Final Analysis

Paul Hill considers… ‘Lathkill Dale #17, 2009’, by Matthew Conduit

ANational Nature Reserve, Lathkill Dale in the Peak District National Park is one of the most beautiful dales in an area full of glorious landscape photo opportunities, but I had never seen a photographer with a large format camera there – AND I recognised him. ‘Hi, Matt! Thought you had given up photography,’ I shouted.

‘No. Back in the saddle,’ replied Matthew Conduit, who I was certain had not taken a ‘serious’ photograph for 20 years. He had a successful career as an exhibiting photographer, particularly with his Groundwork square format black & white landscape pictures – he exhibited with luminaries like Keith Arnatt and John Davies – on leaving Sheffield Polytechnic in 1981. He’d moved into arts management seven years later, running Untitled Gallery (now Site Gallery) and later developing the Sheffield Cultural Quarter and managing its Workstation studios and Showroom Cinema. However, he felt being ‘a suit’ may have given him financial security, but he hankered after becoming ‘a creative’ again. But how?

Love of trees

In 2000 he became a freelance arts consultant with some big local government clients who wanted to develop their cultural and creative industries provision. ‘I always knew I would go back to making pictures, but I needed a subject,’ he told me. ‘Landscape and topography interested me, so that’s why I was in Lathkill Dale when you saw me in 2008.’

He started with a DSLR, but moved to a 5x4 view camera because someone told him the images needed to be big, and although his DSLR had good resolution, the detail when enlarged was not good enough.

‘It swallowed me up and I became obsessed with trees and undergrowth – the subtle colours, the textures and forms.’

Although they have a painterly feel, they are most definitely photographs, but there was a problem. Fuji stopped making the colour negative film he was using.

‘This was awful, so I went back to digital and I now use image stitching where you use overlapping fields of view to produce high-resolution results. But you have to spend hours on the computer to get that seamless image. The detail is fantastic, but the overlapping procedure in the field is also labour-intensive and frustrating when the light changes and branches start moving in the breeze. I spend hours on Photoshop just putting twigs back together!’

But how do you support your art practice? Matt had been impressed by fellow photographer Berris Connolly’s printer, so he bought one and set up a studio and printing business (www.untitledprint. co.uk) in Sheffield and, despite Covid, has just had his best year. He also put on his curator’s cap and organised Regeneration: The Sheffield Project 1981-1991 that he managed when working at Untitled Gallery. It is currently at Weston Park Museum, Sheffield (www.museumssheffield.org.uk/museums/ weston-park) and a book on the project is in its third pressing. It can be obtained online from Matt’s studio. A virtual interactive gallery is available too (my.matterport.com/ show/?m=fmCuiSVRZrq). His work can be seen at www. matthewconduit.com.