Camera

A collection of photographs made with the Leica Digilux 1 camera.

 When I was a teenager, my dad bought me a Russian Prinzflex SLR camera. I learned the relationship between aperture, shutter speed and film speed, and the use of different focal length lenses. Although these mechanics fascinated me, making pictures this way didn't. Something was missing.

Later on, during the process of learning to photograph my paintings, I had a shift in perception. In order to record the paintings accurately, I spent many months experimenting with studio lighting. The key to success lay in getting the direction, quantity and colour temperature of the light just right. It became obvious that I was recording light reflected from the surface of the paintings, not the objects themselves.

So, I tried making photographs again. But instead of looking for things to photograph, I looked for instances where the natural light seemed interesting or unusual, and described the scene favourably. At first I used my camera in the house and garden, then more locally. That year we visited France, and I felt encouraged to make more pictures; I was becoming hooked.

J.E.W.