Statement
I seek out places where I sense a visceral emotional feeling, and try and capture that in photographs. Usually, I find a certain kind of light evocative and powerful—such as darkly lit nightscapes and late afternoon light--because it seems to crystallize a psychological moment. When making images in very low light at night, I often don't really know what is being captured, so I wait for the landscape to slowly reveal itself from the surrounding dark. Instinctively I take the picture; later, I see what I photographed. Creating photographs in this way is, initially non-visual, intuitive and spontaneous.
Painting (Hudson River School; Italian Renaissance) and cinema (Antonioni and Fassbinder) form the core sources of inspiration. Film’s influence started as a child, when my father worked for a motion picture company and took home films which we projected in the basement. The flickering image in the dark fascinated me, and this memory formed my interest in photography and night landscapes.
Using a digital camera is crucial for my process. Unlike traditional film cameras, the image can be played back immediately, reviewed or discarded. This subtle but fundamental shift seems to have more in common with video or film. Although the image is reworked—sometimes making dozens of minor digital color corrections--original light sources and color is retained, nothing is staged, and no additional lighting is ever used. The resulting print retains great detail but sometimes has a quality that looks curiously un-photographic and video-like.
Installation Photographs
Installation photograph.
Sadler's Wells, London. 2008.
