My Influences

Pablo Picasso is rumoured to have once said, "good artists copy, great artists steal." In this article, I recognise three photographers that have influenced my photography.

Michael Kenna

When I started photography, I didn't understand what made a good photograph. My attempts to photograph the landscape were hit and miss at best. When I looked at the work of others, I understood it was good, but I didn't know why.

So, I started to look for a photographer whose photos I could understand. I hoped to discover some common thread that I could copy. And I found it in the work of Michael Kenna.

Michael is a British fine art landscape photographer now based in the US. He shoots exclusively in black and white using medium format film cameras. Formerly assistant to Ruth Bernhard, he prints all his own work, stating that "printmaking is a critical component of the photographic process."

At the time, I had no desire to give up the crutch that is my digital camera. Even then, I saw myself predominantly as a colour photographer, and I could not conceive a world where I was printing my own work. But there were elements in his photographs that I felt I could add to mine.

What I admire most about Michael's photographs is their simplicity. My favourites tend to have a strong primary subject, often man-made, with nothing to distract the attention. I also appreciate his use of negative space which helps the subject stand out from its surroundings. 

Michael Kenna's influence on my photography is clear in many of my photographs.

Joe Cornish

It is my bet that there are very few British landscape photographers of my age that have not been influenced in one way or another by Joe Cornish. It's not just his photography that inspires but also his philosophies and his ability to communicate them. Two of the aesthetic principles that I covert most highly have been inspired by Joe.

He discusses the importance of balance in composition in the book Developing Vision and Style, which he co-authored. As I thought more on the subject of balance, I realised I felt the same way. 

As a photographer, I have a need to bring a degree of order to our chaotic world. Balancing my compositions helps me achieve this. It is now so important to my photography that it is bordering on obsession!

Over the years Joe has become well known for his use of foreground interest, so much so that it led to the coining of the term JCB or Joe Cornish Boulder. While this may have been a bit of an in-joke at Joe's expense, I was inspired to take a fresh look at his pictures to figure out what all the fuss was about.

What I discovered was a sense of depth that was lacking in my photographs. By combining elements close to the camera with those further away, Joe was able to use perspective to give a two-dimensional photograph a more three-dimensional feel.

It was only once I began to combine the principles of simplicity, balance and depth that I started to produce work that truly aligned with how I viewed the world around me.

Joe Cornish helped me understand the importance of balance and depth.

Charlie Waite

I have always found it difficult to switch off my mind. Even while watching television or eating dinner with my wife, my mind can be elsewhere, working to solve some problem or another. Over the years, I discovered photography was the only way to switch off. I have to concentrate so hard that I become absorbed. In that respect, I think of it as a form of meditation.

While out with my camera, I am drawn to peace and tranquillity over drama and excitement. This, I hope, is reflected in my photographs. I favour a more muted colour palette and rarely use direct light. I feel that this gives my photos a quiet quality. I prefer that they whisper to the viewer rather than shout.

With the rise of social media, landscape photography has inevitably become dominated by images that grab the viewer's attention. One day, as I scrolled through Instagram, I began to question my conviction. Was I wrong while everyone else right was right? Around this time, I started to pay more attention to the work of Charlie Waite.

Here in the UK, Charlie is as close to photography royalty as it is possible to be. One of the most respected landscape photographers in the world, he has written many books on the subject and is the founder of the prestigious Landscape Photographer of the Year award.

While browsing his website, I stumbled upon a sentence that would change my world.

His style is unique in that his photographs convey a spiritual quality of serenity and calm.

"Serenity and calm? That's me!" I thought. As I looked through his photographs, I could see that although our styles differed, there were some similarities. With this realisation came the confidence to stick to my guns. If it was good enough for Charlie, it was good enough for me.

While he may not have directly influenced my photography, his images instilled in me the determination to pursue my own vision rather than fall in line with what was considered the norm.

Charlie Waite gave me the confidence to pursue my own creative vision.

True originality in photography is beyond most people. The most we can hope for is to take lessons from the photographers we look up to and combine them in a way that reflects our own thoughts and feelings. That way, while our work may not be original, it will certainly be authentic.