Hide and Seek with A Proudlove

by | Aug 27, 2012 | Anna Cox, Featured Articles | 5 comments

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Hide and Seek with A Proudlove by Anna Cox

Anna’s Introduction

Andrew Proudlove is a jack of all trades. His feed boasts a painters touch, a eye for portraits, and touch a playfulness. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the man, father, and husband behind the camera.

A:  Anna  AP:  Andrew

A: Alright mister Proudlove tell me about yourself.

AP: I am a husband and a father to three kids who wear me out every day and grow up to fast. I am originally from the UK but after uni I went to the USA where I worked and travelled for a bit before coming to Europe where I have spent the last 15 years living and working in the Czech Republic as an IT Manager in the legal sector.

I have always liked art, initially I used to draw a lot but for a number of years after I started travelling, I stopped drawing. Then about 11 years ago, I got my first digital camera, an Olympus C300 (I think, I don’t have the camera anymore), which got me interested in photography and the fact that I could see and work with the images almost immediately was just amazing. Not long afterwards I upgraded to a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8 but I found that due to its size, I wasn’t taking it every where with me, so I would often miss things simply because I didn’t have a camera with me. This all changed with the iPhone 3G, as even though it didn’t have the best camera, I did have it with me all the time and so I continued to upgrade the iPhone going to the 3GS and then the iPhone 4.

Initially I was just using the iPhone as a snapshot camera, although I was trying to practise and improve my photography skills, I had no idea of the full potential of the device that I was carrying around with me. Then in February of this year, I discovered iPhoneography, after giving Instagram another go. I had initially signed up on Instagram the previous year but didn’t quite get it or see the point but afterwards I came across some amazing images on there that I couldn’t believe had been created on an iPhone, so I started trying to find out more and improve my skills. After googling iPhone Art, I came across the iPhoneArt.com Web site and from there I came into contact with other groups and web sites and met some really nice people, who encouraged me with my work.

Since then I have had work displayed on Pixels, interviewed by Joanne over at TheAppWhisperer for their A Day in the Life and Extension of the I series of interviews, featured in the Mobile Photography Awards showcase, in iPhoneographyCentral’s Apps Uncovered, LifeinLoFi’s faved on Flickr, been voted Artist of the Day at iPhoneArt.com and will have work featured in the upcoming Mobile Arts Festival that takes place in Santa Monica at the end of August. It has been a really amazing journey so far and it has been a real honour to have my work included with and shown next to work from such talented artists and photographers.

A: How does Prague influence your work?

AP: I have to commute into Prague each week day because of work, so while it’s a pain in the neck having to commute each day, Prague does provide me with some good opportunities for street or architecture photography. Whereas the town where I actually live is in a kind of rural area (for the moment, there are more and more housing estates springing up each week it seems), so when I’m home, most of my pictures tend to be of the countryside, landscapes, nature and my kids.

I think this is one of the reasons that I do a lot of collages and fantasy type images as well though because I often have ideas for an image that require something that I don’t have around me, such as the view from a skyscraper for example and so if I want to do those types of shots then I have to make my own, at least until I can afford to travel to some of those locations. This type of work though, also allows me to experiment and push the apps and try to accomplish things with them that are new or at least different to what you would expect to see.

A: What would you say influences  you the most?

AP: To be honest, that’s a question that I’m not exactly sure how to answer. The iPhoneography movement in Prague hasn’t really taken off yet and most of the iPhone community here seems to operate abroad. I’m working with the admin of the site iPhoneArt.cz to try to change this a little though and generate some more interest in iPhoneography and iPhoneArt. Otherwise I am lucky in that Prague itself is a beautiful city and as such presents a lot of opportunities for photographers and the surrounding countryside is also beautiful, so I am quite fortunate to have that. What I find though is that work I see online from other photographers or iPhoneographers influences me a lot more, especially as  there are so many great images out there. I really am amazed and some of the things that I see and at times I am sitting there looking at an image, thinking how did he/she do that or simply I just look and think that’s such a great photo. This always inspires me to try to do something new or better.

A: where do you see your photographing going in the future?

AP: Good question and one that I’m not sure that I know the answer to in all honesty. I think that like any type of art form it is evolving or at least I hope it is and I hope that is partly through me becoming better with the tools that I have, in essence, “knowing the camera”, partly because my eye is improving as time goes by and with practice and also because I am getting better at conveying the message that I want to or telling a story with my images. I’d like to think that’s all true as I think that if we don’t grow we stagnate.
The only thing that I do know for sure right now is that I don’t want to be pigeon-holed. I wouldn’t like for people to see my name or my work and associate it with one form or type of photography as I think that this would limit me creatively and I like having the freedom to experiment and try new things. Who know’s perhaps I will discover some niche going forward and end up working towards it but right now I like trying my hand at different styles. I tend to like and seek out opposites with my work, light and dark, right and wrong and so on, so for near future, I can see myself alternating between straight photography, almost photo-reporting style and more heavily edited,  fantasy type pieces, as these two types seem to be the opposites of one another and each helps to scratch the appropriate itch in my brain when it arises.
Some days I just like to get as close to the subject as possible and just record what I see, whether its an interesting person, scene, the way the light falls just so across something, these times I tend to work in black and other days, my right brain goes into over-drive and I need to work in colour and push the boundaries of what reality depicts. I think if pushed though, I would say that I can see myself drifting towards doing a series of pieces in the future instead of individual, standalone images. Thats probably as much as I can say right now though, as it’s not something that I have consciously thought about really and your question has given me something to think on.

A: Tell me about your style

AP: I think that my style is still in the process of developing and I don’t think I have settled on any one thing yet. In one sense I hope that I never will and that I will continue to try different areas, topics, themes, styles and so on and so continue to grow. Something I have noticed though is that in the beginning I was mainly trying to just capture as good an image as I could and then bring out the best of that image in the processing afterwards. Over time though, I have indulged my fantasy a bit more and created work that is more iPhonic Art than photography but I tend to go back and forth from trying to create pure photographic images to iPhone Art and sometimes a combination of the two. I think that its a natural evolution of my ability to work with the apps improving and I hope a sign that my “photographic eye” is also developing. I am also a sucker for a good black and white, as I love the play between light and shadow, so I also go through periods where I tend to focus on black and white photography.

What I think fascinates me most in general is the idea that things have two sides or two extremes but that neither could exist without the other, right and wrong, shadow and light and so on. So where possible I try to play with and utilise this in my work.

A: The process behind someones photography always amazes me. Can you tell me a little about your process?

AP: My process isn’t really that complicated.

First of all in terms of capture, I tend to chase shadows and light a lot, I love the interplay between the two and any time I see a strong combination of the two I always stop and try to get something from it. Other times I am more opportunistic photographer and just walk around with my camera ready to capture anything that strikes me. It’s very rare that I will plan a shoot and go out with a firm idea in my mind of what I want to get. Sometimes when I am capturing an image, I can see the finished result in my mind, what I want it to look like and then it’s just a matter of using the apps to get there.

Once I have captured some images though, the next thing that I do is somewhere reasonably quiet (a very hard thing to find with kids), I will sit down and review the images. Sometimes one or two of them will jump out at me and just looking at them I will know exactly what I want to do with them, then other images, that on the initial run didn’t quite stand out, I find after a couple of viewings or letting them “sit” for a couple of days, I see something that I didn’t notice before, some part of the image itself or a way to edit it and then off I go.

From there it really depends on the image and the emotion or message I want to convey, sometimes, I like to keep things simple, other times I tend to use multiple apps on an image in order to get the desired effect.

 A: And last but not least tell me about your perfect day with your kids.

AP: The perfect day with my kids… I think it would probably start off with them letting me sleep in until at least 8am, that would be a fantastic start and a nice change from the 5am usual wake up time. Then I’d make us all breakfast, usually on a weekend as I have more time I tend to make them something like scrambled eggs or muffins as opposed to toast and cereals. Afterwards, well it really depends on what they would like to do, at the moment its a little difficult as my eldest Elizabeth is 4 going on 5, James will be 3 in a couple of weeks and Charlotte is 1.5, so finding something that we can all do together without them getting bored or upset with each other can be a challenge. So there are usually a couple of options, the first being that we go to the zoo or out on a day trip or the second option, we stay home and play various games. Personally I tend to prefer it when we stay home as going anywhere is like trying to move an army logistically, especially with the amount of things that you have to take with you to cover contingency, so its nice to be able to just play (though seeing their faces does tend to make it all worthwhile). It tends to work out that after breakfast, we play for a little while either with the lego or with this wooden train set we have, which usually goes well until Charlotte comes through it like a tornado 🙂 Sometimes we draw or paint, which is good as its something that all of them can do.
Once it gets a bit warmer we go outside and play in the garden. Charlotte is addicted to the swing and so she just wants to be in the swing being pushed most of the time. James tends to play with his various tractors and diggers in the sandpit and Ellie likes to dress-up and play princesses or fairies and thinks up a lot of games. She is going through a frisbee stage at the moment and so we play that a lot together. We also sometimes play racing, I’m the starter and shout out three, two, one go and they race from one side of the garden to the other. As time goes by it tends to get more complicated with obstacles to run around, sections where you need to hop and so on. Another big hit just lately is hide and seek. That usually works out to them hiding and me finding them or me hiding and them finding me. 🙂
After lunch they all usually have a nap (me too if Ive got up at 5) for a couple of hours and then we go back outside, again depending on what they want to do, we can end up on bikes or in the garden or if their friends come over, then I basically just keep an eye on them while they’re playing and spend a bit more time with Charlotte or we do mass games of hide and seek. Our street is quite good and we were quite lucky in this regard, it’s mostly full of people who are our age, with kids all of similar ages, so it worked out quite well and the kids tend to move from one garden to the next in a mass mob depending on what they’re doing 🙂 They come to our garden for the swings and hide and seek, one of the other neighbours for the trampoline and so on. It works out really well.
Usually on these occasions when they are absorbed in what they are doing and so don’t notice me, I tend to start photographing them, I much prefer this to forcing them to pose somewhere and I think that it adds a lot more emotion and interest to the images. Just lately Ellie has started taking an interest too and she walks around with an old iPhone 3G photographing stuff, its really interesting seeing things from her perspective. She will also walk up to me sometimes and say Dad, I look like a princess, will you photograph me? Or can you photograph this flower? So either a future model or the next Ansel perhaps? 🙂 Out of all of them she seems to be the most artistic at the moment, loves drawing, painting, singing, taking photos, all stuff I try to encourage with her. James seems more logical, he’s good at working out puzzles and Charlotte is an unknown element at this point but shes very bossy. 🙂
We start winding the day down at about 7, we tidy up (or we try to get them to), have dinner and then its bath time, all three of them go into the bath together at the moment (at least while they can still fit) and so they have a nice time playing in the bath for a bit. From there we go to bed and I tell each of them a story, usually something that I make up as I go, which can cause problems if they like it and want to hear it again as I have to get the details right. If I slip up though, then Ellie usually reminds me, its amazing how good their memory is already. The only problem is when they end up liking a story then you can tell it to them for days and days and days and they never seem to get tired of it, for example I made up a story about a Knight called Sir Alfred who helps a dragon move house and have been telling it to them for ten days straight now 🙂
Once the stories are done, then my wife and I finally get to spend a few hours together in piece and quiet, so Mom and Dad take a break and Andrew and Soňa come out of their shells for a couple of hours at least 🙂
Im not sure I answered your question with this but really this for me is a perfect day in the sense that we get to spend time together and do things together as a family. I just enjoy spending time with them (though there are times like most parents when I wonder why we got ourselves into this 🙂 ).

Contact Info 

Twitter @aproudlove

Facebook – aproudlove

Flickr – aproudlove

Instagram – aproudlove

500px – aproudlove

iPhoneArt – aproudlove

As you can see I was really original with the username 🙂

A:  Thank so  much  for your time Andrew! Next time I’m on your street I’m coming over to play hide and seek.

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Anna Cox
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5 Comments

  1. Andrew Proudlove
    Andrew Proudlove on August 27, 2012 at 1:58 pm

    Thanks again for everything Anna 🙂

  2. Paula
    Paula on August 28, 2012 at 11:07 am

    Hi Andrew, wow what a wonderful read, your perfect day with your kids is absolutely wonderful. I love the way you describe the effort it takes to just leave the house and what you have to bring. You’re so right!!! Your work has always fascinated me, mainly because you’re not predictable, I’m always surprised! The excitement of going to the next page on your IPA gallery is fun, because your style is ever evolving and changing. Which to me is a rare talent, I love that about your work Andrew. Thank you for sharing such an intimate and passionate piece of your life with us. Thank you too Anna for interviewing one of my favourite artists! xxx

    • Andrew Proudlove
      Andrew Proudlove on August 28, 2012 at 2:28 pm

      Paula, wow, thank you, I am absolutely blown away by your comment and I honestly have no idea what to say except thank you and it doesn’t seem to be enough.

      So let me just thank you for all of the support and kindness that you have shown me since I got started, all of the encouragement and the inspiration – I really do think that you are one of the best portrait photographers out there, its just amazing what you do.

  3. Michael
    Michael on August 28, 2012 at 12:59 pm

    Very good interview Andrew….& here I thought you were in NYC, go figure:-). Terrific peek into your beautiful family life. No wonder your art is so alive. Congrats, Andrew! Michael

    • Andrew Proudlove
      Andrew Proudlove on August 28, 2012 at 2:30 pm

      Hi Michael,
      Nice to see you here, really appreciate it – I spent some time in NYC, I used to live and work in a place called Wingdale thats not too far away, so made a few trips to NYC when I could. Hope I will get to see it again 🙂

      Thanks a lot my friend 🙂

      Andrew

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