Bradford Cathedral photographer Kate Abbey launches faith project
- Published

Kate Abbey - who took this self-portrait - is Bradford Cathedral's photographer in residence, having worked in advertising photography for 20 years
A cathedral's photographer in residence has appealed for subjects to take part in an upcoming exhibition chronicling Bradford's multiple faith communities.
Kate Abbey wants to capture people from a diverse range of ages, backgrounds and religions for the project.
Usually a commercial photographer ,Ms Abbey plans to exhibit the work at Bradford Cathedral this summer.
She said the process creates "an intimacy and trust with the sitter which shows through in the images".
Anyone with a strong faith who is willing to be photographed in their homes is invited to take part. Ms Abbey said she wanted to represent the city's "huge faith" and include as many people as possible - "the more diverse the better".
The free exhibition will be open during the cathedral's normal opening hours and each photograph will be accompanied by a "soundscape" of the subject talking about their faith.

Discussing her photo of Mohammed Iftikar praying at home, Ms Abbey said the whole process was "a very collaborative experience with both sitter and photographer deciding how the image will look." She said people were "very happy to talk about their faith and grateful that I'm interested. It struck me how powerful faith is to people and I almost envy people sometimes for how strong their faith is"

The project has been through several changes because of Covid-19 restrictions and lockdowns. "The plan was to document the life of Bradford Cathedral but everything stopped in lockdown so I started photographing empty spaces, chairs dotted wildly and so on," she said

When restrictions permitted, Ms Abbey said, she began going for walks and meeting subjects in gardens, such as Mike and Elaine deVilliers, pictured. From April 2021 she started "tentatively" going into people's homes

For the past 20 years Kate Abbey has mostly worked in commercial photography, shooting adverts for clients such as British Airways and McDonald's. "I usually work on large productions with crews of up to 60 people," she said. "The [Bradford faith] project has a closer intimacy."

Before each portrait, Ms Abbey said she spends up to 90 minutes talking to the subject to "really get to know them" and found people often pray in their bedrooms, such as Christian David Worsley. "I ask where someone prays and they often show me their bedroom - you can open a normal IKEA wardrobe and there's a whole Hindu shrine in there," Ms Abbey said.

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