An interview with Homer Sykes
An interview with Homer Sykes
copyright Emma Drabble RH: Tell me a little about yourself. HS: I am a professional magazine and documentary photographer. My principal commissions in Britain during the 1970's - 1980's, were for what used to be called the "weekend colour supplements" such as The Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Observer, You and the Sunday Express magazines. I covered weekly news for Newsweek, Time, and the former Now! Magazine; covering conflicts in Israel, Lebanon, and Northern Ireland, as well as weekly news in the UK. Over the last fifty years I have shot numerous magazine portraits of the famous and not so famous - at home, at work and at play. I have always worked on personal photographic documentary projects along side commercial magazine assignments. In the 1970's I started on what has become an on going career project documenting traditional British folklore customs and annual events. In 1977 my first book was published Once a Year, Some Traditional British Customs (Gordon Fraser). In 2016 Dewi Lewis Publishing re-published this volume with over 50 'new' images from my archive. I am the author, and co-author-photographer of nine books about Britain as well as Shanghai Odyssey (Dewi Lewis Publishing) and On the Road Again (Mansion Editions). The latter, an American project, was started in 1969, while I was at college. The photographic road trip was repeated in 1971, the work was then put away for thirty years, and in 1999 and 2001 I travelled once again by Greyhound bus criss-crossing America documenting the ‘down home’ idiosyncrasy of everyday middle America. In 2002 I set up my one-man band self-publishing concern Mansion Editions. To date Mansion Editions has published On the Road Again and Hunting with Hounds. More recently Cafe Royal Books have published 20 zines of my work.
Planning
copyright Homer Sykes RH: What attracted and inspired you to your current documentary project?
HS:The prospect of the work being published in book form.
RH: Can you talk us through the planning stage for your project?
HS: I'm reworking bodies of work completed over the last 50 years, expanding and bringing subjects matters up to date.
RH: Is there anything you wish you had done differently? No Implementation and Completion
copyright Homer Sykes RH: How have you dealt with any challenges and difficulties within your project?
HS: Thought more about what i hope and want to say.
RH: How long do your projects tend to take from start to finish?
HS: Depends on the project. anything from a few days, up to many years.
Editing and Sequencing
copyright Homer Sykes RH: Do have several images to edit of one fleeting moment or do you have one well-constructed precise image that you have captured?
HS: I photograph ‘fleeting moments’, and usually many images are made in order to construct the precise eventual image that may in time be disregarded.
RH:Within the editing stages, have you felt the project has taken on a different narrative than first envisaged?
HS: Often
Tips and hints
copyright Homer Sykes RH: What would you recommend for people starting their own photographic project? HS:
RH: Does the camera really matter?
HS: The camera doesn’t take the photograph. it’s brain, eye, and hand coordination.
RH:Any books you would recommend reading to get the creativity started?
HS: Once a year: some traditional British customs, my British archive: the way we were 1968-1983, hunting with hounds. and of course the photo books by the great American street photographers of the 1960s and 1970s, and many hcb books.
RH: Would you recommend attending photography workshops?
HS: Yes, but it depends at what level you make photographs.
copyright Homer Sykes
copyright Homer Sykes
copyright Homer Sykes
If you want to see more work from homer. https://homersykes.photoshelter.com
Keywords:
camera,
documentary,
Homer,
leica,
photography,
portraiture,
street,
street photography,
Sykes
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