Selective vision

Steve Jackson likes his pictures to look different. And good. He wants them to stand out from the crowd, and not just be like those everyone else is taking. It’s a great ideal, and probably one many of us share. There are photographers of course who are happy to make pictures that look just like ones they have seen before, and are delighted when they manage it, and those too who just like to take pictures no matter what they end up like. But that’s not Steve. The problem is though is that Steve says he’s a lazy photographer and doesn’t want to work harder than he has to, so he wants his images to look different without too much effort. And that’s one of the reasons he uses film.

‘My current task is making Hertfordshire look different. I want to make it look a way no one else can – because I’m shooting my vision of the place. No one else has exactly the same ideas so some people might not recognise my view of the place. I love going to far-flung destinations and exploring, but for the past two years I haven’t visited anywhere, so I’ve been going out walking locally and taking pictures of the things I see. I’m extremely lucky that my two passions, photography and walking, can be done at the same time – unlike swimming and knitting.

‘Of course I take lots of pictures so some of mine do look the same as other people’s, but my favourites