Photo Profile : Syd Weedon

I’m a graphic artist, photographer and writer. In terms of graphic art, I’ve done everything from designing and building theater sets to producing some really sharp looking junk mail. Currently, I do graphic design, photography and electronic publishing to pay the bills. My work has appeared in many publications.

I have always aspired to fine art photography, but the majority of my work is the normal bread-and-butter kind of photography: products, portraits, events and ad fodder. I shoot a lot for the agriculture industry so you are more likely to find me in a soybean field or cow pasture than in a studio on Fifth Avenue. And yes, making a soybean plant look interesting is a creative challenge.

I’m one of those people who really can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a camera. My first was a Kodak Brownie Holiday when I was about seven years old. I’ll leave it to you to do the math on that, but it means that I have shot a lot more film than digital, and I still enjoy working with film. I converted to digital for professional work in 2004.

In terms of style, I have to admit to a weakness for the great black & white photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Harry Callahan, Walker Evans, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. I still love black & white photography regardless of what kind of camera produces it. In terms of contemporary photographers, I like Joe McNally, Moose Peterson, Michael Kenna, Mark Tucker, and Steve McCurry, among others.

I tend toward realism in my photography. I like pictures in focus with colors and contrast values approximating the real world. The world is very beautiful to me and I don’t need to change it to be satisfied with a photograph. I’m not above manipulating a photo if it suits my purposes, such as applying graphic effects for ad art, but generally, if I can just capture life and the world the way I see it, I’m happy.

The alchemy of photography has always fascinated me. A photographer, a subject, a camera and the light converge and this new thing, an image, is produced. It represents the subject, but it is always a lot more because it also is shaped by the photographer’s response to the subject, the time and place where it happened, and the meanings brought to it by those who will see the picture in the future. It’s a multi-dimensional chain reaction of vision, feeling, technology, time and nature.

I could go on about this for hours. It is one of my favorite ideas. You can’t think too much about his stuff when you’re shooting because it would hang you up, but it continues to inform me and give a sense of purpose to my photography, regardless of the style or subject matter I’m shooting.

In terms of goals, I want to pay the rent, see the world and shoot a few more “suitable for framing” kind of pictures.

Links:

http://www.sydweedon.com/wordpress/
Syd on Twitter