CHARLIE WAITE
In landscape photography, a new Charlie Waite exhibition is always an attention-grabber. Keith Wilson finds out about the creation of this latest show and how it reflects Charlie’s life-long love with landscapes…
TRY TO imagine what it must feel like to prepare a retrospective exhibition of your work, and the sheer difficulty of deciding on just 52 photos from more than 40 years of negatives, transparencies and
digital files. Now, think about the time and expense of printing these images to exhibition standard, the cost of framing and the tedium of hanging, then pricing the works, publicising the event and organizing the guest list for the opening. As the clock ticks down to launch, the excitement and tension is palpable.
Then the unexpected happens… You can’t open at all because a global pandemic forces the world into lockdown. This is exactly what happened to landscape photographer Charlie Waite and Luke Whitaker, owner of the Bosham Gallery in West Sussex. Charlie is no stranger to exhibitions, but what befell his latest show, Hidden Works, scheduled to open to a packed house on March 27, was something he could never have imagined. But rather than shut the door and despair, the exhibition went ahead – online. Whitaker and Waite thought that if the whole nation had to work from home, using Zoom and other online conferencing tools to hold meetings, then why not show a ‘virtual’ photo exhibition via the gallery website? So, thanks to a crisis and modern technology, Hidden
Works remains very much on view and, in many respects, the only show in town…
You have held dozens of exhibitions in your life, so what was your motivation this time?
Luke Whitaker stimulated it when he asked me, “don’t you ever do any other kind of photography? Is it only landscape?” I said, “no, I’m actually stimulated by all kinds of things.” I regard myself as visually agile and I’ll take a picture of whatever catches my eye. Then I’ll put it away somewhere, lose sight of it and can’t find it. I’ll give you an analogy: most of the time with our clothes we get by with the same three or four everyday outfits and then, every so often, you think, ‘I’m going to try something different, I’m going to wear that pink shirt that I hardly ever wear.’ Well, those are the shots I’ve decided to exhibit now.
How did you choose them?
This time, Luke and two or three of his team came down, and we spent a whole day going through all sorts of stuff and they said, “we found these,” and I looked for more and we ploughed through the archive and found images that I must have cared about, but hadn’t found an actual application for. I was nervous, because you’re wondering how you might be received, but at the time of executing the photograph you had confidence, otherwise you wouldn’t have bothered.
What sort of ‘pink shirt’ pictures are we talking about?
There’s some images of people on a ferry to the Isle of Wight; there’s some weird shoes with just the feet and ankles at the Venice Carnival; there’s a little boy in Morocco looking through some railings. But what would I have done with them?
And yet, you could say that pink shirt in my clothes drawer has always been there, but it’s been down at the bottom and I’ve never thrown it away.
The title Hidden Works suggests none of these images have been exhibited before. Is that correct?
Yes, I’m pretty sure. It’s hard to keep track, but I think the majority haven’t been exhibited before. Some of them are 20 or more years old. It’s been an extraordinary experience because when the theatre gave me up, dumped me in fact, the thing that became obvious for me to do, because I knew quite a lot of actors, was to photograph them and I did that in Battersea for many years.
Yes, I remember coming to your studio underneath the arches in Battersea. That was the first time we met.
Yes! I think it’s all been knocked down now and it’s a hotel. Happy memories. I used to photograph a lot of actors, maybe a couple a day, and I did the pictures and went into the darkroom. When I finished in Battersea, I came down to Dorset, had a darkroom, carried on. Then the daughter arrives and she hasn’t got a bedroom, so guess what? Dismantle the darkroom! That’s 20 plus years ago.
So, did you make new black & white prints for the exhibition?
Luke says, “Charlie, I think it would be nice to have some silver halide, hand printed, black and white prints, at least half of this exhibition. You’ve got black and white images, haven’t you?” I said, “yes, but I haven’t got a darkroom!” Now, I was lucky because there’s a guy who lives just eight miles away and has been on a few Light and Land tours with me, and he said, “I’ve just moved here and I’ve got a darkroom.” Bless him! He had a Durst enlarger and I thought I’ll bring my old cold cathode Omega 5x4. It had been in a shed, it was a bit rusty, in an awful state, but I brought it with me and got some Ilford Multigrade and I had four days. I was terrified about going back into the darkroom.
Was it the first time in the darkroom in 20 years?
I don’t think I had done any darkroom work for 20 years. When digital came, that was it and the demand for illustrative books was mostly transparencies. If I ever did a print I had an Interneg made, then a C-type, and that was it. I was exhibiting, but it was mostly C-types or Cibachromes from transparencies, almost always colour, so I went into this darkroom and I just couldn’t remember anything!
And only four days to print. What did you do?
Within half an hour it was like yesterday. I even remembered 68 degrees for the dev; I remembered the stop bath and the fixer; I even remembered what we used to call ‘pot fairy’ – potassium ferrocyanide – it all came flooding back. It was an epiphany, and I thought that all I need now was what I used to have, which was The Archers on the radio!
It must been difficult to start with?
Yes, it was. I’d never used Multigrade and I couldn’t believe the way you could modify contrast. Out of those four days in the darkroom came 23 small silver halide, silver gelatin black and white prints, which then of course needed retouching, so there’s a lot to be said for digital.
Having worked for a long time with both photographic mediums now, what do you like most about film and digital?
It is difficult to find the words, but there is nothing like holding a handmade silver halide, black and white print on fibrebased paper that you saw give birth to in the dev. I know digital is wonderful and it’s incredible what it’s done for photography, but a darkroom-created print has a soul and a spirit to it that perhaps digital doesn’t.
Digital is so dependent upon the technical. We don’t know what goes on in the printer: how do all those little jets spurt that ink onto the paper? What’s inside our computer? What does it look like? But when we are printing, we know it’s a beam of light shining through a negative, putting the image onto the paper. You then take it out of the easel and drop it into the dev. Then, with your bamboo tongs, you take it from the dev to the stop, into the fix and into the wash. Then you dry it. So you never separate yourself from that photograph. You’re wedded to it in a more profound and more personal way.
Are the colour images in the exhibition also taken from your photographic archives?
Yes. One or two are just from two years ago and the others are quite old. In those
days, the 1980s and ’90s, the colour images were those that had no place for the illustrated travel books I was doing.
Until now…
That’s right. So, the editions here are low and of course I’d love to sell them, I really would, and I think there are people in Britain who are collecting photographs – perhaps the black and whites will be perceived as special, because if I’ve got to do another one I’ve got to go back into the darkroom. I’m not just pressing ‘print’!
That’s a good point because there’s a lot more in the process…
I don’t want anyone to think that being in the darkroom is lofty stuff or ‘that’s real photography’. That’s not right, I would never want to say that, it’s just different. I get immense pleasure from seeing a huge image come out of my Epson printer: ‘oh my god, look at that!’ Just to print and see it come out of the printer is a wonderful, wonderful experience.
Do you collect photography?
I buy it. I feel strongly that photographers should buy other photographers’ work. I bought a print the other day of some Japanese cranes and there’s no way I could have done a photograph like that.
That’s interesting because a lot of photographers don’t buy other photographers’ work.
They don’t and it’s shameful. If we want other people to buy our images we’ve got to buy photographers’ images. Wildlife, I love wildlife. I bought one of a hare the other day and it gives me such joy. This woman has been photographing hares for 40 years and for fifty-quid she sells me her experience, that wealth of experience in photographing hares that hardly anyone has got. It should have been a thousand pounds!
You were wedded to film with your Hasselblad for a long time, so how exactly did your experience with digital evolve?
I used the first Canon EOS 5D and now we’re up to the 5D Mark IV, I think people underestimate it. I’ve talked to Canon reps and other brands and asked why they’re obsessed with megapixels? The poor photographer sees the new model and says, “oh my god, that’s got four more megapixels than the one I’ve got, I better get that one,” and then another one comes out. I said to someone a while ago who had a Phase One back, “you must do some wonderfully huge prints,” and he said, “I’ve never printed anything.” “Wait
If we want other people to buy our images we’ve got to buy photographers’ images
a minute, you’ve got a bit of kit that’s capable of producing a print the size of a bus, and you’ve never printed?” I don’t understand that.
What was it that you liked most about the Canon EOS 5D?
It was a good old workhorse. Photography is about perception and all you crave is dependability. I think it’s fair to say that the Canon proved dependable for so many photographers who really put them through their paces: dropping them, bumping into things, they were tough workhorses, but they still had a delicacy.
You found the Canon EOS 5D as dependable as your Hasselblad?
They’re both chunky, so yes, they were. The Hasselblad will produce a bigger file, of course. If you just look at your 6x6 transparency on Velvia at 50 ASA with an 8x loupe on your daylight balanced lightbox, every single thing that was there when you saw it is in there.
Sometimes, it would feel like you were right there again when you shot that photograph, it propels you back in time. People are still very keen on resolution and definition, and that accompanies photography all the way from the medium of film and digital.
Creative styles have changed in that time too?
Well, some of my images in this exhibition, they were early days of ICM (intentional camera movement) before we had ICM, I didn’t even know what it meant! In the mid-’90s, people weren’t moving their cameras intentionally, it was all about keeping it still, get things sharp. There’s a shot in the exhibition of some gondolas in Venice, and they’re moving, there’s some out of focus bits, but I look at it and I think, it’s okay.
Was the EOS 5D your first experience of full-frame digital?
Yes, it was. In fact, it was the first digital camera I owned. One thing that Canon did was when people started doing multiple exposures, which I did before digital, I remember thinking out the maths: “you do one at 1/125 sec, that’s two at 1/250 sec, four at 1/500 sec;” it took me ages to get my head around it, but Canon were very clever and they did nine. But people would do eight and then dial up another eight, and you never did the ninth, which would end the sequence. I reckon the early 5D inspired other manufacturers to do similar things.
When you moved to digital, what was the main benefit?
I remember thinking if I get loads of these memory cards, that’s not bad, so from a technical point of view, digital meant you didn’t have to buy loads of film. They were big enough files to be used for illustrated books. In that respect, continuing to use film was almost like an imprisonment, because if you didn’t have enough film you couldn’t do anything.
Despite these strange circumstances, it is a wonderful time of year, so are you still getting out with your camera?
Luckily, I can still go for a walk from my home in Dorset and respond to what I see, even if I don’t take a photograph. I have become obsessed with photography’s ability to draw you closer to the essence of things. I get asked, “why do you have to photograph everything?” to which I reply, “well, why don’t you?” because you’ll get closer than you ever would by just walking past. You pick that camera up and it becomes a conduit to you looking and marvelling and wondering and relishing this incredible thing in front of you. It really makes you wonder at nature and the amazing nature of nature.
The spirit of nature?
The spirit of nature, yes. That’s a nice way of putting it. I think I’ll borrow that and call it my own, if I may! I feel with our photography we can engage more profoundly with this amazing world. I think we agonize more: when I hear a chainsaw and a tree comes down; I think, “hang on, that’s like an elephant that’s been around for 150 years and a single bloody bullet brings it down. For what?” I wish we could see the natural world as more sacred, I really do, we’re all in such agony about what we’re currently doing.
So, I think more people should pick up the camera to engage more with the landscape and nature, then emerge from the relationship by owning the experience. Because as a result of a really good image you have effectively owned it and are honouring what you have photographed. An acknowledgement of the beauty itself. I wish beauty was more prevalent in our society.
You can take a virtual tour of Charlie Waite’s Hidden Works exhibition at the Bosham Gallery, by visiting the gallery’s online Viewing Room here: www. boshamgallery.com/viewing-room This new online art experience includes all the new works, the stories behind the images, artist interviews and much more.
I wish we could see the natural world as more sacred, we’re all in such agony about what we’re doing