1- Are you a professional photographer? No I’m not but I have been working in a professional studio for the last four years as the assistant to the photographer Ismael Lorenzo.
2- Why street photography? I came from the streets and there’s nothing I love more than wandering the streets and alleys of a big city! Glasgow is a kind of street city, a lot happens in the street there and in the 80’s I came across the work of Oscar Marzaroli the Italian Scottish street photographer. I was amazed how he captured the heart and soul of the people of Glasgow. It was love at at first sight! Shortly after I discovered Weegee the originator and his b&w flash images were seared onto my brain, my own life would have a lot of ups and downs, cameras lost and found, bought and sold before I eventually reached a point where I could be quiet enough to take the photos I wanted to take. Street Photography for me is a natural expression of my love of people and their cities, tiny fragments of their life stories captured in one fleeting instant, the vibrance and emotion of the street, it lifts me up and drags me down and shakes my emotions all around, no other type of photography holds my attention like street. Strangely enough I now live in a small village and crave the anonymity and spontaneity of the big city on a daily basis!
3-What do you look for in an image? I generally don’t think too much when I’m shooting if something catches my eye I press the shutter. I’m looking for mostly the unusual, it could be beauty it could be pain, it could be humour, it could be drama, anything at all in the street but I tend to see people who are apart from the crowd for whatever reason or scenes of Urban detachment where one person looks so alone in a sea of people.It’s often a very ordinary beautiful moment that I want to keep for ever as well as the ones I have in my head but at some point forget! I shoot juxta shots if I like the story or it makes me smile or something.I shoot a lot of candid portrait type stuff, I usually work pretty close to my subjects, I’m looking for emotions to move in me to press the shutter. It also depends a lot on how I’m feeling what I shoot, so you pretty much get me and my themes of not fitting in, difference, search for home/homelessness, black humour, humanity in my street work. I’ve been fascinated by people and what they do and how they look since I was a child.
4-Where in the world would you most like to photograph? I just came back from Tokyo and I could see me spending the rest of my life shooting there, I think it is a wonderful place to photograph the street but for somewhere I have never been I think Seoul, Hanoi, Shanghai are all on my list but honestly any Big City Streets where I can lose myself in the crowd, drink good coffee, meet new people and wander till I’m done suits my style of shooting!
5-Who would you most like to photograph? I’m fascinated at the moment by the Orthodox Ethiopian community who live and worship every Sunday in a town near me, they all get on to my tram as I travel into the city every week. I was in Jerusalem some years back at Christmas and the Ethiopian pilgrims there really struck me, their elegant beauty and dedication and stylish way of dressing. So at the moment I’m looking for a way in to photograph their community. The idea of shooting different immigrant groups here in Switzerland has been kicking round my head for a while, again my theme of home/homelessness/belonging.
Failing that I would love to shoot Bae Doona, the actress, photographer and model from Korea, absolutely one of my favourite faces and styles on the planet!
6-Your favourite street image of your own to date and why? Early on in my street photography I took a picture of a guy I see round the station all the time, he was pushing his luggage trolley with all his belongings on it across a tarmac car park. No other people in the shot just him and his possessions. I titled it “Across The Lonely Sea” It was the first shot from the street I printed and I’m very fond of it. I see it every morning when i wake up and it seems to say a lot about life, me and my photography!
“Across The Lonely Sea”
7-Your favourite piece of equipment? I’m not much of a gear head, I shoot with whatever camera I have at the time and I don’t have my “perfect” set up at the moment but a Fuji X camera with an 18 mm lens and I’m pretty happy. So I’ve got the Fuji camera and am saving for the 18mm!! I also love my Crumpler photo bag! You can get everything in it, it’s waterproof and Gerri proof!! it’s been all over the world with me!
8- Is photography art? Oh yeah for sure and when it’s done to it’s best levels I think a very high form of art too. I think if you do what you love with love and dedication and share it to an audience wherever that audience may be then you can call that art. I call my photography photography rather than art but it’s much more than than that, it changed my life on many different levels! I did lots of different things in my life but I’ve never been happier or more challenged than in street photography. It’s given me direction and purpose and brought me through some tough times in to the now happier times!
9- Black And White Or Colour? Black & White for me, I have nothing against colour and I went to Tokyo with the idea of processing some stuff in colour but still for me B&W is where I came in to photography, esp Kertesz, Bresson, Lange, Weegee, Salgado, Garcia Rodero, Moriyama and of course b&w films, Touch Of Evil, Citizen Kane, Film Noir, that b&w for me is the pure form. One day maybe I will find a theme or a project for me in colour but at the moment it’s still fairly rare and sporadic in colour. I do really like Fuji’s colour though.
10-What are your thoughts on editing? I like it! I try not to over process my own work, I like contrasty shots but not just contrast for the sake of contrast, I can’t make a poor picture better in the editing, so editing for me is to enhance a picture which already has something that makes me open it in Camera Raw. Again I don’t spend hours on each picture, it’s street, I work fast there and pretty fast on the edits too. I may go back sometimes and think, wow what the hell did you do there and do it again!! I think it’s good to know your way around the software, Raw, Lightroom, Silver Efex, Photoshop. I never manipulate my pictures in photoshop, that’s not street for me.
11- Why do you share to Progressive Street and who would you like to see showcased from Progressive Street? I really like and respect many of the photographers who post on P-Street, some of them are friends and some of them are new friends and I discover new great people every time I visit. I also really like the varied styles of the shooters who post there there’s some real quality and diversity. I think it’s important that openess to different styles in the “spirit of the street is present in a group! I also think it’s important that a group is moderated and has admins who have different qualities and a sense of humour. I really like the admins at the group and find their input both helpful and humorous, this is important for me in a group. I’m not a fan really of the supergroups or those groups that get too cliquey. P-street suits me and my style of shooting and sporadic posting style! This year I resolve to be more engaged online in our community!
I would like to see Andreas Mamoukas featured, every time I see his shots I think “Dang wish I had taken that,” I find his attention to detail inspiring me to reach up for another level!