Imagine having sold three million books about photography – for context, a typical monograph by a photographer will sell in the high hundreds, mostly purchased by other photographers. Michael Freeman’s books, in contrast, have seldom been out of print, no doubt due to his ability to write about photography in a clear and engaging way. Freeman’s latest book, Michael Freeman On… Light & Shadow, argues that shadows should not be considered the poor relation to light – it’s time that shadows were embraced on the same terms as light, he says. Given the inherent cognitive bias of the word photography, which means ‘painting with light’, this could be a challenge. But it’s certainly not one that would faze Michael Freeman…
Having studied geography and anthropology at university, what was your route into photography, and why were you interested in photography as a medium?
I can usually answer most questions after a fashion, but when it comes to why I always wanted to make photographs I’m at a loss to explain. It’s like an itch, a need. There’s some magic involved in making photographs and I’ve never got over that. Every picture is unique – a moment in time that’s never going to happen again, and to be able to capture that is amazing. As to my way into photography, that was a
