Richard was a Cinematographer and a Director of Photography for 30 years. He shot many projects including over 40 movies and TV dramas. He was responsible for the cinematography on films such as ‘Knight’s Tale’, ‘Mrs Brown’and ‘Shakespeare in Love’. Richard was nominated for a British Film and Television Award...a BAFTA.. 4 times and won for “A Woman in White”. He was nominated for an Oscar for ‘Shakespeare in Love’.
Richard collaborated with a range of well-known directors, including Derek Jarman, Peter Kosminski, Charles Sturridge, David Schwimmer and John Madden. He was privileged to film such luminaries as Alec Guinness, Lauren Bacall, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, Michael Caine, Demi Moore and Judi Dench.
Richard learnt a great deal about filmmaking , it’s language and its tools. He uses the tools of the cinema in his photography. He brings the idea of scenes to his photography by using a range of shots, of perspective. Everything from a wide establishing shot to an extreme close up. He uses structure, rhythm, montage, dissolves, subtitles, soft focus and superimposition. Together they make stories.
Only Japan
The photographs in the exhibition at Found use these tools of cinematography and reflect a two month journey across Japan, following the appearance of the cherry blossom...hanami... from Kagoshima in the south to Sapporo in the north.
Richard says "We were overawed and delighted by the generosity and helpfulness of the Japanese people that we met. We were similarly bowled over by the visual delights, a sense of poise and elegance in so many aspects of Japanese life. We also noticed the constant referring and looking back to more traditional forms of art and culture that are embraced in the present."
"I took many photographs on our journey; I imagined combining a selection of them using a mixture of the traditional forms that we saw everywhere in Japan
The Edo period produced the scroll, vertical panels, a lack of traditional perspective, poetic words and and a glorious sense of pictorial freedom
Why not follow some of these forms?
I noted also that many of these forms told stories, they had a narrative structure.
This is where I started.
This was the beginning point for the combination photographs.
Contemporary photographs borrowing traditional forms and telling stories."