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INFO: Ben Roberts.30.London,UK.
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The Photo Coterie: In our email conversation you mentioned you are going to Spain, what’s going on there?
Ben Roberts: I’m back in London now, but i’ve been working on a series in Spain for the last two years. Initially it was looking at the boom in the construction industry, but as the economic crisis took hold in the country, the project has evolved into a more surreal take on the effect of the recession on the psychology of the nation. The project has been funded this year in part by a bursary from the British Journal of Photography/Nikon.
TPC: Your series “A Sense of Place” is about how people behave and live in certain places, what is your place?
BR: Right now i feel like I am in place of transition. When i left college in 2006, I went straight into an assistants position with Zed Nelson. I was able to continue shooting my own personal work at the same time, which has been useful since i stopped working with Zed in June of this year. However, making the jump from assisting to being a full time photographer has been tough - trying to keep commercial commissions rolling in while still continuing with my personal work is a real balancing act! I have a commercial agent now here in London, so I’m also putting time into building that relationship to bring in more work.
One thing that i do love about being a freelance photographer is the variety of places that it takes me too - in the last 3 years I’ve worked in the USA, Australia and all over Europe.
TPC: You have a wide variety images shot in different styles, no doubt you are a very versatile photographer. So, what do you like shooting the most (i.e. fashion, event, documentary, etc.) and is there a particular area you like to focus on?
BR: At college we were often told that we should concentrate on a specific genre - while I can appreciate that this is possibly sound advice if you are intending to be a purely commercial photographer, I found that I needed to have a certain amount of versatility in my photography so that I could take on a variety of commissions, particularly when I first came out of college.
Perhaps most importantly though, I don’t like to be pigenholed. I simply like photographing, and try to approach shooting each commission in my own way. I try to learn something new on every job.
In the future I would like to take on more design and advertising based commissions as a means of funding my personal projects.
TPC: In the 5th image there is a sweater laying on the rock, what was your idea behind this picture?
BR: Haha, I wish I could say something profound and deeply insightful here, but the reality is that I was a bit warm, threw my sweater on a rock, and then thought it would make a nice photograph!
The images that I have sent you are all from a day out photographing with a friend Ariane in a forest near Paris. In between shooting more in depth projects, I really enjoy putting myself into a new location/environment and reacting to it with a camera to make short, concise “mini-series”.
TPC: Is there anything going on in your life right now that you want to talk about?
BR: Things are getting busy again at the moment - I’m presenting my new work from Spain at the British Journal of Photography’s “Vision” convention in London on the 27th November; So in the meantime I’m doing heaps of scanning and retouching. On the 8th of December I have a print up for auction at the prestigious Photovoice Auction at the Reuters HQ in Canary Wharf. Other photographers involved include Martin Parr, Mary Ellen Mark, Tim Hetherington and Elaine Constantine. Finally, on the 10th December I’m taking part in a group show and magazine launch for Dayfour Magazine - thats at The Printspace Gallery in London.
I keep my twitter stream - @benrobertsphoto - updated with news and observations, and also upload new work fairly regularly to my flickr account.
