- My first question is, how did you get started in photography?
Well, I think it was at school, at secondary school, and we had a photography club, and I got a few prizes for what I did, so that encouraged me and I really enjoyed printing, you know, the conventional way of printing, with chemicals, and then I decided not to go to university but to go to art college. It was a creative photography course which was unusual when I did the course. They were mainly technical courses, but it was a very creative course in Derby in the Midlands. People came to the course from all over the world because it was one of the few courses that looked at photography in the light in the way David Bailey was producing work for Vogue Magazine and photography was coming of age, if you like, in a commercial sense. It was a very good course that I did. Then I was fortunate that when I finished that I went to work to the BBC as a photographer in London. That gave me a lot of experience, dealing with people and understanding working with cameraman, when you can shoot an when you can’t. Then I came down here hopefully to get another job in photography and that didn’t really happen so I went on my own, freelance for a while. Then I got a job working for a company that made furniture and I did all the photography and adverts in magazines. After about seven years I got a job at the University as a photographer, and that took me up until twenty five years ago. I have my own business since then. I was always interested to know how you can make living for being a photographer, because is very hard, a notoriously hard profession. A lot of companies used to employ photographers, but they realized that they could cut cost by using people like me, freelance, just when they need them. So that is how I got started.
- I saw in your website that when you came down here you started with medical photography, what made you choose that part of photography instead of another?
I think I wanted to use photography to help people. It was interesting, but I didn’t really enjoyed it very much. Sorry to say, it was a job and it didn’t pay very well, the pay was very poor.
- What photographers have influenced you and why?
I think, although not that his work is the same as I do now, certainly Cartier-Bresson influenced me greatly. Probably Man Ray, people like Man Ray, around the time of the surrealists, that is when I was in College. I like the war photographer Don McCullin, I like his work very much and what he did, you know, going to war situations. I like a photographer called Henri Lartigue, it is basically the capture of the moments what I like. I mean I used to have a Leica, I used to use a Leica and just look for interesting compositions of people, juxtapositions of people, light and dark shape. That is what I was into when I was in College, but I did like surrealism, people like Salvador Dalí I liked his work. I did one photograph when I was in College, using a big enlargement of a watch and put it on a dead tree. I like anything to do with surrealism.
- I have seen that in your work you do different tips of photography, what makes it so interesting to choose all of them instead of only one?
I think is the way my mind works. I see photography as capturing images and if I did nothing but fashion photography I think I would get bored and it wouldn’t really matter if I get paid lots of money. I see photography as a way of having an insight into life, in what makes every thing “tick” and that can be climbing the top of a hill with a heavy tripod to take a view, or it can be dealing with a very sensitive portrait of someone. It’s all to do with thinking “okay this situation how do I deal with this?” rather than, I think, the more restricted view that, just say, being a landscape photographer. I don’t know why it is, I mean, it counts against me, because when I went for my fellowship, with the British Institute, they don’t really know how to judge me. In general practice for instance is very hard, they need some one to look at the portraits, some one to look at the architectural work, someone to look at food photography, some one to look at wedding work, I don’t do wedding work, but is an example. So it counts against me in many ways but what I think is that their view is too narrow and the higher up they go the more they want to see someone developing a particular style and I don’t totally understand that, because I think as a photographer, a good competent photographer, should be able to recreate many different styles at the turn of a switch. That is the approach that I have, that you could say that you could be okay at a lot of different styles but there is only so much to learn about different aspects of photography. Aerial photography for instance, I do a lot of, what is important there is that you have feel for when is right to go up, and you can read as much as you like about the right conditions but for aerial photography the tide has to be in, the water has to be clear, so it’s not to got to be stormy, there be no clouds, no haze, very little wind,and you got to get a helicopter, and you’ve got to be free to go up, have the right cameras, have a lots of space on your cards, you have to decide which lenses do you want to use, and then you have to got a shooting list. So all that has to come together within minutes on the day of the flight. You know in the back of your mind a few locations to shoot, and also all this needs processing, and look at the weather forecast the day before. The high of the sun is important, some times you want it to be height, in the winter, because the sun is really low you need all the help you can, some times, in the summer, you want it going down a little bit because it gives more modeling. So all of this things process simultaneously and the same happens when you are doing a portrait or when you are shooting a piece of equipment. More now than ever before I have to think about shooting in RAW, I would never entertain shooting anything other than RAW files, and if you are not shooting RAW files then you should be. Don’t talk to anyone that shoots JPEG, that’s the best thing, just ignore them (laughs) just don’t communicate with them because they are lost souls (more laughs). Which color profile are you going to shoot in. So you’ve got all the camera can offer you, but then you have to think if you are doing a simple portrait in a really confined area, you have to think “can I do this as a good portrait even though there is not a lot of space?” and the answer is yes you can, and what you need for that is two lights, three lights, you need a hair light, a main light and a fill, and then you need a long lens so you don’t distort any space, and then you need a pair of steps. If you go up a pair of feet when you are shooting and look down most people are going to look flattering. That’s why I do various types of work. I think, you know, after twenty five, thirty years as a photographer I will be bored if I was doing only one type. I like a challenge, and I am unusual, I think, in that respect, but that is how I make a living.
- How was the change from film to digital?
Long and quite painful. Along with everyone that migrated, I migrated about eight years ago to digital, and not only were photographers challenged by the change. When I first started taking digital photographs I didn’t have a 16GB card, I had a working hard drive inserted into the camera, and you couldn’t throw it down on the desk like you do now with a compact flash card, because if you did that you break it. So learning about all the new terminology was really very new to everyone, was challenging. Working with computers that only have very limited hard drive space, I mean, I think the first MAC that I had only had an 80GB hard drive in it, and the next one 300GB, and now 2TB or 3TB is the normal. Technology is been phenomenal for photographer and what I’ve been doing is catch up with them.
- Of all the projects you have done so far, which is the one that gives you more personal satisfaction?
Well, I’ve done a very big project this year that has involved a dramatic learning curve for me, shooting panoramic photographs, big panoramic photographs, and that is for a High Street Bank to refit their branches around the south west, and that was very challenging for quite a few reasons. If you can imagine someone wants a panoramic image, say eight meters, ten meters, then it’s going to be a big file. Often it wouldn’t be high it would be long and narrow, so some times they will want more sky, some times they will want more foreground, some times you , when you do a panoramic the camera goes on a jig, fifteen degrees overlaps and then you stitch it together, but if you have three lines, and one line is seventeen images, three lines are fifty one images. That takes quite a lot of computing power, and if you’ve got boats in there or if you’ve got clouds in there they move between you start and when you finish, then that things have to come out. All sort of issues that make you think sideways when you approach that job. Now I have nearly finished, I’ve finished all the shooting, and now have to process about six more locations. Takes about a day to process each location. That is been a very fulfilling and very challenging job.
- Is there any advice you want to give to photographer that are starting business now?
Well I could cover four or five points, one would be always shoot RAW and use Lightroom. Two would be, be very organized with folders and files and backup and offsite backup. Try to understand charging, you can go to the association of photographers, they have a list of qualified photographers and what to charge. Be aware of things like copyright, reproduction rights, all of that. Look after your equipment as if you were a surgeon looking after his operation tools. And before you press the button just stop yourself and say “is there anything else I need to do before I start shooting?”, think spatially rather than in one direction.
