| David Hay Jones | ||||
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Interview
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Fotonic: Why have you chosen science photography as your area of work? David Hay Jones: For years I have been a general purpose photographer and writer, a Jack of All Trades. Increasingly, this became an unsatisfactory way of making a living, sort of like being a gossip columnist or listings editor. I was always scratching at the surface of things. I wanted more meat on the bones, more substance. I thought of going to graduate school to do a masters in biology or geography, then I decided to to use what I already knew and become a science photographer. Fotonic: Are you enjoying it? DHJ: Yes. Jobs are hard to come by -- there are plenty of dead ends but in recent years I have had lots of book credits, including a few covers. I have started a publishing house too, True North, which is taking its first modest steps. |
David Hay Jones in Lofoten, Norway |
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Fotonic: What's the difference between general pupose photography and science photography? DHJ: None really -- you still take pictures and sell them. I do feel more concentrated. I have to know my subject in a way I didn't before. The more I find out and understand, the more photo possibilities I see. I now look at an urban landscape and don't see it in terms of streets, buildings, arrangements of shapes. I see processes at work. Concrete and asphalt surfaces absorb heat during the day and release it at night: how can I photograph that process? I see power plants and think of sulphur dioxide emissions, which makes me think of acid rain. How do I photograph that process? And I constantly ask, is the picture worth taking? What does it illustrate; will it sell? Fotonic: Your subject is climate change. Why? DHJ: I love the outdoors; I love weather and climate. I love scientific research. The climate change debate fascinates me. To what extent is the rise in global temperature the result of human activity? How do you devise climate models which separate human-induced rises in global temperature from the natural causes? How is warming of the troposphere (the lower atmosphere) related to cooling of the stratosphere (the layer above it)? How will plants and forests respond over time as temperatures rise, or as climate gets wetter, or ground ozone levels increase? There is so much to get your teeth into. Fotonic: Is climate changing? DHJ: It's changing all the time; it's not static like a rock, and even a rock changes if you observe it over a long enough time. There are natural cycles to climate; there are natural events such as volcanic eruptions, and there are human influences due to the burning of fossil fuels, industrialization, suburbanization, modern agricultural methods, deforestation, pollution and so on. Fotonic: Are you for or against in this debate? DHJ: Asking whether you are for climate change is like asking whether you are for oxygen or against it. I am on the side of good science, which deals with probabilities and various scenarios, ie if 'a' continues to rise, then 'b' and 'c' are like to be affected by 'n' amount, which will affect 'd' and 'e'. You cannot say with 100 percent certainty what will happen to climate over the next 50, 100, 200 years. You can predict, estimate and forecast. This is where some politicians fall short. They demand certainty, say things like, "Is it going to happen or not?"; If you can't promise it's going to happen, we can't promise to do anything about it". I am a serious photographer and I cover that debate, all sides of it. Fotonic: What are your dream locations? DHJ: Dream locations are something you have when you are starting out because you imagine that the best pictures are always taken somewhere else. I have sold more photographs taken within 50 miles of my home than I have on location -- but there again I have homes in three continents, so I am lucky in that respect. Fotonic: What about favorite places? Where would you like to work? DHJ: If you're giving away tickets, you can send me to Mali via Greenland. Fotonic: Are there any locations or subjects that turn you off? DHJ: No. I photograph a lot of places where I wouldn't choose to live, for example suburban landscapes. I do that in order to illustrate various points about land use and climate, and the photographs are good. Dislike and distaste can be good motivating factors. I am very rarely bored. Fotonic: You like wild places most of all. DHJ: I like any space and place and people who are untamed and demanding. New Orleans and London are unruly. I love them both. Winter in Lapland is untamed, wild, and seemingly endless -- I like that too, the grand scale. As soon as people, space and places are tied down, made to measure, I lose interest. Fotonic: But wild places are often very boring, aren't they? DHJ: I know what you mean. In remote places, there are few distractions of the sort that make you imagine you are an active part of things. Take movies, they can create the feeling you are part of something meaningful. The difficult, or demanding, thing about remote areas is that you often have to make your own entertainment. You don't naturally sense that you're part of some big scheme, even if that big scheme is the entertainment industry's desire to make you pay for a product. Fotonic: Would you ever consider doing a regular job with regular hours, in fact what most people do? DHJ: Yes of course I'd consider that, but I am not well suited to it. I get bored too easily. I go to work the first day and realise that days two, three and days four hundred and five hundred are probably going to be pretty much the same and I panic. But if an expedition to Greenland needed a hard working photographer right now, I'd leave tonight. Freelance life lacks financial stability, but we are compensated in other ways. Creative freedom has a value if you can put up with its hardships. Fotonic: What are the main disadvantages of freelance work compared to salaried work? DHJ: As a staffer on a magazine or in a company, you have a level of predictability that freelances do not have unless they're on long-term contracts. I don't mean predictable in a negative way, but in the positive sense of knowing what your income will be, knowing you have health insurance, that you will be able to pay your bills. As a freelance, you miss out on that office camaraderie thing too; you lack the support and feedback you can get from good office colleagues. Freelance work and opportunities can fluctuate greatly between satisfying, well-paid work and periods of selling very little. It's rather like being an actor. For every part you get in a soap opera, there might be months of unemployment. You have to be a survivor and unafraid of the future. Fotonic: You are not only a photographer but a writer too. DHJ: Yes, I have a written a book or two and quite a few hundred magazine articles. I publish books as well. Fotonic: Which do you prefer, writing or photography? DHJ: I don't spend time comparing the two activities, but I like photography because it is immediate. You press the shutter and your creative work is done (assuming you don't work in the darkroom). When you write, you often have to do it at a computer screen alone, and that can be a drag. Fotonic: Do you have any writing projects on the boil? DHJ: I have a dream to run a small publishing house that puts out two or three good books every year. I have made a start by publishing my wife's book, "Words of Fire, Spirit of Grace" which has done very well, covering all its costs within two months of publication. Fotonic: What will that work be called? DHJ: I have two titles in mind, 'Dislocations' or 'Beneath a Canopy of Leaves'. Perhaps the former is a book of text and the latter a photo book. Fotonic: What would you like to do that you haven't done already? DHJ: Oh, I don't know. I'd like to keep falling in love with my wife because I like falling in love. I'd like to get a phd in astrophysics or philosophy, I'd like to publish good poetry books, I'd like to climb the Eiger in winter, I'd like a check for $100,000 to arrive out of the blue, I'd like to be commissioned to write a book about Mali, those sorts of things, standard dreams, nothing out of the ordinary.
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