Photos like this contain a lot of information, and I’m glad now I paused a few seconds to take it. The smokestack is the Walton Street steam plant, built in 1971. The Orange Crush sign was a fixture there for a few years. I liked it because it displayed the time and temperature, and also because it seemed to be crushing the building below. I don’t think I was ever in the Health Foods store, Kelly’s Stereo Mart, or Times Square Billiards. But I was often at the World’s Biggest Bookstore, which operated from 1980-2014. I went there many times. It was the kind of place that you never visited for just five minutes. There were so many interesting books, and the prices were good, too. They liked to play up their no frills image with slogans like, “Books priced so low even people who don’t read too good is buying them.” I remember buying Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums there around this time. It was a hot summer afternoon and I walked across the sizzling pavement with the book (and camera) in my hand.
The photo was taken twenty years before this area of Toronto was transformed into Yonge-Dundas Square. It was always a happening place–ideal for the type of photography I was into, and just steps away from Ryerson. I like the figure up on the scaffolding–a man doing his work, but taking a few minutes to survey the scene. I wish I could have been up there with him, where, in the words of Gord Downie, “we get to feel small from high up above.”
Nick Prideaux shoots beautiful photos, on film, that form a visual diary of his life. His photography is about subtraction, which he approaches with a simple and minimalistic process – focusing on the smaller details, the beauty in the little things. Be sure to check out more of his work on his website and Instagram.
I asked him eight questions about his work and current projects. Our online conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Tell me a little about yourself. Where are you from, and where do you live now?
My name is Nick Prideaux and I am originally from Byron Bay, Australia, a small coastal town on the east coast. I studied film production in Melbourne, spent some time in China, then moved to Japan, where I lived for 5 years as a freelance photographer and teacher. Currently, I am based in Bangkok, Thailand, where I’ve lived for the past year and a half.
I wrapped up my first major solo exhibition in May this year, so since then I’ve spent the last few months putting together my next body of work. I’m always shooting so it’s never quite clear instantly what the project will be, but somewhere along the line, I find the thread that ties it all together. I’m also putting together a group project with some friends in December, and a new solo show in February in Malaysia.
You seem to prefer film over digital. Can you tell us why?
I spent my time in high school shooting film on and off but switched to digital for its convenience and ease of use. I soon found though I could never find my ‘style’ with it as the images I produced were kind of flat and uninteresting; I was never really happy with them. I switched back to film about four years ago and never really looked back. I love film for a variety of reasons but I love its color, its feeling, and the romance attached to it. I like the timely process too; waiting to see the images later is another huge reason why I love it – I don’t like to have that instant gratification that digital offers. I try to practice mindfulness as much as I can, and shooting with film offers that.
The approach you take is simple and minimalistic – “focusing on the smaller details, the beauty in the little things.” How did you arrive at this way of seeing?
I think it’s just a process of subtraction rather than addition. I try to love my life as simply as I can so I think my photography is, of course, just an extension of the way I see my life and see the world. I generally approach most things with a ‘less is more’ way of thinking. Even the cameras I use function in this way, as I shoot on mostly simple point and shoots.
You shoot stories from your life that form a visual diary. Is time and memory important to you?
Definitely. I think it’s an age thing, along with living abroad for so long – you start to forget things more and more when you aren’t documenting them in some way. The camera for me acts as a kind of conduit for memory.
Do you use a flash for most of your photos? What do you like about it?
I use the flash quite often, although try my best not to over use it. I guess my style has a particular color palette to it, and the flash can often help those results ‘sing’ a little more than without. I’m drawn to particular colors and subjects; often the flash can help heighten a particular mood or feeling to it.
What’s your state of mind when you’re taking good photos? Do you think there’s any connection between your mood or mindset and the results you get?
I think there is a type of flow that comes with taking good photos, something akin to a zone, or the runner’s high – it just comes in a beautiful free flowing continuous moment. It’s rare though, and it’s always fleeting. Most of the time though I think it’s best you just have to find that feeling in the process. There is definitely a connection between your mood and mindset and the end results. I look back at my photos even a year or so ago and they have a different feeling to them. I’m in a really good place now emotionally now, better than I was a year or so ago, so I think my work is reflecting that.
One final question: Can you tell me briefly about a couple of photographers I may not be familiar with yet but you would recommend checking out?
There are so many! But first and foremost is a friend of mine who goes by Yatender – she’s an incredible photographer and I admire her work greatly. Also, Rosie Matheson is a wonderful portrait photographer from the U.K who I love. Daniel Arnold is documenting life in the U.S now with his street photography; I think he is an absolute master. Lina Scheynius‘ work breaks my heart in the most beautiful way.
Many thanks to Nick for doing this interview. I’m so appreciative of his thoughtful answers that provide insight into his work. Be sure to check out more of his work on his website, and Instagram.
Whenever you begin something new, you tend to learn a lot in a short time. Here are 3 insights I gained in my earliest years of photography:
I learned to expect the unexpected.
Things sometimes happen quickly when we are composing a photo. There can be a lot of activity in the frame (or almost no activity), yet something or somebody new can suddenly become part of it. The photo above is from my second-ever roll of slide film. On the right you can see a man on a bicycle entering the frame. I had no idea he was there when I took the photo, and was so surprised much later to find this ghost-like figure in the photo. Photographer Gary Winogrand once famously said, “I photograph to see what the world looks like in photographs.”
I learned to pay attention to the quality of light.
Often, the quality or beauty of a photo is dependent upon the light. Take the same photo on an overcast day, and it may look drab and uninteresting. This isn’t to say that overcast days are bad for taking photos–good photos can be taken in a wide variety of lighting situations. (Notable, though, is that Lee Friedlander didn’t even take photos on overcast days.) It’s useful to pay attention to the intrinsic qualities of the light in order to optimize it.
And it takes so much time to figure out how various factors affect the final photo: is the light muted, diffuse, intense? Coming from one direction? Fluorescent, LED, neon? Is the sky pink, greenish, bright blue? Is rain or a storm on the way, or is there any haze in the air? All these elements, and more, mean we have to figure out how to compare the final photo with what was going on around us at the time, and observe what effects the quality of light can have. And find some way to remember the lessons the light has taught us.
I learned the value of the documentary photograph.
Looking at a photo many years later, you may not know exactly why you took it but still be glad you did. Among other things, photography has been a visual diary for me. It helps me remember the places I’ve been and things I’ve seen. Photos can also become valuable documents of things and places that no longer exist.
We never know the full significance of the photos we take. They’re a picture of a moment, and that moment is gone as soon as you’ve taken the picture. That place–or that person, or cloud, or animal–is already changing before you’ve even walked away. We don’t know until much later whether those changes will accrue quickly or gradually. We don’t know if we’ll ever be there again, ever talk with that person again. The relentlessness of change is masked by its ordinariness.
This has been so evident to me in hearing people’s responses to my Toronto Flashback series. Taken in the 1980s, they show a city that many feel no longer exists.
