fine art photographer

There’s a saying in photography that goes “pretty light plus a pretty subject equals a pretty picture.” And if you believe that, then you might be tempted to form an opinion about who Gareth Lewis is based solely on the provocative nature of his portfolio, but you’d be wrong. After booking a one-way flight from his native London to Australia, Gareth found himself a stranger in a strange land. Before settling in Melbourne, he spent the first year driving over 24,000 kilometers exploring Australia in a “Miami White” station wagon. Along the way, he picked tomatoes, clipped mandarins, and even did a brief stint as a jackaroo before eventually finding his way to a camera.

CONNECT WITH GARETH
Website: http://www.garethlewisphotography.com
Instagram: @garethlewis

MUSIC
Please Listen Carefully
 (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

There’s a saying in photography that goes “pretty light plus a pretty subject equals a pretty picture.” And if you believe that, then you might be tempted to form an opinion about who Gareth Lewis is based solely on the provocative nature of his portfolio, but you’d be wrong. After booking a one-way flight from his native London to Australia, Gareth found himself a stranger in a strange land. Before settling in Melbourne, he spent the first year driving over 24,000 kilometers exploring Australia in a “Miami White” station wagon. Along the way, he picked tomatoes, clipped mandarins, and even did a brief stint as a jackaroo before eventually finding his way to a camera.

CONNECT WITH GARETH
Website: http://www.garethlewisphotography.com
Instagram: @garethlewis

MUSIC
Please Listen Carefully
 (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

One of the biggest struggles as a maker, regardless of what it is that you’re making, can be finding meaning in what you make. Whether you’re a painter, or a sculptor, or a writer, or a photographer, finding meaning in a particular project is often one of the obstacles that prevents us from starting, or can be one of the challenges to overcome in order to finish. As someone who spends a great deal of time talking to creative people, I often hear about projects at the poles, either early in the planning stages, or after the work has been completed, but rarely in the middle — which can be a challenge to talk about because there are often themes and ideas that haven’t quite come together yet. Oli Kellett is a street photographer from the UK who’s 18 months into a multi year project that brings him to America several times a year to photograph cities and the people who inhabit them.
At its core, the project is about crossroads, but as you’ll hear in this conversation, Oli is still wrestling with the literal representation — those few moments before the light has changed that leave us alone with our thoughts — to the symbolism and myth of the crossroads that draws a line from the ancient Greeks to a young guitar player from Mississippi who made a deal with the devil just outside Memphis.

LINKS
PDN Photo Annual

CONNECT WITH OLI
Website: https://www.olikellett.com
Instagram: @Oli_Kellett
 

MUSIC
Please Listen Carefully
 (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

One of the biggest struggles as a maker, regardless of what it is that you’re making, can be finding meaning in what you make. Whether you’re a painter, or a sculptor, or a writer, or a photographer, finding meaning in a particular project is often one of the obstacles that prevents us from starting, or can be one of the challenges to overcome in order to finish. As someone who spends a great deal of time talking to creative people, I often hear about projects at the poles, either early in the planning stages, or after the work has been completed, but rarely in the middle — which can be a challenge to talk about because there are often themes and ideas that haven’t quite come together yet. Oli Kellett is a street photographer from the UK who’s 18 months into a multi year project that brings him to America several times a year to photograph cities and the people who inhabit them.
At its core, the project is about crossroads, but as you’ll hear in this conversation, Oli is still wrestling with the literal representation — those few moments before the light has changed that leave us alone with our thoughts — to the symbolism and myth of the crossroads that draws a line from the ancient Greeks to a young guitar player from Mississippi who made a deal with the devil just outside Memphis.

LINKS
PDN Photo Annual

CONNECT WITH OLI
Website: https://www.olikellett.com
Instagram: @Oli_Kellett
 

MUSIC
Please Listen Carefully
 (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

A few months ago, I attended a talk that Dan Winters gave at the Smithsonian and one of the things that struck me straight away was the language he used to describe his relationship to his work. I’ve been a fan for years and own a few of his books, but I never had the opportunity to hear him speak before. There’s such emotion and romance in how he relates to his work, especially in the making or the doing as he calls it. Words like “reverence” and “gratitude” are used often and as you’ll hear in this conversation, these aren’t simply buzzwords. They apply equally whether he’s shooting a campaign for a client or walking by himself through the streets of New York with a 50mm lens and a few rolls of Tri-X. There’s an incredible authenticity to Dan that seems to pervade his entire life, from the work that he does to the people and things he surrounds himself with. I began by asking Dan where his love of making began and how he stays connected to it 30 years in.

LINKS
Kazimer Malevich
Chris Callis
Harry Callahan
W. Eugene Smith
Alfred Steiglitz
Paul Strand
Robert Frank
Mark Kelley
Al Reinert
The Grey Ghost
Portrait of an American Hero… (Smithsonian)

CONNECT WITH DAN
Website: http://danwintersphoto.com
Instagram: @danwintersphoto

MUSIC
Please Listen Carefully
(Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

A few months ago, I attended a talk that Dan Winters gave at the Smithsonian and one of the things that struck me straight away was the language he used to describe his relationship to his work. I’ve been a fan for years and own a few of his books, but I never had the opportunity to hear him speak before. There’s such emotion and romance in how he relates to his work, especially in the making or the doing as he calls it. Words like “reverence” and “gratitude” are used often and as you’ll hear in this conversation, these aren’t simply buzzwords. They apply equally whether he’s shooting a campaign for a client or walking by himself through the streets of New York with a 50mm lens and a few rolls of Tri-X. There’s an incredible authenticity to Dan that seems to pervade his entire life, from the work that he does to the people and things he surrounds himself with. I began by asking Dan where his love of making began and how he stays connected to it 30 years in.

LINKS
Kazimer Malevich
Chris Callis
Harry Callahan
W. Eugene Smith
Alfred Steiglitz
Paul Strand
Robert Frank
Mark Kelley
Al Reinert
The Grey Ghost
Portrait of an American Hero… (Smithsonian)

CONNECT WITH DAN
Website: http://danwintersphoto.com
Instagram: @danwintersphoto

MUSIC
Please Listen Carefully
(Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0