to create the sense of being both of the past and the present and present themselves as an arrested narrative, requiring you to imagine what comes before and after. They are individually beautiful and collectively powerful, and remind us that we can continue to draw upon the greatness of the past in creating new and contemporary work today. It should also be said that in some cases, notably Leblanc Stewart, the homage is more dignified than the original.