Jessica Roberts
Reviewer Jessica Roberts is a book reviewer for a local newspaper and has reviewed for a national women's magazine too. She has had various articles published in magazines and has now completed her novel. Jessica currently lives in West Yorkshire and enjoys walking in the dales and woodlands as part of her hobby as well as, of course, reviewing books. To read more of Jessica's reviews CLICK HERE
View all articles by Jessica Roberts
Today, Bookpleasures’ Reviewer Jessica Roberts
has the pleasure of interviewing Nathan Anderson, photographer for Decay.
Good day Nathan and thanks for participating
in our interview.
Jessica:
What inspired you to create Decay?
Nathan:
Long
walks in the evening. I love the night. There is also a period,
what some have referred to as "The Magic Hour" when the last light of
day, about the last 20 minutes of daylight feed into the darkness. This
is a beautiful moment where many ideas abound including that of decay. It
is also a point of merging light. Form becomes shadow and then radiates
with its own ghostly aura taking on this spectral quality as if illuminated
from within. It is impossible in this moment to differentiate. If
walking in a forest then the entire landscape becomes one gesticulating
mass. All the ideas of night, of decay, death, but much more play about
in this.
Jessica:
From what age did you start to have an
interest in photography?
Nathan:
Photography
began around the age of 26. Previous to this I worked in
filmmaking. I have always been interested in images but the heart of this
goes back to painting. Mark Tobey, Morris Graves and even John Cage's
work have fascinated me with the possibility of being able to create an image
that has a kind of living prescence. I don't know if this is possible
with photography as it is becoming increasingly detached from the hands and
transported near completely through the computer in our digital world.
Look at the work of a Charles Burchfield, his hand is pressed into every inch
of the painting. How does this compare in digital photography?
Jessica:
Do you have any personal favourite
photographs and why?
Nathan:
No,
only those that I feel I had little part in creating, something that would then
continually surprise me. If I can look at a photograph a year from now
and still wonder about it, then I feel there is some measure of success.
Often what I find interesting is not understood by the audience and you wonder
how isolated you are from the world around you. It is often tricky to try
and create something that seems genuine to you but that does not veer
completely to the esoteric. I want people to gain ideas about things when
they view my work.
Jessica:
What are your favourite things to photograph?
Nathan:
Where
I am at, wherever. There are essential moments, expressions, movements
always in this place. What is confounding and perhaps greatest about the
medium of photography is that it invites examination, no matter how banal the
subject. I want to try to get at the kind of complex dynamism that I have
witnessed so much in the wilderness. I spend a great deal of time in the
desert, the mountains and places in America that are very distant from our
everyday world. There is a philosophy that I have gathered in this raw
nature and I wish to bring it to my photography and to whatever I would point
my camera at.
Jessica:
Who in the world of photography would
you say you most admire?
Nathan:
A
lesser-know morrocan photographer, Touhami Ennadre and also Japanese
photographer Inose Kou. They are both photographers of daring because
they choose to look into the darker aspects of this world. I do not mean
in a sociological perspective but instead one that understands the world as
myth and sees itself as mysticism. These are near impossibilities in our
technological world, yet these photographers seem to see beyond the material
realm. I can name many painters who share this view but it is harder with
photography and so I greatly admire these two men. They are a rarity.
Jessica:
What does the world look like to you
through your lens?
Nathan:
That
depends on how willing I am to look. Often a thing tremendously full of
life and dynamism but photography creates the photographer. I am moving
further away from photographing the natural landscape and more to trying to
work in man-made environments. This is because I see the world
increasingly being dominated by the mind of man and I have no choice but to
confront this reality. The world is looking more and more aggressive,
violent and consuming in its technological avarice. We seem poised to
construct our own realities, even our own evolution. We are omnipotent
today. There is an acceptance of the inevitable and it it feels fatalistic
in the worst way to me. The modern or post-modern world is consuming
itself. I don't know how my production of images within a culture of
infinite image-creation can have any affect. I suppose the world looks a
bit dark today.
Jessica:
What are you other hobbies and why?
Nathan:
Ambient
sound recording, which I think is more potentially creative and far more
radical than image-making. The process of image creation is too limited
now that technology is so vast. Sound is something we still don't often
think about and so has a certain freedom from our preconceptions that
photography lacks. We all have ideas about what an "image"
should be but what about a sound? What I find interesting about sound
recording is that for me, it has no point of view. When I photograph I
find myself coming at the subject already with pre-defined ideas. I make
judgements too much of the time. When I am recording ambient sound, say
of a busy city boulevard or hiway or any city landscape, my mind stops its
preconceptions. There is only a kind of void or space in which the
sound/s exist. I do not feel this kind of freedom in photography and so
this is what I mean that sound recording is more radical in possibility for me.
A huge thank you Nathan for sharing with
us your thoughts and feelings!
Jessica Roberts
Reviewer Jessica Roberts is a book reviewer for a local newspaper and has reviewed for a national women's magazine too. She has had various articles published in magazines and has now completed her novel. Jessica currently lives in West Yorkshire and enjoys walking in the dales and woodlands as part of her hobby as well as, of course, reviewing books. To read more of Jessica's reviews CLICK HERE
View all articles by Jessica Roberts