by Dan Hare (dhare)
Aug 5 2004

Where do you live?

In Bow, in the East End of London, in a place of some historical importance -- arguably the birthplace of English working class militancy. Now, of course, it's a private estate and generally filled with people with more money than historical awareness.

Tell us about your family/friends. Have you met anyone from DPC?

My family are in eastern England -- Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.. My girlfriend, Henri, I met through my work. She runs a regional theatre on the edge of London, and is about to take up the post of Producer at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, in Leeds. Haven't met anyone from DPC, though I would regard a number as friends I just haven't met face to face yet. Friends are all over the country, and I don't see them as often as I should.

What is your occupation?

I have a daft dream of a job. “It's impossible to describe the moment of difference when you suddenly start seeing the world in terms of light -- not quite like you'd been walking around with closed eyes, but not far off either.” I'm a live sound engineer and designer -- I work with bands, in theatre, and in the larger end of conference world. Most of this is faintly ridiculous -- sometimes its hard work, and dusty, dirty and exhausting, but some of the gigs, and some of the shows, and some of the people one gets to meet and work with are beyond words. Life on a rock and roll tour bus is one of the more extraordinary experiences one could wish for.

I work regularly with Ryuichi Sakamoto, John Tams, and Evelyn Glennie. I've designed sound for a couple of shows at the National Theatre in London, a couple in the West End, and some elsewhere. Those are the highlights. Right now I'm in the middle of the installation for Woman In White, Lloyd Webber's new show: this is the painful, dark, dusty end of things. Should get to go to the opening night bash, however.

Before I got into sound, I was a Lighting Designer (well, technician and designer). That's the important bit re photography -- albeit without training, I worked intensively with the control, application and effect of light. It's impossible to describe the moment of difference when you suddenly start seeing the world in terms of light -- not quite like you'd been walking around with closed eyes, but not far off either.

How long have you been involved in photography?

Involved? I've been interested for a number of years -- the first photographer to grab my attention was Brian Harris, a staffer at the Independent newspaper in the UK. I started to shoot seriously for myself toward the end of 2002/early 2003: as a direct result of the onset of affordable digital cameras. I bought a cheap camera when I was bored during a gig in Mansfield, and then upped that to the Fuji 2800Z when I was a bit flush one time. The idea that I might actually be able to take decent photographs crept up on me rather gradually, from the encouraging noises of friends. Then DPC happened to me.

Have you won any photographic competitions outside of DPC?

None.

What's your favourite movie?

Er ... impossible question. Mood influences such decisions so deeply all the time. Forced, right now, I would say Lawrence Of Arabia (which reflects that I'm working in dark dusty holes, the weather's a bit rubbish, and all the space in that film seems hugely beckoning.)

What music do you listen to? Do you listen to music while post processing?

Very rarely listen to music at home -- so much of my working life involves music that I find what quietness there is too precious. That said, I enjoy almost everything except traditional or very modern Jazz. Most music is better live than recorded. Can't really work and listen to music at the same time -- the music pulls my attention too much.

Five pieces of music I'd rather not have to live without: Ryuichi Sakamoto's album BTTB -- for memories of tours and sheer beauty of music; Bartok's fifth string quartet -- by turns insanely complicated and enormously lyrical; Genesis album Seconds Out, a live recording from Paris in '77 with all of them at the peak of their ability -- only lacking Gabriel, but you can't have everything; a Peter Hammill album, though I couldn't decide which one; and... Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending and Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. And then one thinks of all the stuff one's left out ...

Whats your favourite food?

Italian. Preferably in Italy -- especially given this summer's weather in the UK.

Do you have a main source of caffeine? If so, is it Tea, Coffee or Chocolate?

Coffee. I don't think I function correctly without it.

Where does the nick "e301" come from?

Deperation. The letter is obvious, and the number is equally obvious if you know my address.

Do you have your own website, if so can I list it here?

Of course: edclarke.org.uk

It's an odd place though. Usually four or five galleries of shots, sometimes over-lapping, and entirely dependent on my mood when I have time to update it. As I write, I think it's perhaps rather pretentious, but when I look at those shots I often change my mind. Good to have a place where people can see one's stuff though.

If you aren't feeling particularly motivated to take photographs, is there anything you do to give yourself a better frame of mind?

That's what I take photos for. Cooking and eating run things very close -- and going to restaurants, or the theatre, or reading.

What's your favourite alcoholic drink (if any)?

Wine, in all it's forms, run very close by the UK's enormous selection of real ales, and gin and tonic in a tie for second. I quite like my drink, as you can perhaps tell.

Take us through a history of your camera purchases, both film and digital.

Never had anything film-based that I really used -- one or two compacts I suppose. Borrowed a friend's film SLR occasionally to document some of my lighting designs in early days, but never with any great success -- I'm one of those people digital has brought to photography: the expense of film and developing always put me off, and there was never any chance of my going through the dark-room rigmarole. I've owned a 1MP Olympus, soon upgraded to the Fuji2800Z (which I still love), and then the 602Z, replaced when it was stolen with the Nikon 5400 about a year ago.

You currently use a Nikon Coolpix 5400, are you happy with this camera?

Not completely. I think I've got the hang of it now, though it's a obnoxious beast sometimes, recalcitrant and non-cooperative. I feel it gets in the way of my shooting more than it helps, but for the moment budget prevents the move to DSLR. For landscape work, and of course for Macro work, it's rather good once one gets used to it. The zoom is awful though -- whether that's damage to my camera, or a design fault I have no idea.

Do you own any extension lenses, or other accessories for your camera?

No. There are times when I think a Polarizer and a graduated ND would be useful -- that's mostly when I'm in a pretty pictures mood though (about half the time). But then of course I think "I'll want to upgrade the thing soon anyway" ...

Are you considering another camera purchase in the near future? If so, what?

One's sights have too be set on an SLR now, really, although there really isn't much that the higher-end compacts can't do. The viewfinder, and manual focus would be the seller. I do like the very deep depth of field of a small-sensor camera, but then there's the resolution of the larger sensors, etc. etc.

What annoys you most about your current camera?

Focus -- low light is awful, and at any kind of meaningful zoom it also goes bizarrely soft. The uselessness of manual focus on compact digitals really annoys me. Lack of fine graduation of shutter speeds in fully manual mode -- I usually shoot in some kind of slightly adapted shutter- or aperture priority mode now (almost always with EV at -0.7), apart from macros which are always entirely manual. Over-exposure in digital is fatal, just like audio clipping in digital sound -- you just can't get away with it.

What size memory cards do you have?

512, 256, 32, and some other stuff kicking about.

Do you shoot in JPG or RAW mode?

Fine JPG, almost always.

Have you ever lost any images on memory cards?

No.

What does your home studio consist of, in terms of lighting, backgrounds, etc.

I have three or four bits of large card (grey, blue and green to be exact), and two yards of black velvet. Lighting is then an assortment of desk lights and bits of paper. I have a couple of angle-poise lights that I use for set-up studio shots.

Do you use any software for organising your digital pictures?

No, though perhaps I should. They're downloaded into dated folders, and then keepers are copied to a separate folder, and processed images kept in sub-folders of native resolution, web-sized, and large size.

Do you use Photoshop or an alternative? If so what version?

Paint Shop Pro 8. Can't rationalise spending the money on PS when PSP is so cheap -- can't even rationalise having a dodgy copy of it. I would imagine that PS is more efficient an editor, but PSP is all I need for now certainly.

What Photoshop skills do you consider to be essential to digital photography?

Essential? Pretty much all of it. One should play with one's tools until absolutely in control of them. The most important skill is the ability to look at your images and see the finished thing within it -- once you can do that, you'll know how to use the tools to get there. You shouldn't have to think whilst you're post-processing about how to do what you're trying to do. For instance, there are situations when one needs to adjust the balance of light and dark in a shot, and you need to know at gut level whether levels, curves, histogram processes, or simple brightness/contrast adjustments are the way to go.

"Imagine"

Out of your own entries on DPC, what photo had the most digital editing?

Easy one, this. "Imagine" -- rather obviously. The disqualified Window View pic was manipulated far less, but that's a definite second.

Do you use any other software in relation to digital photos? If so, what?

No, I might investigate something to help organise shots, but really I don't shoot enough for that to be a big problem at the moment.

On the whole, do you prefer a minimalist approach to post editing, a no rules approach, or somewhere in between?

On the whole, I prefer a minimalist approach. In general it doesn't matter though -- the finished image is what matters. For me, I prefer a realist approach, a documentary approach. Images that look wildly processed -- you know, bizarre lighting plug-ins, weird paint-effects, colour shifts, even extreme dodging and burning and the like hold terribly little appeal. Composite images that have a tromp-l'oeil-like effect of seeming real do appeal (as in "Imagine"), but everything that really appeals is rooted in my perception of the "real" world. There is so much intrigue, fascination and beauty in the strangest places, why would anyone want to or need to "create" something?

Likewise I find the cloning of dust-spots, odd marks in Macro shots and the like absolutely acceptable, but the cloning out of power-lines and such seems wrong to me. But this is photography in general I'm talking about. For DPC I'm pretty happy with the way things are at the moment -- given the self-declared "learning experience" mission of the site, it's right that open challenges should be limited editing. I hadn't submitted anything to an open challenge in a while, though I have just recently, and I'd forgotten how tricky some work is within those rules.

"You think that's air you're breathing now?" is your highest scoring image on DPC. How did you come up with this idea? Where was the original print taken from? Did you find anything technically difficult about this shot?

"You think that's air you're breathing now?"

The idea was floating around ready-made -- exactly that idea, of the sunset and the ripped print and the PCB card. It was obvious as a submission for that challenge immediately, and it worked almost instantly, and then I had six days of submission and seven of voting before I got my first blue. I knew it would win as I took it. A freak.

The original print was an image I'd taken the week before from the top floor of Canary Wharf tower, in London Docklands. I'd been working on a book launch, and as we finished there was this intense sunset going on over London.

It ought to have been more difficult than it was, perhaps. I shot it in the morning, in indirect window light, and had almost no issues with it -- no reflections, just a matter of finding some things to rest the torn photo on over the card.

My personal favourite of all your images is "Spoon". This must have been incredibly difficult to get right. Just the thought of trying to shoot it myself and I'll double over and lie twitching in the corner. Can you take us through the technical details of the shot (especially the fantastic lighting), and also some of the composition choices you had to make.

Now this was just as difficult as you'd imagine -- something along the lines of five hours I would think -- that's after deciding what to shoot. The inspiration for it was Adine Storer's "Dim Bulb" -- and I'd been wanting to play with intensely graduated tonal images for a while also. Previous to the spoon shot, I'd also taken a close macro of a fork, but hadn't submitted it, for the Duotone challenge; here, I thought, was the opportunity to go to town on something that had been in the back of my mind.

The set-up is actually pretty simple: take one piece of 80gsm A4 paper (the weight matters, to get the right transparency and diffusion of light,
"Spoon" and the impression of large grain). Set up two large hardback books, stood on end, on a table, and curve the paper away from you between them. Place another hardback book across the top of this structure. Put shallow plate with spoon precisely into the curve of the paper. Place solid-shaded desk-light close to the back of the paper, to get the spread of light you're looking for (sold shade matters, to even the light and restric spill). Place camera on mini-tripod, and compose and shoot image. Underexpose, slightly. Process to define most extreme bright point as white, and extreme darkest point as black, and then play with levels to get right graduation of tone. Exactly how I got to that precise set-up is, however, beyond me -- lost in the concentration of trying to get the image you know is there out of a set-up.

It works because the curve of the paper gives a graduation of light, and the curve of the spoon itself re-doubles that. The tricky bit was relative placing of camera and spoon and plate to get that simple reflection. Essentially, it's a soft-box photo.

I've just taken another shot (can't be posted right now), that I think improves upon some of what I achieved in "Spoon" -- at least goes closer to what I was after. That is something along the lines of minimalist art -- I wanted to show a picture of something with the least amount of information possible whilst clearly remaining a photograph.

"Open Cup Mushroom" is a macro shot unlike anything I've seen before. Do you think the uniqueness of this shot is what gives it an interesting 'Just one more look' quality? I know the Nikon 5400 has an amazing close focal range, how close was the camera to the mushroom in this shot? Did you eat the mushroom after the shoot?

"Open Cup Mushroom"

Didn't someone say they'd got another example somewhere? Anyway ... I saw the things in a supermarket, and it seemed an obvious choice -- that is, an obvious choice that I'd never thought of before. It was the fins, the brown variable edges of them, that appealed.

I don't necessarily think it's that unique -- it's just a close-up, after all. It has a quality of scanning electron microscope shots, which I think hold a near-universal fascination -- a "wow, that's what it really looks like!" kind of thing. It was another shot that I thought was always going to do well, however. I was surprised by the win though.

How close was the camera? I think there was some damage from the lens tube on the near side of the mushroom. And yes I did eat it. I made a puree of onion, leeks, and carrots, and baked that on it with a covering of good strong cheddar. With a glass of a very dry white it was almost as good as the photograph.

How hard was it to get the bug to pose in "Thinking outside the box"? What type of bug is this? I found that getting the focus accurate with compact digicams can sometimes be quite hard. Can you describe how you achieved the crisp focus on this shot, and also the impressive depth of field. How many shots did it take to get right?

"Thinking outside the box"

Impossible -- I just had to wait until he appeared where I wanted him. Several hours, altogether. First stages were to decide on the composition, and set the manual focus (didn't want to miss the shot if the Nikon decided it couldn't see), and then opening the box to let him crawl out (you wouldn't believe the number of times he went off the other way), catching him in the box again, and repeat ad infinitum. I knew I would want to separate him from the box, and that the only real way to do that was with depth of field; so I found the point at which the edge of the box was just inside the range, and kept it there -- DOF is so deep on compacts (a huge blessing often, as I find extreme shallow DOF quite boringly trendy at the moment -- look at all food photography) that this was the only way to achieve the effect with the Nikon.

A lot of your shots have some sort of circular or curved objects as the main focus point. Is this a conscious decision when deciding on the subject of the photo? Do you think that shapes and lines play a crucial or minor role in a composition?

That's a really scary thing to say, Dan. One always wonders how one's shots are regarded in general. I mean -- you can recognise Jean-Jacque's work, and often Zeus', and some others, Heida of course recently, but one wonders what common features others perceive in one's own stuff. Shapes within composition are of course a crucial part of shooting and cropping, but I don't think I consciously choose curves. Two of my submissions that I find interesting deliberately work with straight lines -- Frame by Frame and Grand Union Canal.

There's a purely photographic reason of course, which is that the play of light is almost always more interesting across a curved surface -- imagine Imagine with square towers? -- but that I think is an accident.

Many people like to think -- or rather appear to think -- that composition is a simple, definable, followable idea. It isn't. It's a function of many things, and part of learning composition, perhaps the most important part, is learning to see your images in the way that others will -- learning to see how their eye will be moved through the frame, which objects in what relationship will draw attention, what their expectations are from certain types of framing, what the emotional and intellectual expectations are from patterns and lines and curves. Books and rules can point us in the right direction, but there is no substitute for looking carefully at pictures, nor for thinking about your own.

As to the curves -- I've been thinking about this since I got the questions through. The obvious answer is that curves are simply more organic shapes than lines and angles. More natural -- things grow in curves, however slight, not in straight lines. Cities that have grown over years have winding streets, the old road and hedge-lines of England are curved; it's only when mankind really began to impose himself on the environment that the straight streets of modern cities and farming began to appear. So perhaps that's it: the grown, as opposed to the planned. Far more interesting.

"A Bridge For The Road To Nowhere"

What has been the hardest image to photograph, out of all of your entries on DPC? Why?

I think "A Bridge For The Road To Nowhere", probably. Just because that shot was only available from a passing train, and I got one attempt with each pass. Backward and forward, backward and forward ... Still like that shot, too.

Your shot "Imagine..." portrays a brighter, more optimistic future. Being this close to a nuclear power plant, you could've settled for a 3-eyed fish for the future challenge, and saved yourself a lot of time ;-) Can you take us through the awesome Photoshop work that went into this shot, and what originally gave you the idea for the challenge.

Going to have to open a bottle of wine now. I should point out that I wasn't working the week of this challenge -- you'll see why. Again, an idea I'd had lurking around for some time, having seen some mad Photoshop work in a magazine. It's not derivative though, unless I've forgotten something. I knew exactly how I wanted it to look, so it was just a question of searching out the images. I really wanted all of them to be my own, and anyway I thought it would be easier to work with images taken specifically for the montage (the first really good idea I had in the process).

Web research found Kingsnorth Power Station outside Nottingham, so I got up early and drove up there to shoot it. Blessed with perfect weather. Shot two pots of plants in Henri's garden, set them up at the right angle to light and camera. Foreground flowers were a hanging basket outside a pub on the south bank of the Thames - a fine day of wandering around from pub to pub with an old friend, with the shoot as an excuse. I cannot now recall where the rear-most set of flowers came from.

Then the edit -- actually quite a simple process. Decide on framing and crop of main image first -- you're going to be stuck with that for the whole project, so I went for an orthodox view, with good shaping light on the towers, and not too much steam escaping them.
"Imagine..." Create a layer for each of the flower images -- cut out the bits you want (I selected them painstakingly, but I suppose some kind of mask process might have worked better), and resize and move then until they sit over the tops of the towers on the main image. Apply blurring and sharpening until the fit into the overall feel of the scene (slightly vague this one -- because the image is so unreal, you're competing with a feeling of looking out of place all the time. I had to persuade myself they really were flowerpots to get close, and I'm still not sure it's right. Final layer is used to draw in shadows -- I think it may have been an adjustment layer with a darkening brush actually, as that gives a progression to the depth of the shadows around the curve of the towers.

There were lots of tweaks throughout this process though -- lots of unanswered questions: should there be flowers in all the towers? Would that look too crowded? Should I leave one of the front towers un-flowered? Would that look like a mistake? I'm certain I got the right balance there -- but the shadows bother me to this day: they're just not quite fixed right.

I like the cheerfulness of it, the optimism. I was certain there would be lots of techno and depressing shots -- it amazes me that people think the future is going to be awful -- just like the absolute perception in popular culture that if there ever are visitors from other planets they'll be hell bent on destroying us -- so I thought I'd put up a happy thing. It's the only shot other than "You think..." that I was sure would win (of course it came second). Not to knock Sean's shot, but I still think it should have :-)

If I could pick any one of your images, and give it a blue ribbon, I would choose "Waterland". Where was this photo taken (Flatford Mill is where)? What time of day did you take this shot? You described some of the technical difficulties involved in shooting fog related landscapes, what advice can you give to people interested in this type of photography?

How kind. I don't think he is as well known outside the UK as he is here, but John Constable is notorious amongst my generation for being the classical painter who everyone's granny would have a couple of prints of in their house. Countless chocolate boxes, etc. etc. He lived and painted in an area called Dedham Vale, in the east of England (close to home territory for me) -- actually in north Essex and south Suffolk. Flatford Mill is one of his more famous works, and the actual place is now a study and wildlife centre. In fact the whole area, branded Constable Country, is under his influence.

I've wanted to photograph the English Landscape in a manner like the pastoral painters for a while -- the opposite of the high-drama, heavily burnt landscapes
"Waterland" we see a lot of on DPC. This is an on-going project, centred around Dedham Vale. My image in Dedham Vale is actually a part of that series, though probably a colour version for the final collection, and also Curious Cows was shot there. These are not reach out and grab you images, but then this is not reach out and grab you countryside -- very English, very gentle, very pastoral. I am trying to capture that sense of peace, and of greenness, and restfulness, and perhaps some of the nostalgic mood of these places. The reference back to Constable fits all of that perfectly.

It was shot at late evening, almost in the last available light -- I was worried about finding my way back to the car.

Advice? Gosh. Warm clothes -- more than you'd ever thing you'll need. Good boots. Flask of soup waiting in the car. Patience. But that's just landscape photography, really. Fog is very difficult: not only are you presented with a huge expanse of basically very light white, against which your subject is going to be pretty dark, but those light levels are changing constantly, as the fog thickens and thins. I checked thoroughly on early shots that I wasn't over-exposing anything - I'd rather have nothing above half intensity that burn-out problems -- and bracketed every exposure. Kept pretty much to the original metering of light, and trusted the bracketing to deal with variations, though I probably upped things by a stop as the light faded.

Processing is where the secret lies though. My approach was to bring the whole image up to a good level of brightness using simply the brightness/contrast command (with no contrast adjustment though), and then to bring back the shadows and midtones using curves or levels to set a black point (usually the same number as you've used in the brightness/contrast command. This, I find, keeps the smoothness in the fog, without descending into blotchy-looking grain -- and NeatImage won't cure that without losing too much information in other areas in this kind of shot.

It should be added that this process is specifically for web display. A print will quite happily live with the white point much lower than the web will happily handle -- so for printing there's no need to take the whites so high.

I remember voting on "Making A Point" and thinking to myself "There is something about this shot that just makes it stand out from the crowd, and makes it a pleasing image to look at. But I don't know what it is." Can you enlighten me?

Me? I just pointed the camera at it! I was wandering around the city of London one deserted Saturday, and the scene stopped me in my tracks and I knew it was perfect for the challenge (not in the sense of winning, but in the sense of fitting you understand). There are a couple of other shots from that trip in the "three colours" bit of the portfolio too. I honestly can't tell you what it is about it ... though I can attempt to pontificate, if you like.

I think it's pure composition: there is the flat triangle of the three signs, and the larger triangle made by the words and the signs, which work together to give structure to the overall image. The signage throws your eye out to the left of frame, but the words -- just the presence of them, rather than what they say --
"Making A Point" brings it back in: we read from left to right, most of us, and that should never be forgotten when considering composition. This created a dynamic in the image, a constant movement. I worked hard to get the tonal range into the image -- darkening and lightening in great swathes (I much prefer this to burning and dodging). That gives some sense of place, and of light to the image -- as though one were stood to the side of a river of light -- flowing along that street. That light flows against the direction of the signs, which adds another tension to the composition. Set against the forbidding blackness of the windows across the street, I think perhaps it also suggest some chance of escape -- there's a threat there, both from the impression of being stood in the dark, and looking across at more darkness, and yet the bright parts of the world suggest an escape route; a way out; some hope. Or just following the crowd? Perhaps that choice is part of it too. How's that?

Other points are that blue is a terribly easy-on-the-eye colour -- note how many bright blue shots there are amongst the blue (again) ribbon winners. I do think that there has to be more to a photograph than pure style -- I think there has to be more to everything than pure style.

Your first entry was "egg | white". If you could critique that now, what would you say? Would you change anything?

"egg | white"

I still quite like it, although it was rushed enormously. There's a visible translucency to the shell that I was pleased to capture. I like the light in the shot too. Too straight-forward for DPC though, and I wouldn't submit it these days. I remember being so disappointed with it's score ...

You have some really cool tiny shots in your portfolio. Do you let people use these for web avatars or other purposes? If so, it would be nice if people let you know? I would like to see these catch on and see some other people doing them as well.

I'd forgotten about them -- they were a kind of project I had going. I must return to them. The little face was the first one. I would love for people to use them as avatars ... anyone want to let me know how I do that?

If you would like to explain any more of your images in more depth, please feel free.

"Frame by Frame"

"Frame by Frame". Part of me wants to be a photographer who takes shots like this all the time, and is never seduced by the drama and brightness of the rest of the photographic world. Unfortunately, I get seduced by the drama and brightness etc. etc. Not to mention coming over all competitive now and again. I really struggled with this shot: there must be about seventy frames shot of these windows, and as many different crops of a final image also. This, when I finally hit upon it, I knew worked (under its own terms of course). However, what those terms are, exactly, I'm not sure I could say. So I've taken the liberty (both in terms of this interview and personally) of asking Zeus Zen if he would be kind enough to explain what it is he likes about it, in the expectation that I'll agree. I just pointed the camera; he's part of the audience ...

Zeus has been kind enough to write:

"Frame by Frame, to me, is a unique and somewhat nostalgic exploration of certain effects of light and proportion reduced to two dimensions. The mid-tones appear to have been kept (deliberately) dark enough to avoid a three-dimensional perception altogether.

What could have been a very simple composition (combination of one by thirds and another frame within frame), is complicated by the prominent shape of the bird-like glass placed very low behind the blind and the bolder blacks bleeding into the surrounding areas. The slightly wide postcard format accommodates just enough of the second window to relate a serial sense of the window(s), not only to provide a critical element to the composition but also to extend the minimal content dynamically beyond the confines of the image.

Given the range of weights and elemental complexity of this image, I marvel at the congruent balance Ed has managed to puzzle out of it.

I don't know if Ed intended this capture as a kind of homage to another era or photographer, as his annotation suggests. To me, it is a poise of aesthetics, a very particular aesthetic at that, and an enduring model for those willing to sustain an interest in the making of a photograph.

As Ed has already pointed out in his annotation 'This isn't a bright shiny smooth designer image...'. It is, in fact, a perfect example of a shot providing considerable interest for the few while failing the many. Apparently and demonstratively, there are images which fail our contemporaries, when its subject(s) are rendered latently, i.e. not as stressed, literal points of interest, and when a roughly familiar spatial reference (fore- to background) is either removed or rendered insignificant. In a time obsessed with slick, silk-like digital imaging and spectacular effects framed through super-telephoto zooms, the gritty charms of another era can easily be missed by the casual viewer."

-- zeuszen

Enormous thanks to Zeus. His willingness to spend the time to write that says as much about why I participate in this site as anything I could come up with.

Are there any type of photographic styles/techniques that you don't like?

There are some I have no interest in taking or particularly in looking at; though I disliked selective de-saturation quite forcibly, and then managed to do OK in that challenge, I still feel it makes things too easy -- a cheap way of pointing things up. I'll certainly leave the shots in the portfolio though -- who am I to say those who've been kind enough to put them in favourites are wrong?

What is your preferred style of photo? (i.e. macro, landscape, etc)

I'm not sure I have a preferred style -- I'm not sure I have a style at all. I like some macro work, but it has to have a quality that approaches landscape photography -- ideally, and I think this applies to my own macros, they're just mini-landscapes: the principles are the same. I do like landscape work -- like to shoot it, and am improving at it with practice. I also have a fondness for the New Topographic school of photography -- the idea of the documenting of the modern built world in all it's weirdness.

I think you provide some of the best and insightful comments on photographs. What advice can you give to people that can improve their critiquing skills?

The first thing would be to write more expressively. Many people here write reams of stuff in the forums, but when it comes to the images they manage only a few words. Simple familiar phrases are likely to be ignored -- something that reads more like a letter is going to have a much more friendly and useful impact.

The critical faculty is something that must be exercised in the same way you must exercise your body -- regularly, and often. And really, it's a simple process: look at a photograph, be aware of how you react to it, think about why you react that way, and write that down. The "rules" come into this at the analysis stage -- not at the reaction stage. It's perfectly valid to dislike photos for reasons of taste -- flowers, kids, cats, water drops, flying motorcycles, dull stylised postcard landscapes, whatever it is that your animus is against -- just as long as you realise that it's a personal thing. It can never ever hurt to repeat "just my opinion, but..."

Almost all my comments are critical -- even my very rare praise is usually tempered with some points where I sense improvement could be had. I think it is important to set those standards high -- then the praise is really worth something.

John Setzler has said, rightly, that writing critiques is the best way to improve your own photography. I'll second that. What more motivation could you need?

And finally, it can be learnt exactly in the same way as photography -- look at others' work, and think about it, and try to emulate it.

Name 5 photos on DPC that inspire you, in order of preference.

As will all selections of photos, this is an absolutely temporal thing: these stand as special photos for this Saturday morning, as I write. Actually, they're all wonderful, the order of preference varies; and to those excluded shots that ought to be here ... apologies to them and their creators.

"Sydney Harbour Bridge at Sunrise" by Andrew L. Robinson	What is there to say? It's just perfect landscape photography. The quality of light is completely amazing, the detail so precise it looks painted, the river-mist just lightening enough ... I don't care whether it's PS'd or a great moment, I am fascinated by this shot and have been trying to capture something like it for ages. No success so far -- but it's one of those images that I carry around in my mind quite a lot.
"Where You Thought Nothing Would Ever Grow" by Jean-Jacques Béguin	Another image that has stayed with me, something I think about often, and again would love to emulate. Tonality on those greens, and the sense of variation in light on such a subtle scale ... I have a sneaking suspicion that those leaves are actually varied in tone like that, and it isn't anything at all to do with light -- in which case I've set myself an impossible task :-)
"Through The Square Window" by Rob Smith	Vision. Pure and simple. This has great qualities of technique -- stone, fur, colouring all excellently captured, and also is a great image. I love the impersonality of it, the anti-portrait thing of there being no head, and yet it's still an absolutely communicative shot -- it could only be North Africa.
"Adrift in a Shallow Field of Snow" by Mario C. Melillo	Can look at it for hours. It's this kind of effect that I'd buy an SLR for. It has a feel of the 1950's about it ... no I think I mean earlier, like the 1890's, when the technology to take this kind of shot was established, but the process was slow, all exposures were slow, and one's subject had to be considered very carefully if you weren't to waste valuable time and resources on an image. People rave about the ability to take hundreds and hundreds of shots every day with digital technology: I'm not convinced this is a good thing. More time looking and less time shooting is better.
"After the rain came" by Tony Wright	Great landscape work, pure and simple. The kind of thing that makes me want to get out and find the wilderness and shoot it.

Name 5 outstanding portfolios of photographers you admire from DPC.

"Zeus Zen"	He's different, in a very good way. Thoughtful, confident, a great (and again different) eye, and rather pleasingly complicated. Same goes for his comments. His favourites and his comments are as worth checking out as his own work. And it does please me that he won't submit to the "DPC-style" in his entries. The community should value him enormously.
"Jean-Jacques Béguin"	Another photographer with an intensely personal style, though what makes Jean-Jacques stand out for me is his ability to see things that almost all of us would miss. I think you could put all of the site members in an empty room, one after the other, and JJ would come out of it with the most interesting shot, and everyone would say ‘I never saw that ...' And his ability with tones and colours is truly remarkable.
"Imagineer"	Love his work with motion -- how he doesn't yet have a ribbon I don't know. Again, doesn't really submit to the style, else I think he could have had several by now.

I don't think I'd care to single out two more ... there's a raft of folks whose work it's always good to see, and is almost always interesting. Those three above are genuinely inspiring to me though -- in the sense their stuff makes me want to get out with my camera. I should mention Kiwiness, Heida, Jon Pink, Gordon Whyte, Moodville, Shiiizzzam, Catherine Jameson -- where did she go? -- and probably a few others whose stuff interests me. Pedro, too. Apologies to those not mentioned who ought to be :-)

What are the 5 favourite shots that you have taken, and why?

There aren't five favourites, really. At any one time there are five I like, and probably more, and at any one other time I'd quite possibly think them hackneyed and dull. Had I to choose five photographs to stand for what I shoot and what I can shoot ...

"Spoon"	Use of light. Simplicity and control, and achieving the vision that I started out with. Some people I know think it's boring ... it of course depends on what you're seeing, and where your interests lie. I like it still, and actually I'm glad that not everyone does. A later note: having worked on a progression of this idea more recently, this image seems full of problems now. Still much liked, but perhaps superseded. I also have a different idea of what I was trying to do, now!
"The Wall at Audley End"	Can't say -- I think it's in the composition. I have a print of it on my wall of personals, and can still find it absorbing after a year and a half. Anyone care to write anything to explain, if they like it? In the end, you have to go with something that still appeals after that long, no?
"Grand Union Canal"	Shapes again. There's a different version, which I may put into my portfolio, which actually, after some consideration, I may like more.
"Corner House"	Light. Those angles of walls. Such a familiar little bit of view this, but it still looks slightly different, more see-able, as a photo.
"Imagine..."	Another side to what I do, and can do. Put together out of a spirit of fun, really.

What do you consider to be important aspects of photography?

Dang, how long do you want this interview to be?

To say simply "light" and leave it at that would be a truism. Perhaps rather say the way in which light allows us to realise the world around us.

Some critics still don't think photography is a form of art. What is your response to this?

I'm not certain that it is either ... No, that's wrong. I mean that whilst I'm certain it is, I prefer it thought of as a craft. But I might just think that about everything, actually -- music, writing, etc. Art is for others to perceive, not for one to impose. It's down to others to decide if what you do is art, it isn't something you can declare for yourself.

How many prints do you sell on DPC Prints in a month, on average? What's your best selling image?

On average ... er, ... when was it set up? I've sold five prints. That probably makes for three fifths of a print a month. Three of "You think..." and two of "Imagine..." I don't push it very hard, I must say. Perhaps I should put some work into it?

Are you planning any photo trips in the future? If so, where?

Just as soon as I'm out of the Palace Theatre, I shall try to get out to Dedham Vale again for a couple of days.

Who is your favourite photographer outside of DPC? (both film and digital, if you like)

I'm going to list three:

Andre Kertesz, by a country mile. No-one else ever had the extraordinary focus of that man's eye. Never nailed to a technique, never distracted by faddish processing gimmicks, no tricks (even in the Distortions series). I keep a book of his stuff in the bathroom, and there are several images that still could stop me in my tracks. Rainy Day, Tokyo; In Martinique; Fork (now there's an idea); Chez Mondrian... and there's an image from when he was a kid in Hungary that would blow DPC away if it could ever be entered. Pure genius. I could go on and on.

Simon Norfolk, though more for the Iraq series than for the Afghanistan stuff he won the Citibank prize for. For those who don't know, he takes shots of the aftermath of conflicts, using techniques of landscape photography and a medium-format camera. He would be a prize-winning landscaper, but his subject matter puts him in a different league.

Frank Meadow Sutcliffe. Lived in his own world, photographed it, recorded it for us. Everyone should know this stuff. Go to the Sutcliffe gallery website and buy them all now! This instant!

Do you have any photographic projects outside of DPC?

Several. The proposed London Olympic site is just around the corner, a mini-industrial waterland/wasteland that is fascinating, and by far the hardest documentary project I've set myself. There have been a few submissions from this area.

Dedham Vale, as mentioned above.

I'm blessed with a fine view of the Western sky over London, so there's also an on-going series of sunsets and cloudscapes there: it's easy to get so used to our everyday views and forget that they can be fascinating to those new to them.

There's a "Three Colours" series that seems to be happening of its own accord -- though that is actually a purely DPC thing (see the appropriate portfolio collection)

There isn't really an inside or outside of DPC in that sense. It's all photography.

What do you feel is your most underrated shot?

"The volume of a cylinder"

"Frame by Frame"

There are two (out of challenge entries, as I suppose you mean). "The volume of a cylinder" and "Frame by Frame" -- though the latter got some great comments from photographers I have a hell of a lot of time for, and so perhaps the former should be the answer.

If you could change one thing about DPChallenge, what would it be?

Really, the guys get so many suggestions and requests they must half-think the site is a disaster ... but it's quite the best thing on-line I've ever found. It's completely contradictory, but I'd like the voters to be a little more sophisticated: those who stay around, I believe, do become more particular in what they like and how they vote; there will always be a continuing new gang of people learning, and that's a very good thing in itself. It's inevitable that the greatest appeal to the greatest number generally wins a challenge -- one of the things that makes the favourites feature so good is that it provides recognition for those images outside of that tendency.

You've been a member since Feb. 26 2003. How did you find out about DPC?

Browsing for on-line photographic competitions. Was absorbed almost instantly.

What was your motivation for joining DPC back then?, Is your motivation for continuing to participate any different today?

I'd recently been on a holiday where I'd spent more thought on my photography, and had had some good reaction from friends to those shots. I wanted to see if my photography was able to stand up in a wider world, a more critical world. Answer: no, not at first.

If you could offer some advice to somebody who is new to DPC and submitting to DPC challenges, what would it be?

Pick a photographer, and have a damned good look at their first few challenge entries -- but don't pick one of the big stars of the place. Look at what does well, and look at the quality of the shots that don't do well -- and particularly look at the shots that finish mid-range. And be prepared to be shot down in flames, and so disappointed when your gorgeous submission is thoroughly trampled on in the voting. Be prepared to accept that you may be wrong in your opinions, and others may be right, and believe that you can learn about photography by participating in DPC. You just won't learn everything about photography.

Since challenge entries are pretty much a part of your "permanent record", in retrospect, are there any pictures you wish you hadn't submitted to a challenge?

Yes, quite a few :-) Those that I look back on and think "what on earth was I playing at?" I've become somewhat more selective over the months, fortunately -- once I got over that initial thing of "I must have a photo in the challenge". The specific embarrassing images I'm thinking of (now why would I want to point them out?), are from the In The Garden challenge, and the Indoor Macro challenge. Now you can all go see them if you really need to. Ugh.

How do you decide which challenges you are going to enter and which ones you'll skip?

Do I have a (good enough) idea? Do I have any time? One of the great things about the freelance life is that one tends either to have lots of time or none at all. The final image has to have achieved what I set out to do, or to have achieved what became the point in the process of shooting it. Those moments of final consideration, of "is this image good enough?", are an important part of the process -- that I think should apply to all photography, not just DPC submissions: the critical faculty as applies to your won images is something I've found very hard to develop -- that ability to sit back from your images and see them clearly, without the mental clutter of still being involved in the process of shooting. It equates to the fact of the difficulty of shooting an image not having anything at all to do with the final quality of it (excepting some photojournalistic work). There have been s few times when I've had what I thought would be winning ideas but simply haven't been able to get the camera out due to work commitments ... those ideas are of course safely stowed for future use.

Do you regularly seek assistance outside of the DPC community in trying to determine which of your photos you should submit?

No. I occasionally ask Henri, but only occasionally.

If you could personally ask Drew & Langdon for one new site feature or enhancement, what would it be?

As Kiwiness asked, I'd also like to be able to organise my challenge entries by score, place, favourites ... and to be able to browse people's challenge entries, like the favourites pages. I'd also like to be able to choose the four/five/six images that represent the portfolio, rather than defaulting to the new stuff only. Not big points though.

Why do you enjoy photography?

Do we all see the world differently? Ever get times when you say "whoa -- look at that" and everyone else goes "huh?". Partly it's an attempt to show the world the way it seems to me, and partly it's the diametric opposite of the loud, dusty, dark, interior world I work in most of the time. That probably explains my liking for both complex, difficult, near-experimental shots and big bright landscape photographs.