Desert Island D-SLR

David Clapp speaks

Which photographer (living or dead) would you like to have round for dinner?

Landscape shooter Simon Butterworth.

What’s your favourite place?

India. Photograph it right and it’s absolutely incredible.

What’s on your memory card right now?

Images of remote bits of Dartmoor.

What’s at the top of your bucket list?

To go to Nepal. Also to try new things on remote parts of the Devon moors.

Tell us a secret about your photography that you haven’t told anybody before.

I went through a phase a couple of years ago of dropping kit, including a Canon EOS-1Ds, three months after buying it. Painful and expensive.

To crop or not to crop?

To crop. But then to enlarge back out at the same size again.

How would you describe your work?

Originality within familiarity.

What’s on your screen saver?

Meteo Earth, a weather app that lets you know what’s going on in the world.

What kind of photography are you bad at?

Wildlife. The only time it works is when it’s dead!

What’s in your kit bag right now?

The Canon EOS M3 is my most used camera now. Not so great on AF, but good for locations and places. I use 11-22mm, 18-55mm and 55-200mm lenses. The whole system weighs less than a kilo. I also use a Gitzo 4540 tripod.

If you weren’t a photographer, what would you have done?

I’d have liked to have played in Led Zeppelin or Metallica, or to have been a superstar DJ.

Which books should every photographer read?

Landscape Illusion, by a painter called Daniel Chard. He helps you learn about composition.

Whose work do you most admire?

Danny Green, Anthony Spencer, Tristan Campbell, and the aforementioned Simon Butterworth.

What’s the most you’ve ever sold a picture for?

I sold a landscape to a Swiss watch maker for a five-figure sum.

How many pictures do you shoot?

Not that many: only about a hundred per trip. I only shoot when it’s absolutely essential.

What words of wisdom can you give to aspiring pros?

Look around at what everybody else is doing – and then don’t do that.

Any regrets?

I got into photography when I was about 15 years old, but the kit was so pricey at the time. I wish I’d pursued photography then.

Do you have any unfulfilled photographic ambitions?

To do more printing. I don’t do any printing at all, really.

What is your desert-island D-SLR?

The Canon EOS 6D. It’s the camera that changed everything for me.