Simon Ashmore is less interested in accurately recording that which he sees than he is in combining subject, shape and tone using one or more images to create an impression. He has arrived at (or perhaps is currently visiting, as I get the sense that his work will continue to evolve) this point from a background in editorial photography via street photography. His aim is to encourage the viewer to see familiar things in a new light, and not all of his images are as they first seem.
Can you tell me a little about your background – your education, interests and career?
I had an unremarkable upbringing. Early childhood in the 70's - scruffy hair, The Sweeney, a chopper bicycle with gaffer tape holding the seat together. My recollections of adolescent life are of disillusionment and Thatcher.
I was good academically, but I decided to leave school half way through my 'A' levels to study photography, thinking, as one does at that age, that I was destined to change the world. I became an editorial photographer at 19. I had no clue what I was doing. But I learned along the way. In spite of my choices, my lack of formal higher education caused me much frustration. Years later I went to university part time to study modern history, which I found really fulfilling.
What first prompted you to pick up a camera and when did you become serious about photography?
Photography was one of my dad's many brief obsessions. When I was about 13 he bought an Olympus OM10 - the ubiquitous starting out camera of its day, with its stupid add-on manual shutter speed dial. I loved everything about photography from that point on - the kit, the processes, the opportunity to express something - not that I knew what I wanted to say at that point.
However it was immediately clear to me that photography was going to play an important role in my life. Not so for my dad. He quickly moved on to the next thing. I kept the camera... (and soon exchanged it for a Nikon).
How does your experience as an editorial photographer shape the way that you see and make images of the landscape? I’m particularly interested in how those who have a background in other genres approach landscape photography, and the fact that our sometimes formulaic interpretation in the UK of what that is can limit its appeal to some.
I suppose I'm not so steeped in the conventions of the genre. I don't approach the subject thinking: "pretty scene - check, nice light - check, ok time to set up the tripod". Instead I set out to find an interesting interpretation of the scene, perhaps to draw out the textures or to show it differently from how you'd see it normally. My landscapes aren't really about the scene in front of me.
Also I don't hang around. While I like the idea of setting up the 5x4 and pouring a coffee from the thermos while the clouds drift into position, it isn't me. I'd worry I'd be missing something more interesting fifty yards up the road, or that I might drop down dead before the clouds got their act together.
I set out to find an interesting interpretation of the scene, perhaps to draw out the textures or to show it differently from how you'd see it normally. My landscapes aren't really about the scene in front of me.
Who (photographers, artists or individuals) or what has most inspired you, or driven you forward in your development as a photographer?
My photography education plots its route through Tony Ray-Jones, Salgado, Robert Frank, and Tony O'Shea, stopping for a bit of Cartier-Bresson and David Bailey along the way. Not your typical landscape photographer line-up! Perhaps more relevant to my landscape work are contemporary photographers like Chris Friel and Valda Bailey.
The world outside photography is most interesting to me. Mark Rothko, Edward Hopper and John Singer Sargent loom large - good luck finding a link between them! Music is also a big influence on me. Be it the beauty of Haydn or Mozart, the perfect complexity of Liszt, or the angst of John Lennon. I suppose it's a roll call of the expressive.
I look at the people who have a distinctive voice and see what I can learn from them. The technical stuff is relatively easy; the challenge is how you then employ it.
What was the last image (by another) that stopped you in your tracks?
The aforementioned Friel and Bailey both have a habit of producing images that make me think: "That's perfect, why can't I see like that?"
Where do you like to photograph? Do you learn more from concentrating on a small number of sites close to your home than from visiting new locations? You mention that Seasalter is the inspiration for many of your sea studies even though at first glance there isn’t a lot there.
I look at the people who have a distinctive voice and see what I can learn from them. The technical stuff is relatively easy; the challenge is how you then employ it.
Yes I love photographing Seasalter. It's a stretch of coast near my home in Kent. I go there often. It's an empty landscape - just some tatty groynes, a long beach at low tide, the sky, the sea. The emptiness is part of my challenge. I sometimes arrive and think: "Good grief, there's still nothing here. What am I supposed to do with this?" But it prompts me to look harder. There's always something to explore. You just have to tune in. Recently I saw the shapes the receding sea makes in the sand and I thought: “This is beautiful. How did I never notice it before?”
I love exploring unfamiliar places too, but sometimes they can overwhelm the senses. You have to focus to produce your best work. So I suppose it's no surprise that my favourite images were created in or inspired by places I know well.
You refer on your website to whether there is a distinction between ‘photographer’ and ‘artist’. I guess it depends in part on whether you consider photography to be an art or a craft – and perhaps the answer varies for each of us. Tell me a little about your thoughts on this?
It's about the intent. Photography can be used for artistic purpose but not all photography is art. The same applies to painting, drawing, sound, lumps of metal, piles of bricks and unmade beds. The 'trick' is to produce work that transcends the stuff of its creation.
If the viewer is judging the merit of my work by textbook conventions they're going to be disappointed (and probably a bit baffled). But they will also be missing the point. I'm not showing you the thing; I'm showing you my interpretation of the thing. I don't know about 'craft' - never thought that word applies to photography.
Why do you feel it is important to challenge the viewer’s perception of what photography is, or can be?
Because there are all sorts of tedious conventions about what photography is for, and what makes a good photograph. You know - is it sharp? Is the lighting just so? etc., etc.
Why should photographs be sharp, or have a certain aspect ratio, or place the interesting bits 9/14ths up the frame? What divine ruling said that macro means insects and flowers? I'm doing a macro series myself. Pictures of blood. It might be rubbish (it probably is rubbish) but it isn't insects or flowers.
This may all seem rather high-minded. I know that my own work is riddled with rules and contradictions too. But it's a work in progress - a process of knowingly dismantling the rules.
Which cameras and lenses do you like to use and how do they affect your photography?
I have a couple of Fujis. The x100T is my camera of choice at the moment. If you can put up with the foibles, like batteries that run out as soon as you put them in the camera, they are liberating. Their main advantage is that you can carry them about everywhere. No camera, no picture. You only get to be good at something by doing it repeatedly. Also the limitation on focal length encourages you to focus your thought on the subject, not the kit.
Tell me a little about how you like to conceive and compose your images? You refer to untaming or even eliminating the subject in your images?
I must sound desperately pretentious. But my point is simply that while the landscape can be beautiful, it can also be wild, dark, mysterious and violent and it's not my job to domesticate it.
my point is simply that while the landscape can be beautiful, it can also be wild, dark, mysterious and violent and it's not my job to domesticate it.
The notion of eliminating the subject is about concentrating on the mood of an image. I think it's quite an achievement for an image to succeed aesthetically without there necessarily being a specific subject. When presented with an ambiguous subject, the thoughtful viewer may realise that that's deliberate, and perhaps dwell to find their own meaning in the work.
I believe your multiple exposures are created by blending images in Photoshop rather than in camera which sounds like it gives you more control but involves more work? What do you set out to achieve when you are processing your images?
Yes, that's correct. I didn't set out for Photoshop to have such a big role in my image making, but it opens expressive capabilities that I can't achieve with the camera alone.
I usually start by looking at the subject and thinking how I might try to represent it. So I have a general idea of what the finished image will look like before I start taking pictures.
I usually start by looking at the subject and thinking how I might try to represent it. So I have a general idea of what the finished image will look like before I start taking pictures. The processes - camera, software, print - are just the means to realise that vision and each offers creative opportunities. For example, I try to avoid too much subject manipulation in software, so movement will invariably be in camera. Mainly I use Photoshop in a fairly basic way; to compile images, to control contrast, and to introduce tone.
How do you like to print and display your images? Does this (printing) and exhibiting feed back into your image making?
Yes definitely - and more and more so. There really is nothing like holding a good print, and I'm a sucker for really good quality art paper. You just can't get the same connection by looking at a screen. Printing my work has had a big impact on how I process my images. Working only on a screen can lead you into a sort of arms race against yourself where suddenly you find all the dials are on 11. Printing reintroduces restraint.
Can you choose 2-3 favourite photographs (of your own) and tell us a little about them?
Tree study
This is probably my favourite tree study. My aim was to depict a dense birch wood as though from a folk tale. You don't know what's in there - are you going in? What I enjoy most about the image is that it has sufficient subtlety that, while it is a composite, you can pick out individual trees, and the overall feeling isn't oppressive. The blue toning isn't natural obviously, but I think it suits the overall mood. I find that viewers will accept very false colour without question, perhaps because they are so used to mono photography - a rare useful convention.
Reflection
OK I admit it, I'd rather be able to create images in ink or paint or chalk than pixels. If only I had the skill. This image is composed of several frames of branches reflected in water and is a good example of my aim to place mood over subject. I enjoy the ink-like effect. The amount of manipulation is quite limited - it's just a combination of a few frames, adjusting contrast and levels and adding tone. I can look at this image for ages knowing that it will never really take me anywhere.
birdscape
This is one of my most artificial scenes. I'm afraid it'll have your purists spitting out their tea! There is no sea or sand in this shot. The land is actually a railway platform photographed from a speeding train (if you look closely to the left of the shot you can see a reflection on the glass, which I've kept in as a little joke).
Platforms now have a thick yellow line on them and this has provided the key tone for the whole image. Birds and sky were stripped in from other shots. I decided to extend the yellow palette to the sky and clouds. Even I feel like a monumental cheat with this image, but I really like it all the same.
You mentioned that although the images that I selected are representative, a number have lost their appeal to you. How much do you consider that your vision and tastes have changed over time?
I'm sure this is a common trait. Whatever I'm working on is: 'definitely the best image that ever existed' up until about three minutes after I publish it. Then the disillusionment starts to set in. A lot of my images are pretty embarrassing to me now. Maybe that's positive - a sign that you're still progressing. A few images stand the test of time. I'm not sure what the criteria are. They probably conform to some old universal rule!
I'm becoming less and less interested in 'straight' photography. It feels to me like it's been done to death. So it's even more important to concentrate on the message you want to convey.
Do you have a sense of where your creative photography is heading? Do you have any particular plans, projects or ambitions?
Yes, I'm in a very creative phase at the moment and I feel I have to seize it because I may wake up tomorrow and find it gone. I'm doing the macro blood thing that I mentioned earlier. I know that will sound very strange, so as brief explanation it's my artistic response to an illness that one of my daughters suffers from called Diamond Blackfan. She can't produce enough blood cells and so has to be transfused every few weeks. She's 4. It's pretty rough at times.
I've also been collecting butterfly wings. These are now being turned into stark colourful images (that are nowhere near as beautiful as the actual wings). I'm also looking at how flat I can make things and whether I can build a sort of random light generating machine, which will probably end up being something really lame like a torch behind a sheet (!). Elsewhere I continue to play around with my persistent themes, churchyards, trees, the sea.
Recently I've had some work picked up by the Artful Project - an online gallery that only deals with photography, which is great. I'd like to exhibit more, and it'd be fantastic to work on a book.
If you had to take a break from all things photographic for a week, what would you end up doing?
mmm can I sedate myself and sleep it out? If that's not an option I guess I'd pick up a pencil and start scribbling. Words or strokes, it doesn't matter which. There has to be a creative outlet.
Which photographer(s) would you like to see featured in a future issue?
Oh dear, I've drawn a blank on this one. Sorry!
Thank you, Simon. If you’d like to see more of Simon’s images or follow the development of his latest projects you can see these on his website and Flickr stream.
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