I’m very fortunate that as a contemporary fine art photographer I get to experience people engaging with my work. As an example, when my most recent exhibition, ‘Of our times: the price of money’, launched I was there at the preview and was absolutely captivated by the discussions and debates that each image evoked.
I don’t do pretty pictures, not because I don’t appreciate the beauty of an image that depicts a perfect scene, an animal or person, but I want to shake things up, to move the audience and to get them thinking and talking.
A lot of artistic photography is pictorial or documentary but mine is neither.
My images ask questions and provoke a response and that is why I have set out to travel a different route in the world of photography. You see, my works shouldn’t be viewed in isolation. Again using the exhibition that is taking place at the Ropewalk in Barton-upon-Humber, there are a series of 40 images, each with a message. When shown as an individual piece, each image shares a thought, but when viewed as a collection you get the full story and you start to question and opine.
It’s like taking the page out of a book and expecting to understand how it starts and ends, you can’t do it. My work has real depth to it and a great deal of time and thought goes into the process before I even pick up the camera.
I really enjoy putting what is in my head onto paper or any other material that adds another dimension to the image, thinking it through, bringing it to life and then shooting and assembling the final piece. As a [contemporary] Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society I am very proud of my work and am never complacent about how lucky I am to share my job with the world.
Pushing boundaries and encouraging discussion and debate is what really inspires me and hearing the thoughts from people gives me a real sense of satisfaction. It’s great when you get the chance to stand back and simply listen to the conversations going on around you, knowing that you made them happen.
I explore concepts, taking a theme and unpicking it before linking each image together in a series. It’s like a jigsaw, each photograph belongs as part of a sequence, you can’t move one, they all have a place and when you fit them together it all makes sense.
Feedback from those I have had the pleasure to speak to about my exhibitions has been that you are left with a very clear impression when you see my work. I can only determine that this is because as well as being artistic, my photography is very much ‘in your face’.
I like to push the boundaries and to be controversial. The subjects that I choose allow me to do that because they are never safe, and in fact in most instances the first emotion that people feel when viewing my shots is unease or a slight discomfort.
I really do hope that people will take the time to look through the book, which was the inspiration for the Ropewalk exhibition. I would be really interested in any feedback and in particular what your thoughts are on establishing a new style of photography that focuses very firmly on a themed set of images becoming the sum of the parts, or whether bonding an image to a wooden pallet and then cutting strips out of it gets you to see the bars that aren’t there… or are they?