Interview with J. Kevin Dunn

National Magazine Award winner J. Kevin Dunn followed his interest in photography from high school, to art school and into the newsroom. After working as a news journalist for 12 years, he now divides his time between freelance photography and beekeeping.

		PHOTOGRAPHER J. Kevin Dunn Having lived in the Okanagan Valley for over 15 years, Dunn is passionate about preserving the area. Combining his artistic talent, sense of humour and love of capturing everyday life, has acquired national attention and awards. Read more on the changing face of the Okanagan in the July/Aug 2008 Canadian Geographic issue. Visit J. Kevin Dunn's website for more. View his photo gallery of Okanagan Valley life.
View photo gallery Tips from photographer Leave a comment

Q With the guidelines you received from Allan Casey's story, what specifically, in terms of technical shots, did you have to take for this shoot?

A Personally, I like to mix it up a bit. I like to draw on my quirky background in the arts where I don't have conventional compositions. I like to have things that are either off kilter or not by the book. For example, you'd maybe have a shot of kids jumping off the Ogopogo in the park or the golfer with the bridge in the background it doesn't give you the whole picture, but it lets your imagination fill in the gaps. You can imagine the essence of that time and space at that moment rather than giving all the answers on a platter.

Q Your portraits of the apple pickers in particular were also interesting did you happen across them juggling and playing music or did you recreate the moment with them?

A No, I'm not into staging images. I think it has to reflect some truth and some reality. So there is a guy having a break and he's chucking some apples around. "Alright, let's have some fun and work with that," I think, and it makes for a much more interesting portrait because metaphorically, the juggling of the apples is, in many ways, the juggling of things you would have to do as a grower. You juggle the weather, the timing, all these factors. You put a little bit of interest, action and humour into it and definitely humour is a more difficult thing to include or something a little bit strange. I think readers respond to that. They go "whoa, what's going on" and that's what I'm aiming for, to tweak people's interest.

Q A lot of the work you display on your website are images you've collected over 10 years. When you're on assignment, you don't have the same luxury of time ' what do you do to ensure quality photos?

AYou be prepared at all times. You sleep with the camera, you wash the dishes with the camera, you just have it there the same way you put on your underwear! It's there with you, but it's very important that it doesn't become a nemesis; that you always love what you do. You may be driving by and you see a scene you've never seen before and you have to capitalize on it, but you're on your way to an appointment. What do you do? You have to say "Well, what's of bigger intrinsic value in the whole picture?" And you phone your appointment and say "I'll be half an hour late."

Where some photographers want to have their assignments laid out for them, I'm much more an ad-libber and if I'm told what do to and how to do it, I likely won't do it. I think that's part of not compromising.

Q Not all your shoots could've turned out perfectly on the fly. So let's say on an assignment like this, you go out to shoot the landscape and the weather's really bad. How many times do you go out to capture those images?

AThis is where you go outside and you lick your finger and hold it to the wind and say "Yup, today's the day I'm going to climb a mountain and get this perspective. I've got a window of a day; it's going to have to happen." So it's partly luck and partly really understanding the weather and lighting around here, how long it's going to take me to climb up there, and how many bears am I likely to encounter on the way up.

QWhen you come home and review your shots, if you don't quite like it, do you go out and try again?

A No, I won't, because then it's a drag. You want to say "Yes, I've got it now, it's a one-off and it will never happen again in the continuum of time and space." Especially when it comes to people and portraits one chance only. I believe in that. That chance will present itself to you and you have to work with it, capitalize on it, love the moment and know "I've got it."

QDoes that come easily to you now, or was that something you really had to work on to become really great at it?

A I think it always came kind of easy to me because I cared. If you care, you're going to be good. And if you don't, don't ever give up and keep going and don't ever quit. I've made mistakes; I've done a whole shoot and then noticed "oh crap, I didn't load film in the camera." Everybody's done that. I've made every mistake in the book and I'll continue to make mistakes.

Q You mentioned earlier not compromising being a big factor in your work; are there other techniques that you use habitually?

A It used to be black-and-white work. I've always liked the vintage look or something that was a little bit surreal, a little bit overdramatic. I use red filters and overdevelop the film one technique I developed on my own because it suited my style. With the digital work, you can set the digital camera to have a red filter effect, so I do that even when I shoot weddings. That's a simple example, but most of it is based on how I feel at the time. Like the sky, "I want to make that sky look really dark and add an air of cynicism or sinister to this moment." So I can do that. Other times, you want a lighter feel and an amateuristic feel, so you want things to look screwed up on propose it's like a child's drawing. How can you dispute a beautiful scrawl that's on a refrigerator with ABC magnets? How can you say that's no good? It's honest and beautiful work. So, to make a little bit of technical mistakes is something I do.

Q Of the images you submitted for this shoot, most were colour and several were black-and-white. When do you choose to use one over the other?

A Digital is a really amazing thing because you can do both. You can switch it to monochrome if you've shot it in colour. But the purpose of shooting colour, in my brain, is very different from shooting black-and-white. I often find I have much more freedom when I shoot in black-and-white, because it's more about content and the moment than it is about the colour. They're two very different animals. But you do have to flick a switch in the back of your brain. I do see things differently when I have my camera set to black-and-white.

QA lot of your images have an artistic flair to them. Are you the photographer who's always had a natural eye for these kinds of shots, or is this something you've had to develop through experimentation?

A Through exposure to people, not just photographers and artists, but people who have good philosophies on different topics. You engage those and you tie that into your work. It might be a passage you've read in a book, a meditation you did, a piece of knowledge a wise person told you ' those are all relevant to photography. I think really soaking in some of the knowledge that you're gaining along the way and being able to activate that into the work I think that's good.

Q So is that how you taught yourself, just exploring other mediums and experimenting with different forms of photography?

A Yes, but I think in the end, if it made me laugh, it was worth photographing. Or if it made me think "Whoa that was really amazing," or "I never would've seen that if I hadn't had the camera". Those are the things that always intrigued me. Last night, we were loading a big semi truck of bees that was heading back to Alberta. I'm there with the smoker in one hand smoking bee hives and the camera in the other. You're just waiting and then things happen. The composition happens, it's so surreal and all of the sudden it comes together. I almost feel like if you really believe it will, those tiny little elements that you need to pull it all together somehow walk into the frame or somehow the light is just there for that moment. So I go on faith and chance in a big way.

Q And has that ever led you astray?

ANever. I think it takes a lot of faith in yourself, in the creative process and in the world as a whole to operate that way. I think, if you relieve some of the tensions of dealing with technical things or scheduling things or preconceiving an image if you just release that and go slow, you'll find that your work becomes true to you.

QWhat makes photography easy for you?

AI'm unwilling to compromise. If I had to shoot it another way I couldn't. Everything has a degree of art to it, therefore you have to approach it artfully. Every moment, every assignment, every situation is worthy if you can break through the barriers of what might seem to be the mundane. For example, I'm sure every newspaper photographer has to go out and do grip'n'grins you take a photo of someone receiving a trophy or some kind of presentation, things that newspaper photographers cringe at. But if you can break through that barrier, there's usually something funny or goofy that you can use, or somebody's story is there. People are strange, so you have to just push through and recognize that.

Interview by Sheri Gagnon.