Julian Flynn
I am a photographer working in black and white, and using traditional silver-based materials and processes for whom the 'self portrait' has been an ongoing pre-occupation.
I work with 35mm, medium format and large format.
There are many photographers whose work I love and have learnt from: Eugene Atget, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bill Brandt, Harry Callahan, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Josef Sudek, Irving Penn, Stephen Shore, Emmet Gowin, Sally Mann, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joel-Peter Witkin, Karl Blossfeldt, August Sander...
A love for poetry and for music have also made significant contributions to my photography.
My favourite working method is to place myself in, or create, a situation (a geographical area, a particular life model, a moving vehicle…) & then to visually explore it – trying to surprise myself with a new vision of it. I work responsively rather than synthetically: searching for photographs rather than constructing them from a pre-conceived idea. I change my position relative to the subject rather than moving the subject. I work in any light conditions, weather, location, situation or time of day – believing that all situations have something to offer, something worth isolating.
As well as self portraits I have also produced exhibitions and bodies of work around other themes such as ‘the road’, the regions I have lived in and visited (the Languedoc, West Yorkshire, Naples, Budapest...), portraits of other people etc.
Till recently based in West Yorkshire, I now live in the Languedoc region of France.