ABOUT
Photography isn't just a passion. It's an artistic way of life....
Born and raised on the green shores of Jamaica, Patrick Planter has managed to sculpt his lifelong dream of becoming an artist into capturing the reality of his own professionally picturesque endeavour, redefining his skillset as a fine art photographer and photojournalist.
His works express simplisticity fused with visually stimulating imagery, while depending predominantly on originality, both in angles and composition. This element of uniqueness in composition is what distinguishes a Patrick Planter photograph from his other contemporaries.
His professional portfolio portrays his main strength: largely portraiture. But also highlights great works in abstract, landscape and documentary photography.
Planter got his scholastic start at Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts where he trained with renowned Jamaican photographer Donnette Zacca who introduced him to the profession. Notably, he includes Zacca’s work as one of his main inspirations. He is the former Membership Coordinator and Artistic Director of the Edna Manley College Photography Club.
In 2016, he made his professional foray into photojournalism when he began his career at popular Jamaican newspaper publication The Jamaica Gleaner. There, Planter worked as a freelance photographer on assignments ranging from sports and news to human interest and entertainment, before migrating to Switzerland in 2017. Planter’s photographs have been published in publications including Sunday’s Outlook, The Flair Magazine, The Daily Gleaner and The Star.
One of his accomplishments was represented in The Jamaica Gleaner which included a byline in the paper’s Arts and Leisure section with the article ‘Firmly Planted in Art’, published on July 31, 2016.
In his career, Planter has collaborated on projects with entities inclusive of The Edna Manley Foundation, where he was the key photographer in photo-documenting a compilation of pieces by world renowned visual artist, Edna Manley. The pieces were showcased in the print publication for the 2015 memorial exhibition Into The Sun. He also worked with visual artist David Boxer on his latest publication.
His commercial resume consists of being a photographer for Caribbean Model Search with model management company Pulse as well as creatively shooting notable individuals such as Bobi Wine from Uganda, Tanto Metro & Devonte, Seanizzle, and Torch, for use on promotional material and album covers. His work has been published in Pulse Magazine.
Awards for his work include a Gold Medal at the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission’s (JCDC) Visual Arts Competition and Exhibition for his 2017 work ‘Hand Mask’. That year, he also received a Silver Medal and Bronze Medal for his works Discovery II and Discovery I respectively. In 2016, he stood out as a rising photo-artist at JCDC with two Silver Medals for Over Think and Over Achieve, as well as a Merit Award for Golden Rules. Other JCDC awards include Bronze and Silver Medals for Moist (2013) and Resilience (2015) respectively. Additionally, three of his photographs
has been featured in the JCDC 2016 Calendar.
In 2015, he made a presentation on photography as a career to students at the Rollington Town Primary School, appeared on Smile Jamaica (TVJ: August 12, 2015) and sold his printed art pieces for the first time at the Saana Studios Bazaar.
As follow up to his highly praised series Overstanding (2015) at Kingston On The Edge (KOTE), Planter exhibited his Golden Optic (2016), Golden Moment (2016) and Golden Rules (2016) pieces at the show and had patrons and critics alike buzzing. He also previewed his upcoming series Discovery, which has since then also gained both positive critical response and awards. Also in 2016, he exhibited his works at Expressions and won a place on the ScotiaBank Calendar for 2017 with the piece My Play (2016).
Move to Switzerland (2017) had my first group exhibition with Experience Jamaique online gallery at a one day pop up gallery show in Geneva in November 29th (2018), did a follow up solo exhibition in the city i live presently Zurich with Ethnicity Gallery in January 25th for one month 2019) and that same year of (2019) cover Summer Jam in Koln Germany, Reeds Festival, Guten Festival in Switzerland, was apart of the PhotoSchweiz January 2020 and the Black Art Matter in August (2020), now presently working on my Watch Photography portfolio and doing some work for the Leather Jacket company MansaWu
Planter lists his future aspirations as mounting his own solo gallery show, actively engaging in travel photography and publishing his own book of photographs about life in Jamaica.