This week Brighton Journal spoke to local photographer, Richard Harris. Richard’s photography combines his interests in fine art and travel, often exploring the relationships between light and dark, space and confinement, heat and cold. For the next three weeks Richard is in Malta, taking photos for an upcoming feature film. We discussed Richard’s ongoing work towards exhibitions in London and Brighton this October, his artistic background as a filmmaker, as well as some of his adventurous travel stories. Take a look.
What are you doing today?
I have just started a three-week visit to Malta, partly for enjoyment and partly to take photos for a new Maltese feature film written and directed by an Australian couple who live on the island. Principal photography is almost completed and I am meeting them to discuss the shots they want. We have been friends for several years after meeting in Australia when I was the founder/organiser of a monthly short film night in Melbourne and they were running the annual Made In Melbourne short film festival.
Describe where you do most of your creative work.
My main photography interests are fine art and travel, so most of my creative work takes place in a studio or during overseas trips. Image editing can be a very time-consuming activity, so I also spend a lot of time in my home ‘office’ staring at a screen. Of late, I have also been spending time in Brighton and London print studios developing my skills as a printmaker using the photo emulsion etching process.
What’s the most exciting thing you’ve worked on?
Apart from my on-going Body Parts studio project with mannequins, the most exciting thing I’ve worked on were two commissions for the Zanzibar Schools Project, a small NGO providing free meals and education to children living in a remote area of Zanzibar, a medium-sized island off the coast of Tanzania. During two month-long trips, I was given full access to a junior and nursery school and had a great time getting to know the kids and taking photos of them. When not working, I was free to explore the island which led to me stumbling into an all-male funeral/burial in the nearby bush. No coffin was used.
What made you decide to become an artist?
I originally trained as a filmmaker in Australia and worked for the next 25 years in different areas of the industry, mostly as a freelancer. During this time I rarely thought of myself as an artist, but after retraining in 2014 as a photographer I quickly realised that I had found my creative home and started thinking of myself as an artist. I was now free to concentrate on the thing that appealed to me the most, the visual element, and was also in total control of the creative process and free to explore and express my love of the single image without restriction; creating photos instead of merely taking them.
“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – Ansel Adams, pioneering US photographer.
What are you currently working on?
I am preparing photographs and photopolymer prints for October exhibitions in London and Brighton, the latter being a joint show at Gallery 40 with another Brighton photographer, Tracy Wadey.
What are the key themes in your work?
I guess there are two main themes in my work, flowing from the types of photography that interest me the most. For my travel photography, the most enjoyable places to take pictures are the Australian outback and the annual Burning Man event in the USA. I love hot, dry, desert landscapes and have been visiting both places for several years now. My fine art work is the complete opposite, however: dark, claustrophobic, oppressive and, I must confess, a bit creepy. It seems the key themes are therefore light and dark, space and confinement, heat and cold. The yin and yang of my personality.
What would you like people to notice about your work?
Overall, I am much less interested in people noticing things in my work than I am in provoking an emotional reaction. Like all artists, I want the viewer to feel something; to be moved in some way. From love to disgust and everything between. I don’t care. The worst thing is being ignored.
What attracts you to the medium you work in?
Apart from the fact that photography and printmaking are both visual arts, the thing that attracted me to the medium is the total control I have over the creative process: deciding what/when/how to take a picture, the camera settings I will use and when I will press the shutter button. And afterward, the final edit in my computer or the inking of a plate in the printing studio. Total control.
What equipment could you not do without?
A camera, a computer and, lately, a printing press.
Who or what inspires you?
Perhaps because I am a bit of a control freak when it comes to my work, I don’t think that I am inspired by anyone or anything to any significant extent. I do have an open and enquiring mind, however, and am quite adventurous in most areas of my life. I prefer the word influences to inspires. Whenever I visit a gallery, for instance, I take a notebook to record ideas that hit me as I absorb the work with a view to maybe incorporating some element of it into my own work. So, influenced by everything around me, not just art; but rarely inspired.
How is your work affected by living in this area?
Surprisingly, I have taken relatively few pictures in the Brighton & Hove area over the years and the UK in general, so I don’t think my work has been affected very much by living here. I know there are lots of good pictures to be taken in the area, but there are many excellent photographers living here and, to be honest, the best pics have already been taken! When it comes to outdoor/travel photography, I like to visit unfamiliar places in foreign lands, to experience the unusual, the unexpected, even the dangerous. I came close to death a few years ago in a remote part of the Australian interior when I narrowly avoided standing on a deadly brown snake. A mile from my vehicle and no human within at least 100kms, if it had bitten me I would have been dead within the hour. My kind of photo opp!
What’s your favourite thing to do locally?
For the past three years I have been living in Lewes and am still discovering this beautiful country town, dominated by the remains of Lewes Castle. Lots of nooks and crannies to discover and history to absorb. My favourite Lewes thing to do is take a long and leisurely Sunday-afternoon walk beside the River Ouse that runs through the town, followed by a pint of Harveys best in my local pub, the Lewes Arms.
What’s your favourite gallery (or place to see/experience art)?
I have always been disappointed by the small number of fine art galleries in Brighton with a consistently high standard of work that don’t mind taking curatorial risks and have regular exhibitions – and don’t double as a shop. Before the Covid-19 pandemic I travelled up to London 2-3 times a week for gallery openings and have never ceased to be impressed by the quality and quantity of worthwhile art to be seen there. Difficult to choose a favourite, but it would probably be Islington’s ‘No. 20 Arts’. In Brighton, it would be the Phoenix.
If you could collaborate with one artist, from any time, who would it be and why?
I enjoy the work of many contemporary artists, not just photographers and printmakers, but I cannot imagine collaborating with any of them nor, indeed, anyone; artist or otherwise. I am not a natural collaborator. Having said that, I think I’d enjoy making a film with Wim Wenders, a great director and photographer.
To find out more about Richard and his work, take a look at his website, Instagram and Facebook.
