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John Clifton
My photography began at my father's side - he processed and printed his own pictures to save on costs, so I did the same. I still hope to ‘dust off’ my darkroom gear at some point, but have spent the last few years learning to make great digital prints. I love the convenience that digital offers, and the immediate visual feedback it provides, but it is still that final analogue print that really ex-cites me. When not working at Trailblazer Outdoors, in Pickering, I am usually out walking the fabulous land-scapes of the North York Moors National Park. This is a place I find endlessly inspiring, offering a huge variety of scenery and subjects in a compact and accessible package. I am also co-organiser of #MOORSVIEW - a bi-annual photography seminar addressing landscape and wildlife photography on the North York Moors and Coast.
Much of my photographic output is ‘classical’ - carefully composed, exposed and focused, recognisably a particular subject or place. However, even back my film days I experimented with multiple exposure and Intentional camera movements. It was tricky in those days - film costs a lot of money, and you didn’t get instant feedback. Digital allows you more the freedom to play with these techniques, fine-tuning the initially rather random results. The portfolio here was made on a single Spring day in Dalby Forest, North Yorkshire.
The aim was to use the visual scene in front of me as source material and see what would happen when it was abstracted through the use of camera movements and multiple image capture. As such the images exist in an abstract space between the original subject, the camera used to create the exposure, and the subsequent ‘interpretation’ applied in post processing. They won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I find them rather beautiful and love the joy of the ‘unexpected result’ that such techniques can produce.
