A talented fine-art photographer does not capture reality as it is, they capture reality as it exists in the most extraordinary corners of their imagination. They bend reality to suit their will and whim, and the results run the gamut between the slightly strange to the spectacularly surreal. To put it simply: they don’t take photos… they make art.
This is exactly what photographer Danny Richardson told us when we spoke to him about his photography, and the transition he made from shooting landscapes to creating imaginative scenes:
I love conceptual photography and the creative freedom it allows you… It felt like I went from taking photos to making art and this was so much more satisfying to me than when my photography was dictated by sunrises and sunsets.
Danny’s photographic journey began, of all places, in the French alps. Always creative in one form or another (he studied Art and Theatre Studies at school and Music Production at University before finding photography) he says that winter season, “the natural landscape and extreme sports were like nothing I’d seen before and I was obsessed, trying to capture that perfect image.”
When he returned home to the Channel Island of Jersey, this initial burst of inspiration turned into a short-lived passion for landscape photography. Short-lived because, frankly, he didn’t have much to shoot.
On an island 9 x 5 miles there’s only so much you can shoot and I began to lose interest… Photography became an unsatisfying experience. With so many other photographers on the island, I’d often get home, edit the shot, upload it to my Facebook page and then notice that there where several people with a very similar image.
This all changed following a Fine Art Photography course with Nicholas Javed. My eyes where opened and suddenly all the creative ideas that I’d had previously but felt unable to realize now seemed possible.
A new creative world opened up before Danny’s eyes and that’s when, as he says above, he went “from taking photos to making art.” Now he spends his days creating conceptual portraits, often inspired by quotations he runs across.
I’m often inspired by quotes and the challenge of trying to visually represent the message of the quotation in the most aesthetically pleasing and believable way I can.
I’m not necessarily trying to make the viewer believe that what they’re seeing is real… More that it could be, or, that it is a representational metaphor for them to consider.
Here are some of our favorite creations Danny has put together and uploaded to 500px thus far.
To see more of Danny’s work, be sure to follow him on 500px. You can also find him on Twitter and Facebook.
Leave a reply