In Conversation With... Mick Williamson
In the ongoing series ‘In Conversations With…’ Elliott Gallery speaks with photographers—represented by the gallery—about their work, inspiration and future plans.
“Williamson senses and feels the photographs, rarely looking through the viewfinder.”
Photographing for almost fifty years, British photographer Mick Williamson has exhibited his work internationally. He held the position as Head of Photography at London Metropolitan University for a number of decades. In 1972, seeking to capture photos of his young family, Williamson acquired an Olympus half-frame camera, the lightweight medium encouraging a looser approach to photography from the ‘expectations of professionalism’.
1. Your photos take on a meditative and poignant tone. Do you intend to create this feeling in your practice?
One of the intentions behind my work is that the viewer can connect with images and make their own story around a sequence of images that I am showing.
I feel that in a way a lot of my work is everyday and ordinary. I want to try and leave it open, so the viewer can connect with it. When I exhibit an image I won’t specify either where it is or when it was taken. I’m more attracted to the way the light is. Often the light will excite things in different ways, and make something a little bit more special.
“The images act as partial, gentle fragments which invite an attentiveness towards the everyday, the non-glamorous. ...These moments fix what is transitory whilst retaining the arbitrariness of the initial moment...”
2. Your photography captures your personal life and family. Do you feel those inside your life experience a different reception of your work than those on the outside?
Every detail and memory about an image will come back to life as the photographer. I think viewers will inevitably experience my series in a different way. Those memories are still important for me as the photographer - but for viewers, I try to make it more ambiguous and blank in some respects.
I photographed my children, who are grown up now with their own families. A friend of mine is making a film of me and my work. The filmmaker asked my children what it was like for them to then see photographs of them. It’ll be interesting to find out what they said!
3. A quote by William Bishop, “each picture gives the impression of having a story wrapped around it” frames your artist biography. Can you explain how this relates to your work?
My work is not about the absolute decisive moment. Rather, it’s about the ongoing moment.
I like to think it leads the viewer to think about what might have come before or what might happen afterwards. Because we’re not given an entire picture. It’s not a deliberate withholding of information really - it’s more of a certain gap in the information that the viewer has chosen themselves.
I like that when you see a sequence of images, you try to relate to those images in a certain sort of way. Or you try to place yourself in that kind of situation or understand the story. I suppose it’s to do with a potential kind of narrative quality.
4. Your series explores the potential of photography as a form of memory. Do you feel your work develops alternative meanings and layers with the passing of time?
Yes - I feel that in some respects a lot of photography does. With the passage of time mundane details can take on a different resonance. A lot of my work is about memory and things that have slipped past us, and acknowledging those moments. I feel that my series portrays a sense of time passing, having photographed my children growing up. Especially by looking at the images as a sequence.
“Mick’s photographs are effervescent and luminous, made with a sense of joy and of life being lived. ... Like all good friends they are charming, funny and always make you glad you’ve seen them.”
5. Your photos are beautiful hand-printed black and white images, often in a very small size, unusual but characteristic of your work. What led you to this decision?
I think that there’s a more intimate relationship with a photograph when you have to get close to them, in a way. With big images, you are surrounded; it gives the photographs a different kind of feeling, and a different relationship to the viewer. I quite like the intimate relationship you can build with a viewer with the half-frame prints.
Interview by Emilia Saksi (Elliott Gallery) August 2021