Stephen Gill

[blockend]

A photographer I've mention in various contexts, but who deserves wider appreciation on a film forum is Stephen Gill. Gill has been a photographic enthusiast since childhood, and has worked commercially, and in Magnum's offices.

His main outlet is the themed photographic book, which leads to gallery shows and is mainly, but not exclusively experimental in nature. He has openly eschewed the obsession with technique and technology, so far as photographers can abandon it, and works exclusively in film. He's perhaps most well known for his work on a disappeared East London market, photographed with a Bakelite Coronet camera bought on the market for 50p.

Another concern is combining artefacts from a place with photographs of the place, so twigs, insects, dirt, old transparency fragments take their place in the chamber along with film. Stephen Gill moved to Sweden in 2014 after many years photographing his local environment in London, and his latest work is of nocturnal animals who automatically trigger their own images.

The thing I most admire about Gill is he defies the style most photographers identify with, and adopts whatever look works for the duration of a project before moving on. I also share his suspicion of the role of technology and equipment in answering the basic questions photography asks.

A talk by Stephen Gill on his own work:

 

[Peter Schrager]

So I watched the entire video. I certainly respect Steven. he has a method to the madness, honestly I would say that there are very singular images that speak for themselves. only as a story do they come alive. this brings up the issue whether the singular image is dead in today's photography. I mean a photograph that moves you and speaks by itself or does it have to be part of the larger body of work. the other thing is the idea of destroying artwork whether by chemical or physical means for an effect. makes me wonder?? you'll have to watch the video to find out what I'm talking about
I like him. he's humble and makes books. two things I respect.
watch the video..you will learn how an artist approaches his art
thank you Blockend for posting
Best,Peter

 

[blockend]

So I watched the entire video. I certainly respect Steven. he has a method to the madness, honestly I would say that there are very singular images that speak for themselves. only as a story do they come alive. this brings up the issue whether the singular image is dead in today's photography. I mean a photograph that moves you and speaks by itself or does it have to be part of the larger body of work. the other thing is the idea of destroying artwork whether by chemical or physical means for an effect. makes me wonder?? you'll have to watch the video to find out what I'm talking about
I like him. he's humble and makes books. two things I respect.
watch the video..you will learn how an artist approaches his art
thank you Blockend for posting
Best,Peter

It's always interesting to read other people's' perspectives on a photographer. A number of things strike me about Stephen Gill's work. One is he's getting away from the kind of slickness that dominates so much photography. Sometimes he uses a Rolleiflex, other times a plastic camera. For his feral pigeon work, he poked a camera on a pole into the underside of bridges, using the self timer. A kind of pot luck approach to image gathering, rather like his current nocturnal animal photography.

He gets out of the way of the subject and lets it speak for itself. That runs counter to the dominant idea of photography, which is about the artist precisely framing the world and producing a distinct style. He's kind of geeky and obsessive, but not about the things that preoccupy most photographers like IQ and gear. More childlike, with a continuing fascination with the magic of the medium that many of us lose. He has a looseness that recognises no boundaries which children have, some of his books are elegant and beautiful, some are inserted in old speedway programmes. In short, Gill's is a photographic high wire act, sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he fails, but he never rests on his visual laurels. He's basically a fine artist who used photography to convey his ideas.