Posts tagged we sink ships

Alan Campbell

What gives you inspiration?

Primarily I’m inspired by new things and new experiences, be that new music, new books, new food or new cities. I love to process information, pull conclusions and understand things. When I enter friends’ houses who have books; I want to go over pull the books out and look, not just pictures but the paper quality, the font chosen, how the kerning is set, the material on the front cover, how much dust is on the book, where was it published, what year was it published. I just love books and not even just English language books. I’ve been in a friend’s home where there was a huge set of illustrated Japanese encyclopaedias. Obviously I didn’t have a clue what they were about, but they were still so well made and nice just to look at. I like things where I can see people have considered every aspect of what the are working on. Good craft and passion towards what their doing is the best inspiration. It makes me want to work harder at everything I care about.

How would you describe your photography style?

I’d say that I have a common theme to take photographs that are strongly aware of light and lines. In terms of styles I’d say it’s difficult to pin down a clear style that I’m focused on every photograph I take. What I take photographs of is dependent on the camera, film type, location, mood, and the time of day. Or even how much coffee I’ve had. I think it would be difficult to focus on one style of photography but generally I find it difficult to focus on anything. But even after saying all that I’m wiling to accept that I’m possibly misinterpreting the word style.

What are your influences?

In terms of other photographers I’m wiling to admit I’m pretty naïve. The only book I have on a single photographer is collection of photos from Rene Burri. I’ve only had that a few weeks and I was primarily motivated to buy it because of his Giacometti and Picasso pictures but I do like the body of his work. Other than photographers’ work, I like patterns formed by overhead wires, art nouveau lines, and shades of blue and grey, as well as good coffee. I also have a huge love for fine art and painting. Some of the artists who I currently find interesting include Cézanne, Matisse, de Chirico, Lucy Mclauchlan and Herbert Baglione.

Photography plans for 2010?

What I know is happening so far is a trip to Vienna for six days in the end of January. With those photographs, as well as a series of other artwork, I’m hoping to build an exhibit based simply on my responses and the ideas developed in Vienna but I’ll have to see what happens when I get there and also what spaces I can find to exhibit the work in. My year is overall pretty open and I’m mostly just looking to react to the situations and opportunities that present themselves to me.

What does photography mean to you?

I started photography about three years ago about a month after my dad passed away. The real desire to take photographs started when I was looking through old photos from my childhood. It gets to a point and then the photos just stop; for the last five years or so before everything happened only the occasional set of photographs of my family excisted. What had happened was that people were using digital cameras and not bothering to get the photos printed out like you would if you were using 35mm film as they had all the way through my childhood. I just wanted to take photos to grab onto what I could while everything was changing around me. These days out with my family and friends photography has become just an another artform I play with. Photograph is a bit more convent to my everyday life as its pretty difficult to make a serious drawing while your walking about, I can take photographs and if I want to I can work out the drawing later. I’d also say that photograph has changed how I draw and made me a lot more aware of light and composition.

‘Line Cut Sky’

photographs by Alan Campbell

poetry by Joshua Heineman

04.-31.01.2010

www.wesinkships.co.uk