I had not been granted a place in the fine art department but one studying Graphic Design instead. I went to Art College thinking that I would paint but in four years I painted not a single picture. Courtesy of the artist and Damiani Editore. Painting and drawing were ways for me to connect with her whilst she was bedridden. Sadly, my mother had MS and died when I was very young. They met at a party in 1945 and made their home where my father grew up in Torquay. She was in the Women’s Arm Core and my father was in the SAS. I only recently found out that she was driving a London ambulance during the blitz. RD: My mother was a fashion model and at the beginnings of a career as an actress before the war intervened. RE: What led you to approach the photographic medium? By the time I began to learn my craft I was 23 years old. It was only at art college that I discovered photography, and only at film school that I first handled a film camera. This was as much a statement of rebellion against what was expected of me as it was my imagining that this would be a way to continue with my love of painting. © 2001 Roger DeakinsĪt eighteen, not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, but knowing very definitely what I didn’t want to do with my life, I applied to art college. Some nights I would sleep on the rocks and only briefly visit home for a wash and change of clothes before walking to school.Ĭaught in the Rain, Weston Super Mare, 2001. Often, I could be found there both before school and after school. When at school, I spent long hours in the art department, and when not at school, I could be found down by the sea with a fishing rod. The few times I thought about the future I never saw one remotely similar to the way in which mine turned out. RD: I remember being confused and insecure as a boy. What were the years that preceded your successful career like? Re-Edition: With 15 Academy Awards nominations, two Oscars, and five BAFTA Awards for Best Cinematography, you’re one of the most influential cinematographers of all time. Deakins: BYWAYS, a new exhibition opening at Santa Monica’s Peter Fetterman Gallery on September 17, and featuring original photographs from the book along with previously unseen images, we speak with the groundbreaking British cinematographer to learn about the ins and outs of his passion for photography, what cinema has meant to him so far, and what still inspires him to keep on going. Speaking of his first monograph as a project reflecting “a different side” of his life, Deakins says he hopes “people will genuinely enjoy the images, regardless of who took them or why”. As for the irony permeating his visual craft, the cinematographer recounts being drawn to situations that pose questions he can’t seem to find an answer to - “why is there a statue of Michelangelo’s David in a Dartmouth alleyway? - hence sparking his imagination. “I love images both for what they can make me feel and the stories they can tell,” he says. Whether of the seaside and rural landscapes of Deakins’ English childhood or depicting the compelling views he encountered on his travels around the globe, the photographs contained in BYWAYS speak of a world filled with unexpected contradictions and his desire to immortalise them. Elaborating on the context in which the photographs featured in the volume were shot, he adds that still photography is something he pursues on the rare occasions when he has only himself “to answer to regarding both the choice of an image and the moment at which this one is taken”. “I have always loved the process of interpreting what is around me in an image,” he says, explaining how, as a child and teenager, that brought him to experiment with painting - the first artistic medium he ever tried his hand at. Launched in August 2021, the book, which is Deakins’ first monograph, comprises a collection of images emblematic of the Academy Award winner’s time off feature films. “We were lucky to find in Damiani a publisher that was both enthusiastic and supportive,” Deakins tells Re-Edition of the publishing house behind BYWAYS: a thorough exploration of his love of still photography, spanning over five decades of artistic activity. Legendary, Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins spent years wondering what to do with his photographs - “why take them if they are never seen?” - until the multiple Covid-induced lockdowns persuaded him to gather them into a book.
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