2/15/2024 0 Comments Roger deakins bywaysI still have friends that I grew up with and that’s what they do. You romanticise about things like that, but I might have done. The lady wondered why I took this photograph, Weston – Super – Mare, 2004 © Roger Deakinsįilm also seemed a lot harder to break into back then – the same for any kind of art career, really.Įven at college when you’re discussing your career, as you do when you’re leaving, I was laughed at for the idea of working as a photographer.ĭid you ever have a backup plan, or was it always going to be photography and film? So then I went to the National Film School. They just wanted people with more experience of life for the first year of intake. Then, I asked the principal of the National Film School why I had been rejected, and they said, well, if you apply next year, you’ll get in. I got rejected that year, but I was lucky enough to get an assignment taking photographs in North Devon, recording country life. This was in 1970, and I applied thinking I wanted to make documentaries, because that was the kind of image making I was into. I started taking photographs, and a friend told me about the National Film School opening up. It wasn’t until I went to art college and met Roger Mayne, the great still photographer, and realised that maybe this is something I could do, and that there was a chance I could work like that too. There was a little film society that I joined when I was in my early teens, but I didn’t connect that to anything that I could do to earn money. I love looking at photography books and painting – I used to paint a lot in school, and I love image making and movies. You found your feet once you attended art school, but what was it that sparked your initial interests in photography? I’m not really a town person, which might seem odd seeing as we live in Santa Monica most of the time. I still go fishing and I still love the natural world I love the way the light changes in Devon every 10 minutes. A couple of weeks ago, I was out in my boat in Torquay. I think your environment and upbringing moulds you to a very large extent. Would you say that your rural upbringing in Devon had an influence on of your photography and film work? I was lucky to go there, and that’s where I discovered image making I discovered photography. I didn’t get into the local Dartington College of Arts, and Bath was one of the last places open for applications. I then went to college at Corsham Bath Academy of Art, and that was probably the best decision for me. I went to art college, which is probably what you do, or what you did back then, when you didn’t know what else to do. I wanted to get away, and I didn’t know what to do with my life. I mean, my childhood was mixed because I really love the outside – I love walking, I love fishing, and I loved that aspect of it as a kid – but I wasn’t happy. Below, I chat to Roger to learn more about the relationship between both mediums, his love of the British seaside and why, in utter modesty, he still refuses to call himself as a photographer: “I just sometimes feel a bit embarrassed – these are just little images taken over the years.” On a train returning from a day of shooting for ‘The Reader’, Germany, 2007 © Roger Deakinsįrustrating. Idly wandering with a camera in tow, Roger would find purpose in his solitary walks amongst the farms, trees and the nature-rich countryside, often returning again and again to the coastlines of Paignton, Teignmouth and Torquay – the latter a place in which he still calls home, despite mostly residing in Santa Monica with his wife and collaborator, James. Perhaps an unsurprising pairing, Roger has spent a life documenting his surroundings in rural North Devon, which has now been compiled into his first monograph titled Byways, published by Damiani and featuring a collection of previously unseen, black and white still photography. But how many know of his photography pursuits? Revered for his cinematography work on films such as Sicario, The Shawshank Redemption, 1917, Fargo, No Country for Old Men and many (countless) more, he’s become a master of remarkable, boundary-pushing imagery. The acclaimed cinematographer publishes his first monograph, a documentation of rural life in Devon shot over four decades Before the children take over, Weston – Super – Mare, 2019 © Roger Deakins
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