Firstly, can you tell us a little about yourself, your work (photography or non-photography) and your preferred style to shoot?

I’m Matt, a designer and photographer who’s been working in one of those two spaces for the last 25 years. I came to photography through my work in food publishing as a designer and art director. I started out shooting on the iPhone and made that something of a niche for five or six years. I still shoot with the phone on occasion and also work with businesses and individuals teaching phone photography, food styling and Instagram.

When did photography start for you? Is there a specific memory that kick-started it all? 

Getting into photography came through my background as an art director and designer. I used to work in food publishing and my responsibilities included choosing photographers for each book shoot and directing them as to the specific kind of look and feel that I was after. It was almost always a small team and always a very close collaborative effort between the photographer, stylist and/or cook and myself. I worked with some of the best British food photographers around and learned a lot from each of them. But it was a suggestion of shooting one particular book in its entirety on the iPhone that really was the turning point. This was about 2013/14 and the phone technology was only just about good enough to make the idea feasible. I got into Instagram around that time, as much to explore the idea of how phone photography was being presented and published as to begin shooting with a camera. I started taking pictures and sharing them, and things just grew from there.

Who are your influencers? And how have they shaped how you shoot?

There have been many, but perhaps the photographer who has influenced my work the most is Jean Cazals. He’s been shooting books for many years and his focus upon and development of his craft was always inspiring. We shot several food books together (with me as art director) and he was capable of making each recipe photograph into a work of art. He was meticulous in his attention to lighting and composition and I always loved his mantra of making one brilliant image rather than getting several good options. I think I owe something of the graphic quality of my work to his influence. Tim Clinch is another friend and food photographer (one half of the brilliant Two Photographers online teaching platform) who is great at cutting through all the bullshit about the cameras we use and the things that photographers say and do about their work… he makes things very beautiful whilst telling you how simple creating images can be. Jean always made me feel that he was creating magic. Tim is great at demystifying some of that enigma.

What do you love about photography? Is there anything you dislike about it?

I love that most obvious thing: capturing moments. As I get older I remember less of them, and so a means to fixing them somehow and a place to publish them (Instagram being the obvious and primary place for me) is quite precious. I love that I get to work with others, including a lot of chefs, and make it possible for them to ‘re-see’ their own work as something very beautiful. It’s a very rich way to communicate: the best photos can make you feel a story around the image, or the thing which came just before or after. I’m not sure there is anything that I dislike about it… the smartphone has obviously enabled each of us to pratice it and share the results. It means there are a lot of ‘bad’ photos out there, but I don’t know that I would be shooting today were it not for that same mass opportunity for each of us to become a photographer.

Do you have a favourite project/image and why? 

I think seeing your work in print is a particular thrill and so my first work as a commissioned cookbook photographer was very special. Three restaurant friends are the brothers and sister team who founded and run Bar 44, a Spanish tapas and drink restaurant group that started in Cardiff. We seized the opportunity presented by Covid to start on their idea for creating a book during the quiet lockdown periods of 2020. It grew and grew and became something bigger than we’d all imagined at the outset. Given how it started, how hard it was to bring it to fruition and how dear the friends who I worked on it with have become, I think that would have to be my highlight so far. As for a favourite image, I always go back to a simple black and white shot of a toilet roll I snapped one afternoon. The end-of-day light was so soft and good and the subject so very mundane: I love that it is something so beautiful from something we see and yet so often don’t properly see every day.

What do you think makes a good photo?

Light and honesty. I don’t think you need to worry about too many other technical aspects other than light. As for honesty, I guess I’m talking about the connection you have with your subject: what story do you want to tell and the question of why you are taking this picture. If you keep those two things foremost in your mind, then I think your photo can live and breathe beyond that frozen moment.

What advice would you impart to a budding photographer?

Take pictures, lots of them. Take the same picture, often, and see how it compares with the one you took an hour earlier, a day before, in different weather, a few steps further away from the window: it’s the best way to learn about the shifting nature of light and to hone your approach to it. And don’t worry about what others are doing, but when you find a photograph you love, then interrogate what it is that you see before you and think about how you can achieve something similar. Finally, share your work and share it with a story or insight wherever you can that makes people want to connect with your pictures and you.

Where do you think photography will be in 50 years time?

Goodness… it seems that we are on the cusp of a big leap forward in terms of the image. Access to the still image has been under significant threat from the moving image across social platforms these last few years – fifty years seems almost too far off to imagine just how much greater that tension between the two might be. But I hope that our desire to have everything quicker and noisier will be balanced or challenged and that there will always be a place for the more pensive and arresting contemplation of the still for many years yet.