24
Photography News Issue 24 absolutephoto.com
Interview
Iceland book An Uneasy Calm A familiar face on the camera club circuit, fine art photographer Dr Tim Rudman FRPS, FRSA has been making silver gelatin prints for his latest book, Iceland, An Uneasy Calm . We find out what it took to put together such a venerable collection
You’ve travelled the world, so what is it about Iceland that for you warranted further exploration through a book? I originally wanted to go to Iceland back in the 70s, but suddenly it became the place for photographers, so I decided I no longer wanted to go and follow the trend. But I always had a yearning to go there one day. Interestingly, it seems that the same thing is happening nowwith Iceland, but largely since I started going there and got hooked. There is something special about Iceland, both the land and the people. It has a way of calling you back and the more you go the more it gradually reveals of itself. I’m by no means the first to have fallen under its spell.
see that image appear. If it looks right I take it through various chemicals to change the way it speaks to a viewer, wash it, dry it, press it and end up with the finished work on that same piece of paper that I handled through each stage of its progress. I like that manual creative process and feel I have a connection with the result. Doing it on a screen doesn’t do it the same for me. Why did you decide to create a new book? When I was learning to print – long before the Internet existed – finding information and techniques was difficult and I decided that one day if I cracked it I would write the book that I wished I’d had when I was learning. So all my previous books have been information and technique books, whereas this is an image book.
Interview by Megan Croft
Why were you first drawn to photography? It was an epiphany moment when I was a medical student and I found a book of black & white images by SamHaskins. I had always drawn and sketched (and always in black & white) and as a boy I had used a camera, but I had never seen photography used as an art form in this dramatic way. It was an instant conversion and within weeks I found a darkroom and began to teach myself to print. You’re known as a film shooter, why do you continue to choose that medium? I like to make prints by hand. I like to start with a virgin sheet of photo paper, expose it, spread the light as I want it, develop it and
There is something special about Iceland, both the land and the people. It has a way of calling you back
Above Resting place, seleniumand thiourea toned silver gelatin print.
When capturing Iceland, did you always have in mind that you’d create a book?
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