Ian Mackean

When I left school I took a course in photography and gained a qualification from The Institute of Incorporated Photographers. I worked professionally with photographers in Hertfordshire and London for a while, before deciding to return to academic study and go to university. I now enjoy the freedom of doing photography it as a hobby rather than a job, but I am sure that my professional training feeds into my work.

For me photography is a non-verbal experience. When I look through the viewfinder I am searching for something that is not connected to words - some arrangement of shapes that feels OK, and when the shutter clicks I cannot use words to say what happened - only the picture can say it.

I am always aware that as a print or on a screen the picture is going to be a rectangle, isolated from its surroundings, and when I look through the viewfinder I am partly thinking of how the scene is going to look as a flat pattern in a rectangle. When I first started photography I worked in black and white and I think that was helpful because it made me look at tone and contrast, which in my view is more important than colour.