MIKE STACEY

INTERVIEW FOR IMAGINE MAGAZINE

BY GABI GOGIU, JULY 2020

Who are you? And why?

I’m a photographer who has had a camera in his hand all his life, capturing aspects of life that move me, from landscapes and wild places to humans and all their complexities.

When, how and why did you start photography?

I started photography 44 years ago and was inspired for a long time by nature. The camera became something that accompanied me on trips into nature and I found I had an expressive voice with it - to say the things I felt in a more moving and truthful way than resorting to spoken or written language.

Please describe your unique style of photography.

My base photographic work is centred on capturing something intimate of a person. Something more intimate than nudity or other physical aspects. The primitive heart. A moment where there is a sense of overpowering presence. A moment of intense connection. A moment of sensuality and experience, of humanity, of beauty. My focus is on the aspects I feel rather than the things I see.

What inspires you?

Aspects of humanity - not just beauty. The complexity of people, their emotions and how they express themselves.

Money or art?

Firstly ART and then money.

Name some photographers/models that inspire your work.

All the classics and ground-breakers of course - Newton, Lindbergh, Penn, Avedon etc. Brian Duffy especially, for his strength of character in doing things that no one at the time could understand.

A more contemporary photographer who has motivated some of my work was Kesler Tran. His recent work is of no interest to me but his earlier work showed true brilliance and his approach informed some important changes in the way that I shoot.

Your girlfriend is a great model. How has your style of photography or workflow changed her appea- rance in your life?

She is the most accomplished mode I’ve worked with for two reasons: her ability to model any genre from fashion to portrait to conceptual to nude etc. and also her great expressive capability which allows her to freely express herself without the fear many models have of looking ‘unpretty’. These traits have allowed me to develop my work incredibly in terms of capturing many things that other models don’t show. She also moves a lot - this has challenged me to also move and capture things dynamically as they happen. The established model-photographer workflow when the model goes from pose to pose, and the photographer goes click, click is just too easy, boring, unimaginitive (as a photographer) and it simply doesn’t give me the images I need. So with Aurora, I’ve been able to more easily find ways to break this down and throw it out.

What do you do besides photography?

I’m an English teacher living in Poland. I work for myself and for a local language school. I also work for a UK company as a Learning Consultant - I assist and advise University academics on the best way to move their content into an online delivery mode based on an evidence-based pedagogy. All my work is 100% online.

Are you setting up the stage before every photoshoot or do you prefer to get inspiration on the spot?

Definitely the latter. I used to need to have a plan, and a stage, and have everything organised and set up. It took me a long time to be able to work spontaneously as I used to have a very analytical mind, coming from an Engineering/Maths background. These days, my shoots are unplanned - this scares a lot of models but they're usually happy with the results. Being spontaneous allows a degree of dynamism and creativity that is impossible with other workflows. It’s also much harder and more challenging - which I also like. Capturing life itself and aspects of people that are usually hidden is impossible for me with staged shots. Models who know me and my workflow trust me, and they need to do that because often they’re not posing in the usual way a model poses - so trust is required that I won’t capture a ‘bad’ angle etc.

The coolest thing you have experienced at a photoshoot?

The coolest thing for me is when a model and photographer get into a creative groove. It’s like a bubble of connection where each shot is great and everything is intensely focused with no effort involved. Those moments are the moments I aim for in every shoot. Sometimes they happen numerous times in a single shoot. Moments like those can’t be planned and can only eventuate when both parties are creatively connected. It’s like magic when it happens.

And the one who sucked the most?

In general, the ones that suck are the ones where I have cast the wrong model for what I do and within the first 10 minutes I know it’s never going to work.

Please tell me in 12 words exactly why you are an artist.

Art gives me a voice and language that I don’t otherwise have.

You shifted from nature to portraits and your work is mainly focused on nude photography. What stories do you want to tell through your photo shoots?

Stories of humanity and emotion - happiness, despair, sadness, anger, sensuality, sexuality... how many human emotions are there? Situations also interest me - images of context where the elements in the frame create questions, or sometimes make statements - and the human subject is either perfectly entwined and part of the scene, or completely removed. I like randomness also. Nudity doesn’t do much for me other than its use as a way of stripping down a person to their bare self. Nudity itself, with no purpose other than nudity, is too easy.

My intent with the camera when I used to shoot nature was the same as it is now with my portraiture. No change.

B&W or colour? Indoors or out-doors? Natural light or studio light? Digital or film?

Usually B&W and can be either indoors or outdoors, although I prefer outdoors as I like the elements of wind, weather and nature itself. Also, serendipity has less opportunities in the confines of a studio. I use almost exclusively natural light. When shooting at night I just use whatever is at hand - could be a hand held torch for example or commonly it seems to be a desk lamp :) Studio lighting bores me, it’s been done and the look and feel is too artificial for what I do.

I shoot a lot of film, which is where my heart lies - mainly medium format and also some 35mm. Previously I spent a lot of time using larger formats like 8x10 and 4x5 (see the ‘ADORNED’ series). I also shoot a lot of digital as a big part of my work involves me moving around a lot with the model in unpredictable situations - so digital gives me the speed and agility needed, and also the fast focus.

A message to our readers:

I really appreciate the opportunity to be part of this new mag and would love to meet and connect with more people here in Europe. After moving out of Australia last year, I lost touch with many long-term creatives so I’d love some new connections.