Sean Litchfield

Where are you From/based?

I'm from Cape Cod but I live in Boston now.


What is your background in photography, what got you into it?

From as early as I can remember I've been interested in art. I think my earliest photography memory was when I photographed my stuffed animals against a handkerchief with my Mickey Mouse camera. It wasn't until I got my first SLR at the age of 16 that I knew it was something I wanted to learn more about. I'm a very visual person and was never any good at drawing, though I drew quite extensively, so I think photography was a way for me to remember what was important to me. I think that's still what drives my work to this day.


What equipment do you use?

The majority of my work is made with a Mamiya RZ67. I love everything about that camera; the weight/bulk, the waist-level viewfinder, the format and the thuds and cranking sounds it makes. I've dabbled in 4x5 and smaller formats but the RZ feels completely natural to me. I do, of course, use DSLRs quite frequently and they're pretty okay.


What is your creative process? Do you go out with an idea of what you want to capture?

That really depends on what I'm shooting. I try not to clutter my mind with too much when I'm making work, especially if it's something new. There's certainly things that I look for when I'm out and I try not to think about them too deeply. The last thing I want is to over-think what I'm photographing. It could make me hyper-aware of it and potentially keep me from making the image I saw initially. With projects like "The Tragic and Picturesque American Suburb", I referenced Hudson River School paintings before I made the pictures. That definitely helped me see the landscape in a similar way. But with "Off-Season" I only had my childhood memories of what Cape Cod was like in the Winter to go by. So it definitely varies.


What drives you to keep taking pictures?

I think it goes back to wanting to hold on to things I feel are important to me. I have a horrible memory and I fear I'll likely forget things if I don't photograph them. It's like I didn't have the same experience if I don't have a picture from it to view later on. But is that keeping me from truly experiencing something? Could I just be? I'm not really sure how I feel about it.


Could you tell us a little about your series 'The Tragic and Picturesque American Suburb'.

Of course! First off, it's a collaboration with my boyfriend, Zach. We've been wanting to work on a project together for a while but we wanted it to be something we were both unfamiliar with. So that brought us to South Carolina. My parents moved there about 5 years ago and I made several trips before I started photographing there. I knew that I could make pictures there I just didn't know of what. So we spent week down there driving around, Zach wrote and I photographed, together but not really talking about it. It wasn't until the third trip that we figured out what we were trying to say. It's still a work in progress. I'm not convinced it's the sort of project that I can ever stop working on. But it's on hold for the moment as Zach finishes his PhD and a million other things.


Who or what inspires you?

Lots of things! Personal experiences, plenty of contemporary photographers, art in general, etc. It's really just a stew of everything I see and do.


Are you working on a project at the moment?

Other than 'TPAS' not really. There's an idea that I've been thinking about a lot lately so I want to put in some time with it and see where it goes.

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Harry Layzell

Where are you from/based now?

I’m originally from Bradford, West Yorkshire. I currently live in Nottingham.

What is your background in photography? What got you started?

I was first introduced to photography through punk and hardcore music and photographs found in records, from there I was introduced to photographers like Glen E. Friedman and I started getting interested in photography. Growing up in Bradford, I was really lucky to have the Media Museum so close to me and an exhibition of Don McCullin’s work was a major turning point that helped shape the work I produce today.

What equipment do you use?

I currently use a Contax T2, Lomo LC-A+ and a Mamiya 7ii. I have a few more cameras, but these are the three I have on regular rotation.

What are your views on film vs digital?

Digital works really well for some people, but not for me. One of the reasons my work has the aesthetic it has is due to shooting exclusively on film. If I used digital cameras I would have probably tried to correct a lot of the ‘mistakes’ that appear in my work, but they’re the parts of my work I really get excited about. With film I just have to trust myself and my equipment and move on - I can’t shoot and shoot until I get exactly what I wanted as I would be able to with digital and this restriction has helped shape my work greatly. I don’t have a problem with people shooting digital, but I find shooting on digital counter productive.

What is your creative process? Are your shots planned or spontaneous?

The majority of my work is created as a reaction to something so I don’t really plan any photographs I take. My approach is very much to record the world that’s presented before me so I try to keep the planning to a minimum; I like to shoot how I feel something should be shot at the time based on feelings and instinct. The photographs I take when doing this, I feel, are always the more successful ones.

Could you tell us a bit about your 'better' series and photo-'zine.

‘Better’ was a project I created for an exhibition in Nottingham and one later in London. I was exhibiting as part of festivals and my work was being showcased alongside lots of other people’s. All the work that was being produced was aiming towards a final product that would be seen as fit for exhibition, so I focused on the process of creating work rather than an actual end result. I presented hundreds of images in the shape of contact sheets on the wall with my chinagraph markings all over them, this was to show my approach and the process behind my photographic work. There’s so much effort and time that goes into producing any body of work that sometimes I think it’s a shame when months and months of work ends up summarised with only a handful of images and the rest are never seen. Why not? Why are we only shown a few images? Are they somehow more important than the hundreds of other images created in the process? All the photographs I took during the project served a purpose – they gave a deeper insight and understanding into my methods and approach, so it seemed contradictory to edit any of them out of the final presentation.
The photo-‘zine accompaniment was to serve as an example of what, if any, shape the body of work could eventually take. The photographs I included were ones that I felt were quite beautiful when viewed in solitude and large enough for all the details to be acknowledged. I didn’t want it to feel like that’s what the whole project was leading up to - I really wanted the focus to be on the contact sheets, so I intentionally made the selection so that there’s little that holds or links the images together within the ‘zine other than the physical form of the book.

Who or what inspires you?

One of my main sources of inspiration and motivation comes from seeing and discussing photographic work with people. I’m lucky to have a few close friends who are in similar situations to me, they’re insights and practices help to shape mine. Andy Jones is someone who I’ve had this relationship with for years.

Are you working on a project at the moment? What does the future old for your work?

I’m not working on anything in particular at the moment, though I do continue to constantly take photographs. I’m currently doing research that will lead to a project in the future which will focus on Christian beliefs and imagery, the majority of the images will be made in Jerusalem. Hopefully.

What drives you to keep taking pictures?

I have a very ordinary life. For me, photography is a way of making it interesting and beautiful. It helps me appreciate everything.

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Wouter Van de Voorde

Where are you from/based now?

I was born in Belgium and lived in rural Flanders before I moved to Ghent to study painting and printmaking. In 2008 I migrated to Australia and since 2010 I’ve been living in Canberra, where I teach Photography at a local high school.

What is your background in Photography? What got you started?

Making images has been a significant part of my life for quite a while, in my early days as a painter I was obsessed with capturing the exact colors reality presented me with, I used to paint urban landscapes en plein air. In many ways this is still what I do as a photographer. When I moved to Australia I started a blog (the other side) to keep my friends and family in Belgium up to date, gradually the pictures became more and more autonomous instead of mere touristy captures.

What equipment do you use?

I started out with a Canon 5D combined with a range of analog 35mm lenses, a pretty good combination. Since early 2011 I have been using a Mamiya 7II, I also use a Ricoh Gr1s for snap-happy 35mm stuff.

What are your feelings on film vs digital?

Ever since I discovered 120 film I have hardly used digital, unless I need to capture moving images… I’m definitely more a film-shooter, the technical quality of 120 film surpasses any type of affordable digital camera. You just can’t get a dynamic range that comes close to film unless you’re using a medium format digital. That high dynamic range is important to me as I often include sky in my pictures. I also enjoy the inevitable slowness of film. I just find I can reproduce colors more accurately with film.

What is your work process? Are your shots planned or spontaneous?

My work is heavily based on me riding around the place on my bicycle. At 33 I have yet to get my full driver’s license… This makes exploring and hunting for locations a very slow process, being on a bike I can look around and practically go anywhere unnoticed. I often find myself staring at Google Earth’s satellite pictures looking for unusual textures worth exploring. (Urban) exploration has always been a big part of my motivation to document places. The majority of my pictures are unplanned, but I tend to revisit places I captured before. Hours of post-production color-correcting are also a large part of the process.

What drives you to keep taking photographs?

Once I wrote an artist statement in which I called myself a permanent tourist. I still think this is an accurate description of what a lot of my work is about. Not being ‘from here’ gives me a different perspective on Australian reality. After I’ve been out taking pictures I often have the feeling my eyes have been opened and I notice things that other people walk past, I feel a kind of moral obligation to capture some of these moments and places.

A couple of weeks ago I took a picture of one of the most photographed landmarks in Canberra; The Commonwealth Bridge. Most photographers picture this mastodon in a very similar kind of way making it virtually impossible to tell one picture from the other. I was riding back home from work and the sun was shining under the bridge at a very low angle, the fading light drew golden outlines around the weeds growing between the tiles. At the moment I took the picture it seemed like a fairly insignificant capture, but looking back at the picture after I edited it, I found it had recorded an unseen dreamlike quality of this landmark.

Who or what inspires you?

Coming from a country where painting has been deeply embedded in the culture for centuries, I look at reality though the eyes of a painter. Primarily this means that I’m obsessed with color. I seem to thrive on certain atmospheres, some places just call out to me. Studying Aboriginal culture to me is the only way to understand this weird island-continent.

The Internet has made it possible to look at virtually any photographer’s work, at times I find it more inspiring to look at pictures of people with no photographic ambitions. I avoid studying the work of photographers I admire.

Are you working on a project at the moment?

I’m not working on any specific projects, although I’m planning another solo-exhibition next year, there are a few group shows and publications on the horizon. I would like to make a book, but there is no pressure or urgency. I work rather slowly so whatever comes along that I find appealing I’ll take on board.

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