Paul Fletcher is an emergent photographer worth keeping an eye on. I had the pleasure of working with Paul in the construction sector over several years and, a few years ago, interviewed him on what was then his growing interest in photography. Influenced by his career in architecture, and interest in innovation, his emergent practice is driven by a voracious curiosity in people and how societies operate. Fully awoken through battles with mental health, and now the global coronavirus pandemic, his arresting work instinctively captures meaning whilst provoking interest in each theme explored. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the Schumacher Institute, and now a patron of The Photographers’ Gallery in London. It was a great pleasure to catch up with him to discuss life during COVID-19, the trajectory of his practice, and more!
Paul, thank you for agreeing to speak with us. How did you get into photography?
Thank you, David, it’s a pleasure to be asked to talk about my photographic practice. My photography began in the winter of 2014 as a self-taught hobby. Photography has since become the nexus of all my personal and professional experience. For more than 6 years I’ve repeatedly walked and encountered my local environment. I observe, engage and develop an ongoing relationship with places that I come to know through a lens. Interacting with and interpreting how people live and engage with the built environment.
My career as an architect was a constant battle. A war against the privatization of all architecture in the UK and the profound transformation of the profession during my time in university (when Thatcher, the then prime minister, destroyed local authorities). The very reason I wanted to be an architect and was investing 7 years of my life training was destroyed before I even qualified. The motivation that drove me to become an architect is what informs my photography today. An insatiable curiosity in people and how societies function.
Photography has given me is a way to distance myself from the right-wing capitalist ideology I loathe (and am powerless to improve). Not by letting go of what I still believe in so strongly today, but by giving me a new medium to express and communicate through. This is why I call my practice ‘through photo’. 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic has afforded me the space to reflect. I began to see the images I had intuitively captured in the context of projects. Constructing meaning within groupings of images. That was my first emergence as an artist.
What camera and equipment do you use?
Haha – why is it that I get asked that by so many people “what camera did you use to make that image?” Perhaps because today anybody can take pictures with their digital device. All those smart little algorithms in your smartphone mean everyone is a photographer. But it’s the device that determines the quality and style of that photograph – especially smartphone and ‘filters’. You can of course use such tools as an artist, but the proliferation of mediocre but good enough digital images detract from it as a medium (IMHO). My journey through different cameras and mediums has taught me that. But as you’ve asked…
I started with a 35mm film rangefinder (Leica M6), I learning through trial and error how to take a picture. I shot exclusively on black & white film, developing them at home. Then ahead of a trip to Kerala I switched to a digital Leica M. Allowing me the same camera feel but with the immediacy and color possibilities of a digital sensor.
That stopped me from shooting film and was the beginning of experimenting with a variety of digital cameras. Often in response to a photographic opportunity, I stumbled across. I’ve worked in fashion editorial, reportage, and portraiture. With Japanese cameras from Lumix, Fuji, Sigma, and such. I found I missed the intimate connection I had enjoyed with the Leica M, which was not possible with these cameras. That was evident in my work, which at best had plateaued. I don’t like autofocus or the myriad of digital gimmickry that was ‘helping’ me make an image, using such cameras manually was always a compromise.
Two years ago I returned to the Leica M, both digital and analog. This coincided with ceasing work in fashion and editorial. At that point, I became interested in the crafting of light to create interesting images, including portraiture. During the whole of 2019, I was distracted by building a new innovation and collaboration consultancy, during which I rarely picked up a camera. However, at the start of 2020 coronavirus halted all development of that consultancy. Affording me time to again reconnect with photography. 2020 has proved to be a transformative year.
At the start of 2021 I had decided to no longer pursue building the consultancy and rather to make photography, and even more so art, my main focus. It has also taken me fully back to where I began. Today I shoot on film with three cameras, 35mm on a Leica M3, medium format on a Hasselblad 503, and large format (4×5) on a Linhof Technika. I still shoot a digital, but now with a medium format digital back for the Hasselblad.
I’ve seen how photography provides you with some therapeutic release. Many artists say their chosen medium is more than a just creative practice and acts as a remedial answer to some of life’s challenges. What does photography mean to you?
In the winter of 2014, I was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder. Coincidently mere weeks after I’d bought my first camera The realization that mental illness had affected my entire adult life almost destroyed me. Personally and professionally. Photography became more than a hobby, it kept me connected to life as I struggled with my new reality.
Come winter 2018 hard work and painful acceptance were affording me a state of wellbeing and stability. One I had never previously experienced. A state that I enjoy to this day. Bipolar will never leave me and neither will my experiences of a rollercoaster life it once subjected me to. Today the coronavirus pandemic is challenging everyone’s mental health. Yet for me, perhaps because of the resilience I’ve learned, it is proving to be a period of awakening as a photographer and artist. The stress that my career as an architect had subjected me to only served to exaggerate the symptoms of bipolar. That stress also took a very real physical toll. At one point I spent 4 nights in St Thomas’ Hospital with a suspected heart attack. It wasn’t but was very much an extreme reaction to stress.
A camera has saved my life during months of severe depression and kept me grounded during periods of hypomania. Now photography gives me is a way to distance myself from the stress of years battling architecture and the selfish excess of property investment. For me, the ‘photo-walk’ is a very mindful activity. Apparently, creativity is enhanced through mindful activity. The primary purpose of my walks was to manage bipolar symptoms. I guess that it also unlocked my creativity.
What has been your biggest challenge as an artist so far?
Well, I guess it’s being able to accept and understand myself as an artist. As you’ll recall it was not so long ago that I struggled to even accept myself as a photographer let alone an artist. Yet my experience of 2020 has transformed me. I now accept myself as a photographer and emergent artist.
Challenges ahead include the shift in the context of my relationships with people I’ve known and worked with for many years. Some may see my shift as radical. Many will see it as me quitting (construction is beset with frail male egos that manifest as macho bravado). I already get sarcastic “oh, are you out with your camera today again” from those who don’t see it as real work and that my ambition to be a photographer/artist is just a romantic deluded dream.
More specifically it will be building my presence. Thank you for this opportunity to help with that. Other than my website that is likely to be done in the ‘real-world’ as I will not use social media, especially any owned by Facebook or Google. I do have a Twitter account, but I don’t engage with it, too much noise and irrelevant nonsense.
I intend to develop bodies of work that will be published as photo-books. That is the appropriate medium for me. My images do not necessarily translate well on a digital screen. I shoot to make prints, not digital images. There’s a quote from the American photographer Lewis Baltz that resonates “The photo-book occupies that deep area between the novel and the film.”
Some have said they sense a cinematic quality in my work, I’m now developing projects with message and narrative. Which opens the next challenge, that of finding my voice. That which makes my work mine. That is a fun challenge and one that will need me to explore the same areas of my creative self that helped me so greatly with overcoming mental health challenges.
Then all I need to do is find my audience. Easy huh? If only, haha!
You’ve produced many beautiful and awe-inspiring images. Tell me two or three of your favorites.
Thank you, kind of you to say so. Much of the work you’ve seen from me previously was shot 2016-2018. From my ‘People’ series. My work has evolved since then and although I still shoot people I approach it differently.
Much of that period is very personal to me. It was created during my biggest battles with mental health, as I revisit that work I can see that. An example would be the image ‘Coffee for one’. Original processed as a monochrome image To my genuine amazement it received third place in the International Men’s Day Exhibition at Lloyds of London HQ, part of their workplace mental health initiative of 2017.
One big change since then is that I no longer shoot it monochrome. I’ve revised all of my work and reworked them to unlock the color. So there are images that perhaps you’d recognize, but that you’ve never seen in color.
Another print, which also became part of an exhibition in a south London gallery was then processed as monochrome. Here is how I understand that image today in color.
Who have been your creative influences?
When I first picked up a camera in autumn of 2014 through to early 2017 I’m not sure I had any influences. Remember that photography was a very new thing and it was about managing destructive mental health battles. Before that, I’d only owned ‘point-and-shoot’ cameras. Perhaps during that period if anything I was emulating ‘street photography’.
Since then I can identify some more specific influences. Chris Steele-Perkins for his incredible observations of the British society in the latter half of the 20th century. Alex Webb is a big influence now. For me, he is one of the masters of street photography and the use of color (film). His practice of walking with a curious eye resonates with my mindful photo-walks.
More recently I’ve become very inspired by the work of Todd Hido, especially his landscape work. The most recent influence is Simon Roberts. His work was first brought to my attention this year when a colleague compared my work with his. A very flattering comparison! His aesthetic and socio-political narratives really do have synergies with my newer work.
Lockdown has limited access to galleries I decided to become a patron of The Photographers’ Gallery. It felt right to directly support and become more involved in the medium that is so important to me. The inability to get to galleries and see work has also led to me acquiring framed prints from photographers that inspire me. If I cannot get to a gallery then I’ll make my own, albeit modest, gallery. Which now includes pieces by Chris Steele-Perkins, Todd Hido, and Simon Roberts.
Please tell us more about your latest project.
The image series ‘River City Dock’ was shot entirely in the summer – winter of 2020. As an image series it has an aesthetic feel that holds it together but no narrative beyond that, not yet anyway. Here is an image from that series.
There are two developing projects. These are where my architectural past and photography align. It is these two projects that caused me to think like an artist for the first time.
The project ‘Mouth to Mouth’ began in 2019. From that project, a sub-project titled ‘West consumes East’ has developed. Descriptions of these projects can be found on my website. They are very much work-in-progress. This work is driven by a personal motto, one that I hope will be with me for the rest of my life and evident in my work. To stop fighting what I hate and to protect what I love.
I’ve begun to apply for residencies, most recently in Landskrona, Sweden.
Who would you love to collaborate with and why?
I find the idea of collaboration very interesting. The potential was explored with London-based artist Mhairi Vari. We had a lengthy virtual exchange of dialogue and images during the first phase of lockdown. From this, Mhairi went on to incorporate elements of my work into her installation ‘universal crepitation’. Which was shown at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery in Greenwich in November 2020.
There is an evolving opportunity with a friend and fellow photographer Lewis Inman. He is working more and more on video. We are exploring how video could be used as the project ‘Mouth to Mouth’ develops. Particularly to tell the story behind the project.
Collaborations excite and inspire me. I’m open to ideas from other artists out there – please contact me!
Where can our readers find out more about you and your projects?
For now my website https://through.photo however I realize I should probably begin to get more active (I cringe as I say that!) on Twitter @ThroughPhoto
In time I hope people can find out more from photo-books and galleries. Time will tell I guess!
We wish Paul the very best with his career.
Paul Fletcher was photographed by Luigi Vaccaro
Featured images, copyright, and courtesy of Paul Fletcher.
- Untitled: RCD#0136
- Coffee for One: SP#1195
- Untitled: SP#7858
- Untitled: RCD#0453
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