Who Am I?
"...........everywhere I look and most of the time I look, I see photographs." (Bert Hardy)
This is definitely my experience. Unfortunately I tend to see great photographic images far more often when I'm without a camera than with a camera.......
I'm Gary Hill, a self-taught 'serious amateur' photographer with 25+ years experience using film and digital equipment. I also have a PhD in visual cognition/neuroscience but no longer work in the field. Photography is my sole artistic outlet of choice. I play no musical instrument, I draw and paint like a child and I write crap poetry. Photography, however, is very much a science as well as an art form and I enjoy both these aspects equally.
Initially my approach to photography was promiscuous, meaning I'd point my lens at any scene I thought might make a good photograph. Eventually, though, I found myself naturally gravitating toward a few central themes, primarily street and candid photography, especially concentrating on individuals in uncluttered backgrounds, and dark Christian imagery. And more and more monochrome images.
I offer no 'artist's statement' as such. I'm not exploring any relationship between 'urban synaesthesia' and 'mythopoetical reality' within the realms of 'neodeconstructionism' and 'subtextual desituationism' (all such bafflegab lifted from actual photographer's statements). I simply come across scenes that inspire me and capture them as best I can. A scene either immediately 'grabs' me or it doesn't. Call it a 'Zen experience' if you like. I don't. But someone once told me my images "tell tales" and that appealed to me, hence the name of this website. If any of my images 'tell tales' or 'grab' you then we share something. That's enough for me.
Many of the photographers who've inspired me are either no longer living or are relatively unknown. For different reasons, I particularly enjoy the styles of Bert Hardy, Jane Bown, Gordon Parks, Dorothea Lange, Glenn Capers, Jim Mortram, Ara Guler, Walker Evans and Vivian Maier. For anyone interested I use Pentax digital cameras coupled with mainly Pentax and Sigma lenses. I also occasionally go up to the attic and bring down one of my several old manual focus, and in some cases manual-everything, Praktica film SLRs and a range of old Carl Zeiss Jena prime lenses. When I do I'm usually surprised at how much I miss enjoy having to do everything myself as well as how well the old kit performs.
I don't do social media. Never have. It wasn't me that wrote that. Nor do I write in the third person. It sounds even more pretentious.
Initially my approach to photography was promiscuous, meaning I'd point my lens at any scene I thought might make a good photograph. Eventually, though, I found myself naturally gravitating toward a few central themes, primarily street and candid photography, especially concentrating on individuals in uncluttered backgrounds, and dark Christian imagery. And more and more monochrome images.
I offer no 'artist's statement' as such. I'm not exploring any relationship between 'urban synaesthesia' and 'mythopoetical reality' within the realms of 'neodeconstructionism' and 'subtextual desituationism' (all such bafflegab lifted from actual photographer's statements). I simply come across scenes that inspire me and capture them as best I can. A scene either immediately 'grabs' me or it doesn't. Call it a 'Zen experience' if you like. I don't. But someone once told me my images "tell tales" and that appealed to me, hence the name of this website. If any of my images 'tell tales' or 'grab' you then we share something. That's enough for me.
Many of the photographers who've inspired me are either no longer living or are relatively unknown. For different reasons, I particularly enjoy the styles of Bert Hardy, Jane Bown, Gordon Parks, Dorothea Lange, Glenn Capers, Jim Mortram, Ara Guler, Walker Evans and Vivian Maier. For anyone interested I use Pentax digital cameras coupled with mainly Pentax and Sigma lenses. I also occasionally go up to the attic and bring down one of my several old manual focus, and in some cases manual-everything, Praktica film SLRs and a range of old Carl Zeiss Jena prime lenses. When I do I'm usually surprised at how much I miss enjoy having to do everything myself as well as how well the old kit performs.
I don't do social media. Never have. It wasn't me that wrote that. Nor do I write in the third person. It sounds even more pretentious.