view from a traveling artist
Fine Art :: Landscape :: Architectural Photographer
As part of the liveBooks “behind the scenes” interview series this month we sat down with Chris Honeysett. Chris is a rare breed of photographer in that no one tells him where to go or what to shoot and still he has a successful business achieved by showing in galleries and selling fine art prints at invitational art festivals and via his liveBooks website. In this interview we find out how he got started and what it takes for him to support himself, his staff of 2 and his family.
Q: So Chris, can you start by talking to us about a few of the photos that you have for sale in your online portfolio?
A: Sure, let’s start by talking about an image that is in my Recent Work Portfolio. This image is called Cypress, Tuscany. I was recently in Italy, and spent three wonderful weeks there with my wife wandering around. Much of our time was spent in Tuscany, and one of our favorite places was the Val d’Orcia. It is a farming region, and the earth is a myriad of colors and textures, changing constantly with the light. Over the period of a few days we explored this area, and came across this unique grove of cypress. We first saw it in the morning, when the light was behind them, casting unwanted shadows. We went back at dusk, and the full glory of the textured hills was apparent. It is quintessential Tuscany to me.
On another trip, while traveling with a friend in Kyoto, Japan, she suggested we look at bamboo groves as a possible subject matter for images. Our cab driver dropped us off at a bamboo arboretum, which is not what we had hoped for. Wandering around in the sweltering summer humidity we nearly gave up when we turned a corner and saw this amazing, dense grove of wild timber bamboo. Eventually we came across this lovely juxtaposition of a bright, tender new stalk, against the older, darker stalks. The exposure was 5 minutes, in a light rain. This image is called Bamboo #1, Kyoto and is in my Landscapes portfolio. You will see other bamboo images from this trip in this portfolio as well.
Q: When you plan your travels is the main goal to go out and find great images?
A: No, not at all. I think that if I went out to search for a particular type of image, or with the goal of photographing something hoping it’s what people want, that I would consider myself a sell out. Instead, I just follow my instincts. I travel with the goal of seeing the world and intuitively photographing the essence of a place, a time, an emotion. Sometimes I come home with nothing, and that’s alright. Traveling is it’s own reward.
Q: Not many people have as much freedom in their work as you do. How did you get started with photography?
A: I was visually curious from the age of three. When I was twelve I saw a show of Ansel Adams prints at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. When I saw this work I thought to myself “WOW look what you can do with a camera”. Then, in high school, l I took photos for the yearbook. This was the first time I stepped into a darkroom, up until then I just dropped off my film for developing. I was impressed with the process. Eventually, I realized that I truly loved photography, and wanted to make my living at it, somehow. I was working at a video store at the time, and there I met a woman who was selling her jewelry at art festivals all over the country. I decided to try a similar path, and . am now in my 19th year of exhibiting at invitation only art festivals.
Q: Traveling to these shows is a great way for people to see your work what about your use of the web?
A: When I first started, shows and galleries were the only way for people to see my work. Eventually, I had a designer build me an HTML based website. I was on the web but I never felt like this site represented my business aesthetic nor my personality. In addition, it was time consuming to update the imagery or information about events etc.
Then I found liveBooks. I was impressed with the way that a liveBooks site allowed the images to speak for themselves and provided a clean, minimalist design.
In addition to having images online, I also use my website to grow my business. I have the liveBooks shopping cart as a feature which allows me to sell prints directly from my site. Over the years I have built up a database of names and I frequently email these people about new images that I have available for purchase. I just upload the images, send out an email and then people order what they want. It is great for business.
Q: If you are using your website so much to drive your business are you also shooting your work digitally to make it easy to get it up onto the site?
A: I love my website and I love having my images in a digital form. My workflow is hybrid, embracing both film and digital. I photograph with my 4x5 K.B. Canham View Camera or a Linhof Technicardan. Though I’ve printed silver prints in my darkroom for over 20 years, now I send my film off for development and then again for scanning. Once they are digitized, I work with them in Photoshop, and print using a wet-process Chromogenic Polytronica printer. I, of course, also use the same digital files to upload images to my website, or for use in publications.
I love this new workflow, as I can see the results so quickly. When I started as a young photographer, one had no choice really but to be a craftsperson and stand in a darkroom. Now I spend my time creating, and this is much more satisfying. I do miss the smell of fixer, though, so I joke that Glade needs to make an air freshner that smells like fixer. Then I can pretend I’m in the darkroom while working on my laptop! Joking aside, digital has revolutionized my workflow, and my excitement about being a photographer.