Richard Preece - An Interview
- Carolanne Rose
- Apr 3, 2016
- 5 min read
I love colour photography, especially the kind that looks like it has stepped out of an 80's movie. Lighting and subject come together so perfectly in Richard Preece's instagram feed that it seems almost unfair when I compare it to the moody setting of London Town. To see more of Preece's photography please follow him on instagram @ALPHEIUS and show some love, tell him @CAROLANNEROSE sent you.
The reason I love conducting these interviews is because I am always looking for inspiration. I love hearing about how other film photographers work in such a digital/instant obsessed world. I am also on Twitter where you can follow my erratic stream of consciousness here: @carolannerose.
Who is Richard Preece?
My name is Richard Preece and I am thirty-one years old. I was born in Blackburn in the north of England, which is an area I now love and miss but initially loathed. I lived there for twenty-four years, bewildered and stagnant, until I moved to America to marry my then girlfriend. We live in San Antonio, Texas but have also occupied New Jersey, Louisiana and North Dakota.
When did you first discover film photography?
My uncle was a painter and a photography hobbyist. I was always interested but never really laid hands on a film camera until I was nineteen. I took a Canon AE-1 to a couple of festivals and fumbled around with it. My first thoughts were: I am never going to understand what all these fucking numbers mean. But I came out of that summer with perhaps four good pictures, which was four more than I expected, so I picked up a Holga and a Yashica Electro 35 and played with them on and off through the years.
I never spent much time pushing my photography into more than a vague hobby until about a year ago. I have always been markedly reclusive and found that holding a camera suddenly inspired a calmness and confidence I desperately needed. The things that had struck me in the past and then slipped by were now available to be recorded, kept and shared.
What do you shoot on now?
My first choice cameras are an Olympus XA and a Voigtlander Bessa R2 with a 35mm Nokton f/1.4. Both are relatively cheap, discreet and sharp. I use the XA for hurried shots and the Bessa for more planned ideas. I also have a few varieties of the Yashica Electro, and a couple of Canonet QL17's. I find rangefinder focusing easier than SLR for my poor eyesight. Other than that I don't really discriminate too much between various cameras or films. I love film simply because handling my camera, selecting film, loading it, exposing it and even winding it generates a feeling in me that nothing else ever has. I'll use any film I can get.
Where or what is your favourite thing to take photos of? What always inspires you?
My favourite things to take pictures of are very American to me. Everywhere here is filled with isolated spaces used and disused by business and industry. I am always seeing the way their colours and forms relate to each other, the marks they make upon landscapes, their advertisements and slogans - I want to put all of these things in a literal new light or in a new and incongruous context that changes or slows your recognition.
As part of my job I drive maybe 250 miles every day, passing through endless number of tiny 700-people towns that aren't as homogeneous as cities. People in these places lead lives quite similar to anyone else, but the small differences manifest everywhere - their buildings, cars, businesses, gas stations, signs, the entire landscape is illuminated slightly differently. I hope I’m slowly gaining the visual knowledge that makes these things - and their parallels in more uniform cityscapes - light up like beacons for the camera to find. I hope I can find things that people might see every day but don't record, and then have those same people say: oh! I saw that too.
Can I please just say that I don't talk like this in person? I swear. Sorry.
What makes you take a photo?
It sounds really pretentious to say 'light' but I guess I should own and not elude my pretentiousness. Light is all we ever document. The light here in Texas is gorgeously soft for about half an hour every day, and then garish blinding desert sun for 90% of the year. What matters to me is figuring out where to stand and whether a subject is better in one light or the other, then trying to connect the time and the place inside the camera.
Most of the time I have an internal map of places I want to take pictures of, constantly growing. Then I'll pass by one at the perfect time and it suddenly says HEY! COME HERE! and I’ll have to swing my truck around and go take the picture. If I don't, it screws up my entire week just thinking about ignoring a place that might never look the same again.
Your IG feed has some amazing colour photography on there, do you experiment with film a lot?
First of all, thank you! I don't really experiment at all - I wish I did more. I know there are a lot of films out there I haven't gotten the hang of, like Velvia. The light in Texas is such that the film basically chooses itself. I carry Kodak Ektar 100, Agfa Vista 200, and Fuji Superia 400. Those three films are both cheap and seem to give me the colours I’m looking for. I’ll load them into my usual cameras and then grab one or the other according to the light.
I think it would be interesting and daunting to take away the one strength of my photography (if there is one at all) and try to work on black and white photography for a while. It seems far more difficult than working in colour.
What would you say influences your style of photography?
The biggest influence on me is living in so many different places and working in such varied situations. Most of what I see and do every day since moving to America is radically dissimilar to the first 78.45% of my life. I've worked in offices and restaurants and now I work in the south Texas oilfield. It is harsh and unforgiving and rewarding. I like to believe that this helps me to pay attention to a lot of things that most people take for granted.
In terms of artistic influences, I would say: Mark Rothko, Stephen Shore, Ed Ruscha and @MandoAlvarez. Some other photographers using Instagram who inspire me daily are:
What is the best photo you’ve seen and thought “I wish I took that!”?
I’m a jealous person, this could be a list of a thousand pictures. Probably Stephen Shore's picture of downtown Kalispell, MT from 1974. [ Picture below ]
Now for some of Richard Preece's beautiful photography; once again please check out more of Richards work by clicking here: @ALPHEIUS.
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