FRAMES Photography Podcast
FRAMES Photography Podcast
Rob Wilson
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In today's episode, W. Scott Olsen talks to Rob Wilson, a British photographer whose work mainly consists of personal documentary projects and private commercial work.
This podcast is brought to you by FRAMES, a high-quality quarterly printed photography magazine. You can find out more about FRAMES at www.readframes.com.
Get that composition right, get that exposure right, get the the the shutter speed right, just get it all together. Don't accept anything where you haven't got it right. That was one of the big changes that I I've made is I I'm a whole lot more brutal with my own work in in recent years than I was many years ago, and I think that that's made a big difference.
SPEAKER_03This photography podcast is brought to you by Frames, quarterly printed photography magazine. Here is your today's host, W. Scott Olson, with another fascinating conversation.
SPEAKER_02Well, hello everyone, and welcome to another podcast from Frames Magazine. My name is Scott Olsen, and we are gonna have so much fun today. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to today, because today we're talking to Rob Wilson. And I mean, full disclosure here, although Rob and I have never been in the same room together, I have known him for some time. Those of you that have subscribed to Frames Magazine, you probably know his uh look closer column, very popular work back then. And if you are a current subscriber to the magazine, the current issue has a brilliant, wonderful feature by Rob on his work in Iceland. He's a landscape photographer, a documentary photographer, a portrait photographer. He's doing some of the most interesting and best work that I have seen for a long time. Uh, Rob and I have had a chance off and on to talk in the past, but never on the podcast. And I am looking forward to this. Rob, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing, man?
SPEAKER_04Great. Thank you very much for having me, Scott. It's an honor to be here. And uh, I don't know how I follow that introduction, to be honest.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, I think this is this is the first time that I've interviewed somebody um who I've known for years and years. Well, with years and years, you know, what, two years now, three years?
SPEAKER_05Yes, three, four years, yes.
SPEAKER_02And we we've had all sorts of conversations. So this this is a bit like sitting down in the living room with an old friend. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you. Okay, now, Rob, born in the UK, you're living in Ottawa, you've been a photographer more for more than 20 years, doing all sorts of really, really interesting work. You've also got time in South Korea, you've got time in the Emirates. You you've got a really, really rich past. So before we get, we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about the images in the magazine, both their current incarnation and how they appear in other venues. But give give us the history. You were not born with an instomatic in your hand. How did you get to photography?
SPEAKER_04Um well, I started in photography at the end of the 20th century. I spent a year backpacking in Australia uh when I was just about to turn 30, and I came across the images of an Australian landscape photographer called Peter Dombrovskis. And the images were just magnificent, they're just wonderful, wonderful photographs, and they really drew me in. And I looked at them, and being sort of a bit full of myself in my late 20s, early 30s, I said, well, I can do that. And of course I couldn't, but I went and I bought myself an SLR camera. I started shooting slide films straight away, and I tried to make images that were a little like that of the Australian landscape. Um, and I've been hooked ever since.
SPEAKER_02What what about those images? And what were they? Were they just Uluru, Air's Rock, Alice Springs, sort of the stereotype? Or what were the images and why did they call to you?
SPEAKER_04His images was of were of Tasmania. Um, and he would hike out into the wilderness in Tasmania and and make these fantastic shots of the landscape. You know, and it's a wild, it's a pretty wild place, and he just captured it so perfectly. Um, you know, yeah, it was just the loveliest work.
SPEAKER_02And and so your early efforts that you were proud of were what?
SPEAKER_04Well, they were they were landscapes in Australia, particularly in Tasmania. Uh, you the the photographs inspired me to go and walk uh uh in this fan this fantastic hike called the Overland Track, uh which runs from Cradle Mountain to Lake Sinclair in in sort of the centre of Tasmania. It's a wild area and and but incredibly beautiful. So I I took my camera, I I hiked for a week and I made images, and yeah, they they were they were fine. I mean, could you compared to what I make now, though they were perhaps not the most the most impressive images, but for a first go I I just thought this is lovely, what a thing to do, you know. So that that that really hooked me.
SPEAKER_02Oh man. And so you never put it down since then?
SPEAKER_04I I did have a little time when I when I put it down for a while. Um in the mid-2000s, as film was beginning to to disappear and die away, uh, I didn't have the money to get a digital camera. And the first digital camera I did get, when I didn't have the money to do it, uh, wasn't very good. Uh and the images were terrible, were frankly terrible. Um and things changed most dramatically for me in well, about 2010, 11, when I bought a Canon 5D Mark II. That changed my life completely because then I had a really great camera and uh I was able to make the photographs that I wanted. Well, okay. What did you want? Um, by that point I was more interested in people than landscapes, so I would just walk around the streets of South Korea where I was living at that time and just photograph the the world as I saw it. Um street photography, just documenting the world around me. Mm-hmm. Um tell me about your time in the Emirates. Well, after after um four years in South Korea in 2012, I got a job in Abu Dhabi and I went to teach at a university there. And uh first thing one of the first things I did was upgrade my camera. Um, and I went out and I photographed uh through Abu Dhabi. And and I think there I made the first really interesting project that I did. Um, there are a lot of construction workers in Abu Dhabi. These guys come from India and Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and yeah, they have pretty difficult lives. They don't earn very much money and and they work in some tough conditions in very, very tough, tough weather. And I thought, well, I'm gonna make a series of portraits of these guys. So I spent time wandering onto building sites and uh making portraits of the of these guys, and and then um, if the opportunity arose, gave them a copy.
SPEAKER_02So you you would you would print back in your apartment or whatever, and then go back to the site and hand it to them?
SPEAKER_04Exactly, exactly. Sadly, the biggest sort of the biggest run of prints I had, I had about 60 prints. I went to the site where they were working to hand out the prints, and that group of workers had been moved away, so I never got to hand them over, which was which was a bit sad, you know?
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm I I'm gonna I'm gonna read something you've got on your own website here, which I think is just absolutely uh wonderful. You say I would regularly visit one major construction site where, despite no common language, I formed a bond with a number of them. I wanted to create, you said, a project that showed them as dignified, strong individuals who would play up to the camera. Yes. Um how do you go about doing portraits without a common language?
SPEAKER_04Uh I think just a s a smile and uh and a sort of a wave of the camera.
SPEAKER_02And uh because these aren't all just you know, candles. Some of these are posed shots. Some of these are are you uh so I mean how do you go how do you do art direction if you haven't got a language?
SPEAKER_04They pose themselves. Inevitably they posed themselves. I I never really asked people to pose in a particular way. I might ask people to stand in a in a particular place, but the poses themselves, they made themselves. That was that was all down to them. They they played up to the camera.
SPEAKER_02I'm I'm just I'm digging this work. There there's there's some just really, really um intimate and and and moving images here. Uh, I don't know how well you remember um any single one of them, but there there's one where there's a man in a blue uh button-down shirt. He's got a red scarf around a red and white scarf around his neck. Uh, do you remember that shot? I do.
SPEAKER_04I think that was the very first one I I I took. Let me just uh let me just open my web the website and I'll have I'll get this in front of me. Um it's the blue button-down the blue shirt.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, it's it's right after the guy in yellow on your website.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so uh yeah, he kind of looks like a James Bond villain, doesn't he? He was uh he really played up to the camera. Yeah, and that was one of the very first ones I took. That was that was I I went out testing a new a new lens I just purchased, and uh I sort of wandered over to him and his friend and asked them if I could take some pictures of them. Uh and they were they were very happy to pose, and he he sort of gave me this uh this this look, you know. Um did anybody say no? Um very rarely. Very, very rarely. It was um yeah, I I I can't think of any occasion with these guys. Um it was yeah, it was rare if at all.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I'm just flabbergasted and amazed, you know, that you can walk into a community, just sort of hold your camera up, you know, and wave it like, you know, is this okay? Um and you get such tremendous, tremendous results. Um tell me about the image where you've got two men, one in a yellow outfit, one in sort of a turquoise outfit, um, you know, wearing the the the color coordination, you know, is is just a gift from the universe. Absolutely, absolutely. Um just tell tell me the story of this one.
SPEAKER_04Well, this one I did pose a little bit. I just asked, I just uh I just asked them to hold their tiffin tiffin uh boxes in their right hands, but beyond that, they they they did it themselves. Uh I took you know I think I took several shots of them, but they you know they kind of put themselves in this position. And uh uh yeah, it's great. I I I really love this photograph.
SPEAKER_02You know, oh it it's magnificent. Um talk to me, because you most of your work is is these days is is more landscape, more documentary. What what what is the appeal for you of taking portraits?
SPEAKER_04I I I guess it's an excuse to interact with people, to talk to people, or you just have some sort of uh you know common connection. You know, I I I look at these images as not having me having made them, but we made them together. Oh, cool, okay. This is why I tried to hand out copies of the prints. I always showed them the the pictures after I took them. You know, I look up looked upon it as a collaboration with people I'd never met before. And I and I think that's why a lot of them work.
SPEAKER_02Did you do the instant thing where you'd show them the back of the camera and then they they could see the picture you just took? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely. Okay.
SPEAKER_02And how how often did you go to take two? Like, ah, that didn't work, let's do it again.
SPEAKER_04Oh, quite quite often. I mean, I I I I I you know a digital a digital camera can take lots of photographs, and I I whilst I don't do the sort of spray and pray approach, um, you know, I I I don't have any fear of of taking quite a number of images. I I want the image to be right, so I want to give myself the best chance of getting that image.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Well, I mean, there there is a kind of intuited art direction, you know, for good portraits, um, where they don't look stayed. They don't look like you know the people have been stuffed. Um and and you nailed it uh everywhere here. But let's turn a little bit. Um, you know, and in a minute we're gonna get to Iceland. You know, you know, the project that's in Frames Magazine, the current issue. Um, and I can't wait to talk to that because for a reason I'll explain it in a little bit. Iceland just scares me. But you you you and I share uh an environment, even though we're hundreds of miles apart. Um and being in the northern part of or the central to northern part of North America, um, we have winter. Uh and and winter is is a large, loud, lethal, beautiful season for us. Um and and you, I gotta tell you, man, your Canadian winter series speaks to not only my own experience, but to my heart. But it's not a colorful season. No. So tell tell me how you approach photographing winter.
SPEAKER_04Um in all honesty, with the winters here sometimes, rarely, because it's too cold. Um I this particular the Canadian winter um series really this came out of me just beginning to discover Canada when I first arrived here. My wife and I, we we we arrived in in January 2019. And so the first thing I did was get out and start photographing. Just I wanted to explore my the landscape, the places around us. We we took my father-in-law's car and uh and before we had our own and drove off to areas around Lake Ontario. I just photograph what I saw. You know, and there's there's another one, one of the images here is of a frozen-up lake. Uh, I particularly wanted to go and walk walk on a frozen lake. So we drove up a little a little north and walked on Lake Lake Simcoe because it was frozen solid. And I made an image uh of that frozen lake. It was really just responding to the environment around me.
SPEAKER_00Let's take just a quick break. We hope very much that you are enjoying today's episode. The very fact that you are listening to this podcast suggests that photography means a lot to you. And if that's the case, you might want to have a look at Frames, quarterly printed photography magazine. We truly believe that excellent photography belongs on paper. Visit readframes.com to find out more about our publication and use the coupon code podcast to receive a recurring 10% discount on your new frames magazine subscription. And now, back to today's conversation.
SPEAKER_02How do you make the flatness of winter light so evocative?
SPEAKER_04I don't know. To be honest, answer. To be honest with you, you know, I I I just you I I point the camera, I see what I want to see, and and I take the photograph. And then I think maybe there's a bit of it in in processing. Um, you know, I try to make it the light look quite flat and uh and and the image is contrasty in this series. Um, but that there isn't, I don't think there's any particular particular magic to it. You know, it it's just I like being out in gray weather. I like the gray weather when there's a lot of snow around, and and I think that just lends itself to these type of photographs.
SPEAKER_02Oh man, you're you're absolutely right. I and you mentioned walking on the frozen lake. You've got two frozen lake pictures, and I want to talk about both of them, um, and sort of the reverse order that they are in your website. You've got one where there's clearly a lot of detail to the lake in front of you. It goes up to a horizon at about the one-third line, and then you've got you know a flat, cloudless, you know, indiscreet sky above it. But you can see the texture of the ice, you can see the the spin drift, you can see the snow. Tell me the story of not only you know that day, but then composing, editing, the whole bit of because this picture is brilliant, and the one I'm gonna talk about next word uh is is brilliant er.
SPEAKER_04This so this is the one where you can actually make out the detail of the ice. Um, this was Lake Simcoe this is when we walked on the ice. Um, and it was just a very it was just a very cloudy day. And I and I'd been looking at the work of uh Hiroshi Sujimoto Um and he'd taken these sort of long exposure images with with sort of almost no real subject in them. Uh and they were images of the the long exposures of the sea. And I thought, well, maybe I can do something like that here. And so I I made this image and and it and it yeah, I I called it a homage, the these two are uh an homage to to Sujimoto. Okay because you know how I had his work in mind when I made them.
SPEAKER_02Oh man. Well, I mean, it it is compelling in the way, I mean, at least for me, you know, I feel like I'm gonna fall into the photograph, uh, which is you know the best experience you can have. Um, but you're also falling into an environment that that is um, I guess the cliche is it's starkly beautiful. Yes. Um, you know, absolute freezing lethal cold has a kind of beauty to it. Yes. Um, and you know, it's it's that kind of a mystery. But the one just before it on your website, um it is to me among the best I've ever seen. And it is so simple, so um minimalistic. And you cannot make all you've got is a horizon line and varying tones of gray. Yes. So tell me the story.
SPEAKER_04Uh, this is this is a long exposure image. Yeah, the water it was in the middle of winter, but the uh the the water wasn't frozen at this point, so I I just opened the shutter up for uh I can't remember the exact time, probably 30 seconds or so. Uh on Lake, I think this was on Lake Ontario, which which you it is obviously an enormous lake, so it doesn't freeze quite as readily uh as some of the other lakes. Um and it was again this flat iron grey sky. And I thought, well, again, this will this might look quite interesting just with this horizon line and and a and a long exposure. So yeah, I I I prefer this one to the other, the other shot as well. I think this is this is more interesting.
SPEAKER_02I I've gotta figure out a way to you know explain to people who have not seen the picture yet. All this picture has in it is a line, a horizon line. But little tonal changes from bop, you know, from top to bottom or bottom to top. Um, I mean, you realize what you're looking at instantly, but not because it's really there. Um, what what is to your mind the the ability of an image like this to provoke, to evoke the kind of emotion that clearly we we respond with?
SPEAKER_04I mean, and to me, I mean, it's I I look at it and I think I can almost reach into the image. That's that you know that's something about it that made it attractive to me. And because there's there's no real detail apart from that horizon line, I think it just asks the viewer to to sort of contemplate the image and think what it's all about, you know, what's going on here. Um, which I think creates some hip some slightly hypnotic qualities perhaps.
SPEAKER_02That you know, that I think that's dead on. I I had not thought of that. I think this is a hypnotic image. You you you wind up staring at it pleasantly, pleasurably, um, and really asking yourself to engage with with the suggestion of the image there. Um it it's I mean I I love this approach. Um, but this is also completely unlike um, you know, one of the projects that you're best known for, and that's the Scarborough Project. Yes. You you have explained in a number of places what that project's all about, so I'm gonna ask you to do it again. Um, you know, tell us what that is.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so when my wife and I left Abu Dhabi and we moved to Canada, um I just I thought it would be rather nice to do, if I could, to do to do a master's degree in photography. I've wanted to do one for a very, very long time. And this was an opportunity. My wife's my wife was happy for me to do it. I signed up with with the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. And uh, unbeknownst to me, the first thing they ask you to do is to come up with a project for the for your for your you know for your master's degree. And I had absolutely no idea. I had not a clue. I hadn't even thought of this. I thought, you know, it was going to be sort of mod modules about uh history of photography and this and that, you know. I clearly I hadn't done my research quite as well as I should have done. Um but they said the project. So I went out for I went out just walking around and and thinking, well, what can I photograph? And I was also had started working in a camera shop at this time because I I'd realized that you know I knew quite a lot about photography and its culture and history, and I I thought I could take decent photos, but I didn't know anything about cameras. And my colleagues in the camera shop and I I became pretty good friends with them. And we're talking and talking to them, they sort of started talking to me about Scarborough and telling me about the place because some of them had spent most of their, if not all, of their lives there. And I thought, well, this this this this place sounds interesting, you know. It sounds interesting, it's not and it doesn't but it doesn't sound like the sort of place you would associate with a photography project. It it it it isn't in any way uh conventionally beautiful, apart from there are a few lovely areas in there, but it's a big urban sprawl with industrial areas as well. And I thought, well, why don't I just make some pictures of this um of this place and we'll see how we go. And I was I I made some initial images and I thought, well, these are quite good, these are quite interesting. You know, it's it's pictures of somewhere unconventional in terms of photography projects. And and the place has a the place has a reputation as well. It does, it does have a deeply unfair reputation, and and you know, it is called some has historically or traditionally historically been called some fairly nasty names. Um but it's an incredibly diverse place in terms of the people there. You know, incredibly diverse. It must be one of the most diverse places on the entire planet. People have come from across the world to make their home there. And I and and again this. kind of added more into the project, you know, it made me want to explore the district even more. At the time I was also you exploring the work of of Alex Oath, his books Niagara and Sleeping by the Mississippi. And I sort of I could have thought well I could maybe do something like that here. Something inspired by this and and this this sort of deep dive into a sense of place. And it but beyond that it was also about me discovering the place I was now calling home. So I walked and I walked and I walked and I just photographed continuously. And then of course COVID began um which you know everything became increasingly deserted. Thankfully I was still allowed to was still allowed to go out and walk with my camera. So there's there was a lot of places where where there was nobody around it was a lot rather rather quieter than when I started by the time I'd I'd finished how do you photograph against reputation I thought I would just you try and tell a truth as I saw it. You know I I um I yeah I I I've tried to make the pro the the the the the project warts and all I I haven't shied away from taking some pictures of some fairly ugly things as well. But also as you sort of look around you find things that are funny you find things that are unconventionally beautiful. And and that's just really what I did. I just walked and I took pictures I w found things uh and I made sure you that that I made the pictures that that you that I wanted I'm I made the uh yeah I just made these the pictures that I that I wanted that they they came out how I wanted them to look and I thought as long as I'm honest here as long as I'm honest with what I do then then I hopefully I can't go too far wrong I it on honesty I think is is at the bedrock of everything that we do.
SPEAKER_02Yes but this is also an appreciation this is also a kind of love song to the place it is a love with with all with all of its warts and all of all of its blemishes but all of its beauty as well when you were out when you're just walking around with your camera did you have any kind of explicit sense of what would appeal to your eye not really I I I just went out with an open with a very very open mind you know and if I thought that looks interesting I took a photograph of it you and the and the c the great thing was the more I walked the the more odd unusual strange things that I that I found.
SPEAKER_04I mean there's a there's a picture there of of a of a of a red sweater or cardigan that looks like it's been captured and murdered. And I I I didn't set that up there's no setup there. I found that on on on the roadside and um and of course cars are going past and everyone's looking at me like I'm completely insane photographing photographing this red sweater on the ground but there's not a single setup shot in there. The portraits are are are a bit posed but in terms of you know the the landscapes and and the objects that are photographed there's there's nothing set up it's all as I found it.
SPEAKER_02Were the portraits all just people you happened to meet when you were out walking? I mean they are that time accidental?
SPEAKER_04No these I I I set these up. So there's there's there's portraits of of that every everyone in there I know. So there was colleagues from the camera store friends from the camera club that I joined my wife's in there a couple of times as well as are my my two nieces and my wife's sister. It was it was partly because of COVID of course it was much more difficult to get subjects to pose.
SPEAKER_02Yeah I I think somebody needs to do an anthology of the families of photographers.
SPEAKER_04How do they go run screen Dad's got the camera again run for the hills I've I've never been quite quite inclined inclined to do what uh Nicholas Nixon did with the Brown sisters and sort of arranging year after year. I'm not sure my my my two sister-in-laws would necessarily stand for that I know my wife wouldn't stand for it but uh well speaking of the portraits tell me about the guy in the green t-shirt looking at you through a screen door of some sort uh because he doesn't look overly happy yeah it's this is uh yeah he this this this gentleman's uh my a a friend of mine Dick he uh uh who volunteered to to uh to pose for me and I went to his house and the day I got there it was blisteringly hot bright sunlight and I thought well I'm never gonna get anything interesting here and it would be such a shame because he's a pretty photogenic guy uh and he was really amenable to to what you know to to to getting you know the portraits done and I we'd had an hour of a really unsuccessful shoot and I was getting very frustrated with myself and I sort of looked at his his this his sort of gazebo in the background and the in the back garden and there's the screen I thought and I just said we'll go and stand behind the screen and let's see what happens and and I got this image and it was one of the last ones I took I think um but it was yeah I thought I thought well this is pretty interesting I'm I'm pretty happy with this.
SPEAKER_02Oh well that it's it's a wonderful wonderful image um a lot of the work in in the Scarborough project we really could call landscape work. You know it may be train yards it may be power lines it may be you know whatever but but it really is sort of urban landscape photography. How did you get from that to Iceland?
SPEAKER_04Well Iceland was the Iceland pictures were actually taken before the majority of the Scarborough project. Okay so the ice the Iceland pictures were taken late in 2019 when I was I was only just beginning to find the beginnings of of this project uh my wife and I had wanted to visit Iceland for many many years it was a dream destination we said in sort of September 2019 let's let's go to Iceland let's you know we know it's expensive but let's do it otherwise we may never get another chance and we're very glad we did because of course what the next thing that happens is COVID arrives and we don't we don't go anywhere for the next two years. We went to Iceland and we arrived and the weather was pretty awful there was not we did not have a single clear day uh one day was about we had a bit was just a bit cloudy but it was heavy cloud almost every day and I thought well I'm you know I'm still gonna make images but but I'm gonna have to do things differently. The first thing I well I I just photographed continuously through through the whole trip. I didn't stop photographing throughout the day I mean the nice thing was because it was cloudy I could yeah I could photograph all day it was the night that flat light that I seemed to like and the first thing I did with the images I is I created a series that was that was about climate change specifically about climate change and that appeared in the digital companion and frames it was about you know about melting glaciers and you know human intervention on the island. But then I I sat on the I sat on the photographs and late in 2000 in in 2023 um I was kind of feeling a bit fed up and sorry for myself sort of sort of COVID fatigue combined with the fact I wasn't making very much in the way of new work I I went back to the images. I I I tried to do this quite often go back to to old folders of images and I dug through the Iceland photographs and I found that there were still a lot of images there that I thought had a bit of value in them that I could do something with. And I thought well what what yeah what can I do? What can I do? And I thought well let's let's you let's make some photographs that match my current mood sort of dark and dark and uh and and moody and I played around using um some black and white processing software silver fx pro and I I made the image of the waterfall right which name his name escapes me at the moment yeah Skogafos yeah Skogafos I made that image I created that image of Skogafos first just by darkening and upping contrasts and I thought well this looks pretty good can I do this with with a lot of other with some of the other photographs. So I spent some time going through the archive finding other images that I thought would respond well to the same treatment and that grew into a small series that uh that that that eventually appeared in the magazine.
SPEAKER_02What you just said this provoked three questions for me. And and number one is is you know you went there and you you shot continuously that's what I mean by Iceland scaring me because it's a beautiful place that every photographer in the world seems to have you know wants to go to or has been to and I you know I'm afraid of my own learning curve that it would take me six years to find any kind of a voice that hasn't already been expressed. And yet you seem to have found it you know on this first trip. Was it the the climate change idea that was helping you think of compositions, think of what was attractive or was it just more intuitive this is the way I sing the song?
SPEAKER_04I think I think it's the latter to be honest. You know I think it's the latter. It's just I I saw what I saw and I'm on I made I made the images you know initially I'd gone I'd gone with making the same sort of images as everybody else makes you uh but of course with with really bad weather um you the weather was in fact so bad on one day that the water what the waterfalls were being blown backwards.
SPEAKER_02I've never seen anything like it I I I have seen videos of that. I don't know if it was in Iceland or now but that that is absolutely free.
SPEAKER_04Terrible terrible terrible weather and so I had to respond to this and you and it was actually quite lucky because it allowed the you know the creation of the of these photographs which I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise you know if it had been a week of really clear weather I I guess the images would have probably looked just a just like everybody else's really um probably worse versions because I don't particularly I don't particularly consider myself a landscape photographer these days and you know the the people who are really good at landscapes that their their their work is just magnificent. So I I don't really consider myself that sort of sort of photographer but it gave me the chance to do something different because of the bad weather.
SPEAKER_02You you tell a story in in the magazine or briefly um and again about Scogafoss you say that the weather was so bad you'd given up hope of getting of getting images that day.
SPEAKER_04But then there was a break so just tell me the narrative tell me the I'm sitting there it's nine o'clock I'm having a cup of coffee and all of a sudden Well this was the day the waterfalls were blowing backwards right as we're driving like it was atrocious and we'd we'd driven across the island uh we were heading back towards Reykjavik because we were going to be flying home and I mean it rained and it rained the first thing that happened is this poor guy in front of us uh this Japanese tourist he's he's he's he got a got a puncher uh right in front of us and we stopped and I got out and helped him uh change his tire which you I guess was the right thing to do but it that but but it absolutely soaked me I've never been so wet in all my life you that the the work the stupidest thing I like I left my wallet in my pocket and I went back to the car took my wallet out and it just emptied water everywhere I'm just glad I didn't keep you keep my passport on me.
SPEAKER_02We drove to the hotel after that uh in the middle of the afternoon and uh I decided I was going to go and have a beer uh in sort of the viewing area of the hotel where you could see you could see Skagophoss and it was just awful weather and then all of a sudden the clouds just broke a little bit and you could see sort of the sun beginning to set so my wife's like go and get your camera you'll regret it if you don't so out I went grabbed my camera ran out there the other good thing about this was it was for the first time there was nobody at the waterfall we we'd visited the same site several days earlier and I hadn't been able to get a single shot because there were hundreds and hundreds of people there but there was almost nobody there this time you there was a couple of people there and I I just removed them from the photograph but but uh yeah it was it was you it it was a clean sight you know it wasn't uh wasn't overrun with human you know my fellow human beings so that it was it was actually a huge piece of luck a huge piece of luck oh I love it you know several of the images that are in the current issue of the magazine um have clones or or you know remakes of them not remakes um other interpretations of them on your website in the portfolio that you call Icelandic journey you you've you've clearly like you said you've you've gone back to them yes um and and in many I mean you you've changed the aspect ratio you've changed to black and white you've changed all sorts of things so there there is the artistic process in the field talk to me about the artistic process the artistic voice in post-production um how do you read how do you rediscover your own images and re-express them for this one i i think it i think it was kind of driven by seeing how wonderful my wife's RoloFlex images my wife shoots with my wife shoots with a with an ancient Roloflex uh TLR um and the images competition is wonderful isn't it she's she's she's far more talented than I am I mean you know she really is a very talented photographer but she just doesn't does doesn't you know share her work particularly she shoots on the film and and um and the images look lovely and I thought well why don't I make some sort of six by six images you know let's see what they look at look look look like sorry so that was the first thing that the that made the square uh maybe try these square images now the the colour images on the website these were the ones that I made that this was the climate change essay essay that was in uh in in the frames digital companion right so I thought well I've got to do something different to this and you know this sort of bit of a dark mood that I was in when I started I started playing around you know I thought let's make some black and whites that reflect how I feel today and really that was it you know that was it and and I'd also been looking at some of Sebastiao Salgado's images the the the images that he'd made he'd uh he'd taken for his book is it Genesis and I thought well you know they look great you know these there's there's depth and texture and layers in these black and white photographs I thought well can I can I can I get this into my images as well so that that was really that was really it is it I I I I wish I had a more combo sort of complicated and uh and deeper story to tell you but uh I don't know what what what I find fascinating is is that in in a number of these images what appears in the magazine is only a portion of what is is in the the online uh gallery um really really reimagining um the center of attention the focus the cropping that kind of stuff yes so the the images that are in the colour set the colour series on the website that they they're they're all they're all different uh from the ones in the magazine then you're not just they're not the the magazine images are not reprocessed versions of these photographs with the exception of one which is the photograph of the of the of the melting glacier that looks like the elephant looks looks a bit like three elephants.
SPEAKER_04So that is the only one that actually is just a reprocess of the same photograph.
SPEAKER_02The one that you call elephants drinking?
SPEAKER_04Elephants drinking yeah that that is that is a crop uh of an image which shows the whole the whole well not the whole of the glacier the the the the the snout of the glacier yeah that that's the only one that's the same that's the same image. I was consciously not you not I consciously did not want to use the same photographs for the other for the other series. I I may I made an exception with the with that one image because it was I thought it was uh sufficiently different as the to to justify it.
SPEAKER_02You know I'm glad you said that because I'm looking at the picture you call the Sentinel um and I remembered the one of of other um pillars um and I had I had just assumed because I hadn't ever held them up next to each other um that it was a reimagining but no it's a completely different thing yeah that that you you probably have to be honest Scott you probably have seen a color version of that image because I put it on my Facebook page and it may I may have I may have even put it on frames at some point.
SPEAKER_04Yeah but it's but it's not actually been for you and it's not on the website and I've not sort of published it anywhere else.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_04Let me ask you the impossible question what m what makes an excellent landscape photograph I I I think that the landscapes that I like the most have a little bit of the photographer in there you know there's a little bit of the photographer's sort of I would say soul or their heart in there you know it reflects then you know the you know the dark moody image reflecting someone in a bit of a bad mood or or feeling a bit down you know I I I think that really really separates just well taken images from really exceptional ones. I mean precision and composition of course are absolutely vital but you know I being precise in your work you know is I I I think everything for me. You know I I I I I'm I'm friend I'm friends with um Frank Gunn of the Canadian press and he's a wonderful wonderful sports and and journalistic photographer and he said to me precision is everything it's it just tops everything when you make work. Don't ever accept second best in your in your photographs and I think doing that with with with all of your photographs makes a huge difference.
SPEAKER_02But okay but what do you mean by precision?
SPEAKER_04I mean is that just the technical get you know get your exposure triangle right or are we talking about just get everything right you know don't don't if you look at an image and you think there's something wrong with it don't accept it right don't um you know get that composition right get that exposure right get the the the shutter speed right just get it all together don't accept anything where you haven't got it right and I think in the that's that was one of the big changes that I I've made is I I'm a whole lot more brutal with my own work in in recent years than I was many years ago. And I think that that's made a big difference.
SPEAKER_02Well you know and and experience allows you that that knowledge that wisdom to say you know this this I might have thought this was really good 10 years ago but it's been 10 years and I realize it's you know nice.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Rob what are you working on now? Unfortunately not not a massive amount. I've got a bit of a proje a project I'm working on about sort of reflecting on time um but I haven't been doing a huge amount of of uh of actually taking pictures for myself because because I've been incredibly busy in the other parts of my life you know I've been doing more photography teaching recently uh I work at a I work at a at a major camera shop here in here here in Ottawa uh for a couple of days a week because I like I like hanging around cameras and I and I teach I teach class I teach classes for them.
SPEAKER_02We do free classes uh I do that f quite frequently I also teach English at a college here as well so so it's been a bit overwhelming in terms of in terms of workload recently um but I am I have been working on a on a project that kind of just is a bit of amusing about time thinking about our own relationship with time and how time passes and how we change how the world changes as time goes by oh I can't wait to see that um and and now that people know you work in the camera store you're gonna get all these messages you're trying to get the hard to get cameras out there they got an inside track it's not been cameras recently it's been solar filters so I think because with the eclipse with the eclipse coming blue everyone wants a solar solar filter so I was gonna say yeah this is going to come out after the eclipse but for everyone we're recording this what one day in front of the I I just went back and dug out some of my pictures from 2017 just because that that's when we had one here too um Rob this has been a pleasure I am is as you know and you've known for a couple years now I am a really really great fan of your work thank you you you you have a way of of expressing um you know cityscapes landscapes portraits that that just speaks to me I think it's brilliant work.
SPEAKER_04Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_01Thank you Scott I re I really appreciate you having on me and I'm of course a big fan of your podcast so just just for a bit of neutral back slapping there lungs on paper visit us at www.readframes dot com