Stephen Sheridan – Photographer.
A subtle click of a shutter was always the sound which accompanied a family trip. My Mother always had a camera to hand, a smile or a pose with family were obligatory when I was very young. I remember thinking what magic that small box could make. I always looked forward to taking the film into a local photography shop to have them developed and then the excitement whilst waiting for the prints to return.
I suppose a camera has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, either my own or my Mothers, in some ways I see the world through a camera pentaprism. As the years passed and a progression of cameras passed through my hands I was always in search of a perfect shot; each failure driving me onwards. It is often said that just buying the latest gadget or piece of equipment will only help a little but I can say with absolute authority that when I bought my first 35mm camera it helped a lot. I suppose the advent of children was also a catalyst, capturing your children in a brief instance of time and having the ability to freeze that moment forever was so powerful and so addictive.
As the years progressed I began to notice a change in the way I approached a photograph, no longer was the person playing a central role but rather the landscape they were placed in more and more the land became the focus of my work, we as photographers often talk about the light and the form of a landscape but what goes unrecognised is the language it speaks, its words and meaning revealing themselves not is sound but in light and temperature, teasing out its meaning can be just as rewarding as following a play, when I shoot a landscape I know that in the image I have captured the whole play. When I return to my computer it is only then that its meaning, its interplay of light and shadow talks to me, and the subtleties of its form can be revealed.
Ste.