Portrait photography has never really been my thing. In many ways the most important part of my photography is the time alone. Life is busy and it is a privilege to spend time on my own, collecting my thoughts and challenging myself creatively. I am immensely grateful to my loving and understanding wife Valerie for ‘getting’ this.
The idea therefore of taking photographs of people seems to be the opposite of this. I hugely admire the expertise of portrait photographers and their creativity. I suppose that portrait photography is an easier path to recognition as some of the most famous photographs of all time seem to be of people. I am not always correct in what I ‘suppose’ but that is how I feel.
Late last year on a quiet Sunday afternoon I watched a documentary on Jane Bown. Jane was a photographer for the Observer newspaper and shot her subjects using an Olympus OM1, black and white film (I think Kodak Tri-X) and natural light. There is an immense sense of quiet in Jane’s work and I could never do it any justice in trying to describe it. Best to check it out directly - http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/dec/21/jane-bown-a-life-in-photography-in-pictures
Feeling inspired by Jane’s work I decided to shoot more portraits. I have always turned down requests to shoot photographs of birthdays or weddings as I don’t feel that connection but that afternoon changed my mind. I realized that portrait photography could produce the same emotion as my landscape work but the subject matter would need to be perfect.
So I’ve bought a portrait lens. I will be trying to capture the same quiet moments that I aim for in landscape photography. I will be looking for the scenes where you can feel a strong connection to the subject. So far, I have been concentrating on black and white photographs but I have been shooting both film and digital.
This is not a new direction for me. I am not bored with landscape photography and I do not wish to commercialise this work. I hope that I create moments of beauty. I hope I can produce photographs that tell a story. I hope that I can come close to finding that elusive light that Jane Bown captured so effortlessly.
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