steel and decay
Blog recommendation of the week - interview
Tell us some things about yourself for a start. How did you become interested in photography?
It started as a child being fascinated with cameras, but back then I was fascinated with anything you could take apart and put back together (badly) again. As a teenager I took a lot of photos of abandoned buildings (some things don’t change), but really it’s something I left and came back to several times over the years. In recent times I think it’s the ability to do ambitious things with affordable technology that’s got me engaged again.
You have a variety of subjects and themes on your blog. What factors define what are you going to shoot each day?
A lot of the landscape type shots are more about how people have impacted on the land rather than nature and landscape.. The Pennines are full of wooded valleys that used to be industrial areas. There’s a bit of planning and research involved here… and working round the weather obviously. Some of urban shoots are more planned then others; I really like wandering around an area just seeing what I can find sometimes.
You’re also interested in digital/glitch art. Tell us some things about that.
That’s a strange one. It really started with calligraphy based abstract art as a way of adding an element of chance to the pieces… then it got addictive quickly! Once you start experimenting with your own photography the ability to add/change/remove the original intent and meaning lets you take things in so many directions, I could go on about this for hours, but I definitely think anybody even slightly interested should give it a try.
PS, if anybody is interested in having their images destroyed, I am open to suggestions here.
The First White Cloth Hall blog is a project about that historical building in Leeds. What drove you into that?
The First White Cloth Hall was built in 1710 and was an important part of the transition of Leeds from a small town into a major british city. It was replaced by another cloth hall 46 years after it was built and was gradually submerged under layers or rebuilding. It was rediscovered during demolition works in the 1980s and has been deteriorating since. The project with @rachelminshull was an attempt to document the building before it finally collapsed or was integrated into a restored ‘heritage’ shopping area. On a related note we have collaborated on a more ambitious project documenting Holbeck, a larger former industrial area of Leeds. It should be ready for publishing in a couple of weeks.
What inspires you? What are your influences?
Inspiration? That changes all the time, at the moment its obsessively reposing photos into abstracts and getting the Holbeck project finished… documenting things about to change and disappear is a motivation at the moment.
Influences? Tricky one, not something I’ve thought much about: off the top of my head: Brion Gysin, John Cage, Old Punk aesthetics in general, Picasso, Lee Miller and that whole surrealist photo thing in general, Ballard. Too many newer digital artists to mention…Thank you for this very interesting interview!
PWS - Nikos
Thanks for the interview, Nikos - PWS!
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