Italo europeo has interviewed the three winners of the Accademia Apulia Photographic Award for a better understanding of what the meaning of being a photographer is today, the interview unveils the essence of their art. You can read the interview in full here.
To be a photographer: new challenge in a new era – interview by Cinzia Cerbino
When you take a picture, what do you intend to communicate with your photography?
I would agree with the American photographer Thomas Joshua Cooper that I ‘make’ a picture instead of taking it. Each image from my Sonnets series is the result of much consideration and planning, and when I arrive at a location, the main variables are light, weather and my own mood – these are all important factors which make up the final image.
In my photography I attempt to create images which are largely free of narrative and are freely open to interpretation. For my Sonnets series in particular, this has created an ambiguity which forces the viewer to engage with the figure, and attempt to work out his relationship to the landscape around him. While I do have my own thoughts regarding the meaning of Sonnets, my approach was largely inspired by the work of Bill Brandt, who wrote about emphasising one element of a subject, as this would “…most effectively arrest the spectator’s attention and induce in him an emotional response to the atmosphere I have tried to convey.”
In a society of visual art (media, advertising) is there any space for new imagery? Is there any space for innovation?
There is always room for innovation, and I’m continually surprised by some of the talented artists and photographers whose work I come across on a weekly basis. Photography has never been so vibrant as it is today, and while there are of course mediocre works being created, I tend to concentrate only on those that leave an impression, and make me want to revisit them.
Photography is something immobile. In a society that changes continuously, can photography be a useful instrument that makes people think?
Yes, there are still times when I will see images which cause me to stop whatever I’m doing and give them all of my attention. Most recently this was a photo essay by David Gillanders on street children in the Ukraine. The cruel and desperate conditions that those kids live in forced me to find out what was being done to help them, and if I could play any small part in that. It was a strong emotional response which arose from viewing his stark images, and caused me to reflect on my own relationship to images of poverty.
In your opinion, how can photography contribute positively to multiculturalism?
I strongly believe that photography can play a key role in contributing to multiculturalism through sharing the experiences, stories and lives of people from all walks of life. I recently had the pleasure of meeting with photojournalist Stefano Morelli and seeing his hard hitting images from around the world of peoples who are largely marginalised, such as the Roma in Albania. The most difficult challenge he faces is not taking the images of these people, but sharing them with an audience who have been made apathetic through so called ‘compassion fatigue’ . For example his work covering minefields in Cambodia was largely ignored by news outlets in the West for being ‘just too depressing’. These hard hitting images could have led to further discourse on the subject, however this has not been allowed to happen.
My own work is slightly different, and attempts to challenge stereotypical conceptions of what constitutes multiculturalism by rejecting the approach of making images concerned exclusively with race, and by concentrating on the diverse backgrounds and cultures which make up the wonderfully diverse culture of modern day Scotland.
In your masterpieces, what is the relationship between man and nature?
Thank you for the kind words, however I wouldn’t call my own work masterpieces, that is something I would associate with Wynn Bullock, Paul Strand or August Sander for example.
For my current series Sonnets there is a very close link between man and nature. Each of the images has been created in a carefully selected location, one that is generally known to Scottish viewers for historical, or scenic associations. Locations that rose to prominence in the 19th century with the creation of a new Scottish national identity, and romanticism.
One such example is Glencoe and Rannoch Moor in the Scottish Highlands. Places of stunning natural beauty, images of these wild landscapes have understandably been photographed ad nauseam, and they adorn everything from calendars to shortbread tins.
Dominated by picturesque mountains such as Buachaille Etive Mòr, and by the expanse of the moorland itself, the weather and ground there can be extremely unforgiving, as anyone who has walked over Rannoch Moor can testify. These aspects are often forgotten though as photographers tend to congregate in the same shooting locations, unimaginatively taking the same image of the same tree, the same waterfall, and the same vista – often creating uninspiring images. This prompted me to challenge these conventions, and It was in Glencoe that the Sonnets series began.
What has been of greatest interest to me is the reaction that my images seem to illicit in some viewers. I have had correspondences with Scots from around the world, from viewers of exhibitions, to MSPs , telling me that the Sonnets series is for them a perfect representation of Scottish identity. I was even approached last year by an agency working on behalf of the government to use Sonnets internationally as the face of Scottish Tourism, and a surreal moment when I was congratulated by our parliament for my work on challenging traditional depictions of Scotland.