Photography News | Issue 68 | photographynews.co.uk
41 Interview
Image From Mark's series
entitled 'Flowers and swirls' with
liquid flowers created with water and ink
Mark Mawson Profile
Photography News: Mark, welcome to Photography News . Not all of our readers may have heard of you, so can you introduce yourself with what you do and how long you’ve been doing it? Mark Mawson: I’ve been passionate about photography, both stills and motion, for over 30years.Afterschool,Istudiedphotojournalism and then worked in newspapers in London for several years. Following that, I started to do more magazine work and moved into shooting fashion and portraits. That led me into also doing advertising work, which is what I do now, specialising in underwater work and shooting liquids. PN: What got you into photographing liquids for a living? MM: I shot my first liquid series as just a fun, personal project, which I titled ‘Aqueous’. I had the idea for quite a while and during some down time, I decided to give it a try. I had seen lots of ink-in-water images but I wanted to produce something that had more ‘body’ to it, so I experimented with different paints and dilutions until I was getting what I wanted. It worked sowell that I decided to domore of it and it became quitewell known. I had an exhibition of my first series and spent days deciding what to call it before I came up with the name ‘Aqueous’. Following this work, I started to get commissions to shoot for advertising purposes and this is when I decided to specialise in liquid photography.
PN: You must have a studio full of specialist lighting kit and water tanks. Or is that just our perception? MM: This is correct! My studio is full of many tanks of various shapes and sizes, all used for different purposes. I use Elinchrom studio lighting, it was one of the very first lighting systems I used many years ago, and I have kept using it since as it has never let me down. PN: What is the biggest challenge you face in your style of photography? MM: The unpredictable nature of liquids is by far the biggest challenge I face when giving clients what they want. I can control the process to a certain extent but the unpredictability means that I have to do many shots to make sure the perfect one is captured. Sometimes it happens early on and I stick with that shot, and other times I have to keep trying if I am after something specific. PN: What are the technical differences in working with different liquids? MM: There are different kinds of liquid such as oils and water-based liquids, but technically I find them to be similar. Obviously the way in which each liquid is lit will vary depending on what I amtrying toachieve in the shot. Clear oils, for example, may need to be backlit where as a liquid that has more of a solid look about it, may need to be side lit to bring out the texture and shape that it produces. In order to ‘freeze’ any moment theymake, I use a high-speed flash.
Mark makes his living as a professional photographer specialising in liquids. As
he explains, it can be a challenging and often unpredictable subject
Words byWill Cheung Images byMarkMawson
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