The Zebra Monochrome Magazine Issue #1 The Zebra Monochrome Magazine Issue #1 | Page 74

A lot of your work is conceptual, what
does this mean to you and what do
you enjoy about the process of altering
reality?
I chose the word “conceptual” a few
years ago as I was unsure where I
belonged in the photographic world.
I often approach photography from a
sideways perspective, playing with my
photographs and using post production
methods to alter them. Photography was
introduced to the world as a scientific
device for recording the reality of the
world around us, but I have always been
fascinated by its ability to lie and deceive
and I believe that every photographer
distorts reality, no matter how slightly,
with decisions made at the point of
taking a photograph (composition
etc…). I like to record the inner world of
thoughts and dreams as much as I like
to interpret the world i n front of me. I
love photographers and film makers that
utilised photography to exaggerate those
deceptions: Oscar Gustave Rejlander;
Georges Melies: Elsie Wright and Frances
Griffiths, to name but a few.
What is your thought process / workflow
when you create a conceptual work?
Sometimes I will look at something
and an image pops into my head. If it is
achievable I try to make it happen and if
not I will doodle the idea in my sketch book to work
on at a later date. If it is a composite I need to go
and take the pictures I need to complete the image.
Once done, I sit at the computer and start piecing all
the elements together like a jigsaw. My father was a
carpenter and he often spoke about finding the grain
in a piece of wood. It is very similar to that. I move
this or that and wait for the picture to tell me how it
wants to be put together then I follow the flow until
the image is finished. Some pictures may only take
ten minutes to complete, others may take longer. I

think the longest I have spent working on a single
image is a month because parts of the composite
simply didn’t work and had to be changed. I took
time in the darkroom finishing a photograph, getting
it to the point I considered it finished, and likewise,
I take my time on the computer. I have learnt to be
responsive and know when the picture tells me it
is time to stop. I’m not sure I have ever created a
perfect photograph, I consider every image to be a
stepping stone to the next.

© Clayton Bastiani http://www.claytonbastiani.com/