Between This Breath and Then: Polly Samson at Leica Gallery London

[Top image credit: West Sussex, December 2024 (c) Polly Samson]

Leica Gallery London, from the 28th of March until the 7th of May 2026

You don’t walk into this exhibition looking for explanation. It resists that almost immediately. At Leica Gallery London, the rooms hold together in a quieter way than expected — not sparse, but measured. Images sit with space around them, enough to let the atmosphere settle before anything else begins to form. It takes a moment to adjust. Then another.

Polly Samson‘s photographs don’t announce themselves. They gather.

There’s a sense, early on, that the work isn’t trying to show you what happened, but something closer to how it felt while it was happening. You notice the way light lingers — not dramatic, not overly composed, just present. It slips across surfaces, catches in reflections, holds on faces a little longer than necessary. Over time, that becomes the thread.

Polly Samson comes to this from writing, and it shows, though not in any literal sense. The images don’t behave like sentences, but they carry weight in a similar way — pauses, fragments, suggestions rather than conclusions. Some frames feel almost withheld, as if part of the story has been deliberately left just out of reach.

A mirror appears early. A reflection, slightly obscured, holding music legend David Gilmour within it. It’s not staged in a way that feels constructed. More like something noticed, then kept. That distinction matters. The exhibition leans into that kind of moment — the ones that could easily pass unnoticed if you weren’t paying attention.

And there’s a particular rhythm between stillness and interruption. Quiet exchanges, glances that don’t quite resolve, then something louder — movement, performance, a brief surge of energy that doesn’t last long enough to settle into spectacle. It pulls back before that happens. You start to realise the work isn’t especially concerned with documenting music, even if it exists within that orbit. It’s more about proximity. What it means to be near something as it unfolds. Not at the centre, not outside it either. Somewhere slightly to the side.

Some images feel personal in a way that’s difficult to place. Not intimate in the obvious sense, but close enough to suggest familiarity, the kind that doesn’t need to explain itself. One frame, in particular, holds that tension. You can tell it means something specific. You’re not told what. It doesn’t seem interested in clarifying.

That ambiguity carries through. Questions of authorship sit just beneath the surface — who is observing, who is being observed, and how those roles shift without announcement. It never becomes theoretical. It stays grounded in the images themselves. The show is presented within the context of the Leica Galleries programme, which situates it within the brand’s ongoing commitment to photography as a reflective practice.

You leave with fragments rather than a fixed impression. Light, mostly. The feeling that something was shared, though not entirely offered. And that seems to be the point. Beautiful.