Welcome to the Ezi Pix conversations with professionals and today I’d like to introduce to you Erik Gunzel. It’s a pleasure to have Erik here. He’s a photographer based on the Central Coast NSW predominantly landscapes. Welcome Erik.
Well thank you for inviting me.
It’s great to have you here and just to fill our listener in, our visitors and members of Ezi Pix, on Erik. He began his studies in around about 1987 but he’s been taking photos a lot longer than that. He might correct me on some of this if it’s not right. He’s been exhibited many times, particularly on the Central Coast of NSW but also in other regional areas not to mention Sydney and Holland, which is where he was born.
He has also had his work published many times over the past 10 years and he now also includes videography as one of his artforms.
So Erik, your background in photography tells me that you’re not only experienced and accomplished but also you have a passion for photography, so I’ll just ask you to comment on that.
My passion for photography! I just love photography and particularly landscape because I love the Australian bush. I love landscapes in general and being out there in nature I think is fantastic and to bring something back…some equivalent of the experience of being in the landscape is really fantastic if you are able to do that. That’s what my photography is about.
And you do it really well, so today our discussion is focused on ‘discovering landscapes’ so first I just want to ask you a little bit about how you actually got started in photography in general?
Sure, well it’s going back about 30 years ago. Originally I’m from Holland and I went on a trip to the United States and coming from Holland which is such a small and overcrowded country…all of a sudden you get into these wide, open spaces that absolutely fascinated me and I started taking pictures and I loved it and the whole six weeks that I was over there I just spent snapping away and that’s how it really started.
I think I noticed there was some formal education. I’m just wondering how important you think that was, particularly with your own photography?
Ok, I studied visual arts with a major in photography and the good thing about that is that you got exposed to all sorts of different artists. Not necessarily photographers although they were part of it, but other artists and painters and sculptors and the like and it really exposed me to a variety of concepts and gave me an idea of where those people came from and I think it helped me in shaping my own style
Thank you. So in your opinion, and this might be a difficult one, I know some people have done some formal education in photography and others have not. They can be both as accomplished and so I wonder what your opinion is on “Does a photographer need to do a formal education?”
Well I think it’s good to have some education in terms of…well you need some education in terms of how cameras operate. You need to know that. It’s the tools of your trade if you like. But at some point you’ve got to say “I’m gunna do it”. At some time you’ve got to stop being the forever student and go out there and start taking photographs and I think that’s important. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t continue to research the work of other artists because that’s always a great thing. I still do that. I go to a lot of galleries and look at other peoples work and so forth. It’s always inspiring to do that and I will continue to do that but as for formal education…at some point you’ve got to say enough is enough and here’s my camera and I’m going to do something.
Well that’s where the ‘art’ comes into it isn’t it…that’s why we are artists.
Now I know that you’ve been exhibited as I mentioned earlier, plenty of times, and I’m wondering if you’d like to tell us where your first exhibition was and how did you get your work exhibited? Did you chase up people? Did they chase you down because your work’s so good? Can you just fill us in on that a little bit?
My first exhibition was in Holland in 1980 in a little town called Loosdrecht, near the town of Utrecht …the city of Utrecht, for those of you who understand Dutch. How did I get to do it? Well, I just felt like it and I knew about this gallery and just walked through the door and showed my work and said, “well, are you interested in exhibiting those?” and the gallery owner said yes and there it was. That was really the first Exhibition that I had.
So you actually took your work in. How many pieces of work did you need to take in to have an exhibition?
I think if you have a solo show maybe you should have something like ten or twelve works. It also depends a little bit on the size but that’s about what I showed…about 10 to 12 works and they were all from that trip to the United States.
So had you been to that gallery before?
No, I’d never been to that gallery before. I just found out about them in the local newspaper
Well that’s very interesting. It might inspire some of out people to do the same thing…our members. So, by the way, if anyone is listening and wants to check Erik’s images…have a look at some of Erik’s images while they are listening to the rest of this conversation, I’d just like to let our visitors and members know that they can find Erik’s work on his website which is www.artofnature.com so you can go there right now and have a look at some of his work if you like. And is there a way to contact you on the website Erik?
Yes there are emails there on the website of course and my phone numbers as well so they can contact me any which way they wish.
Great. So now I’m just going to ask you about your favourite places and the styles of photography. Obviously it’s landscape, but anything in particular. You don’t have to give out any secrets if you don’t want to but we’d just like to know the types of places you photograph in most often?
I just love the Australian bush and I love any natural place, I love any wild place regardless of where it is. Where I do a lot of photography is in an area called Boudi National Park or Brisbane Water National Park on the Central Coast of course.
As far as secret places, I don’t really have secret places. I don’t believe in secret places. I believe that my photography is unique and so is everyone else’s. Everyone who is a photographer, every photographers work is unique so it doesn’t matter who you are, your work is unique in that no-one is ever able to copy me and I’m not able to copy anyone else so I’ve got no qualms about giving away secret places.
So Maitland Bay is beautiful, there’s a little track called Bullimah Spur where I hang out a lot of times and it’s just a marvellous place and…talking about secret places, there’s a secret place. McMaster’s Beach is a secret place. My back veranda is a secret place too. Obviously access is a bit restricted there. But you don’t really have to go usually that far to get great spots, to get great shots. You don’t have to go that far to get great shots. Quite often a lot of great scenery is right there, right around you and I think it’s more a matter of opening your eyes.
And that does bring me onto something that you taught me in a workshop that I of yours a couple of years ago. It’s about seeing. I really think I was just getting the camera and just clicking away but not really seeing, and the passion you had at that workshop and seeing what’s around you, that was fantastic. That really inspired me.
You conduct photography workshops. The areas that you’ve just mentioned are Master’s Beach and your own back balcony. Is this where you conduct the workshops?
I conduct the workshops from McMaster’s Beach from my home and from my home I take people out into Boudi National Park and in small groups. Small groups are for a particular reason. One reason is not to disturb the environment too much and the other reason is to have better interaction with the students.
That’s fantastic. I can’t wait to do one of those workshops. It’ll be great.
You did show me a photograph, I think I first saw it about 4 years ago and it was taken at night but to me it looked quite light and it was almost like “how did you get that photo if it was almost pitch black at night”? I just wondered if you could just tell us a bit about that photograph and the techniques you used and equipment you used to get the photo.
Ok, yeah night photography is a real fascination of mine too and I usually start photographing between 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock in the morning. That’s the kind of time frame and I never use artificial light. I only ever use available light which is the moon light. Using 100 ASA or 100 ISO I usually end up with shutter speeds of around an hour and this is depending on the light conditions. The way I do that is of course I use a tripod and set the camera up in bulb, in bulb option. Through a viewfinder at night you probably don’t see that much. It’s pitch black through the viewfinder so I always bring with me a little torch, and whilst I look through the viewfinder I shine my torch along the periphery of my viewfinder so I can see what’s in my shot. It also allows me to choose a point to focus on. Then of course before I open up the shutter I turn the torch off and then I take the shot. As far as shutter speeds and how you get those shutter speeds it’s all done through trial and error. I just shot lots of film and noted down what shutter speeds I used against what apertures and what the light condition was, whether it was full moon or half moon or less than that. I wrote it down, shot lots of film and some exposures worked, other ones didn’t so I’ve got a list of environmental conditions that combine with shutter speeds and exposure values.
That’s really good. Because a minute ago when I asked you, you said you had actually had your shutter open for 4 hours on one shot. So my question to that was “What do yo do for 4 hours?”
Ok, you set your camera up and then you just continue to bush walk. That’s what I used to do. I continue to bush walk and at some point the bush walk is over so you go home. And then you come back again and hopefully you haven’t forgotten where you set up your camera.
The tricky part is that at some point in time the sun is going to come up again and potentially ruin your night shot so you’ve got to time those night shots well.
That’s great. I really want to try some of that so I’ll let you know how I go.
I’d just like to ask what you think your three top tips on discovering better landscapes are. Something that people can go away and think “right, that’s all I need to know, I can go out there and take a better shot”.
Top three tips…I’m just inclined to say trust your own seeing. That’s my first tip. The second tip is trust your own seeing. The third tip is trust your own seeing. I’ve got a few more tips like that if you want to I can…ha ha. But I think it’s absolutely important that people trust there own seeing and how they see things and how the environment around them and produce a photo that is somewhat equivalent to that. I’m very big on no rules in photography. I don’t believe in rules in photography. I don’t use them. I’m just completely intuitive and that’s also a big part of my course to try and get that across.
I remember the workshop I did with you a few years ago, that was one of the things you absolutely instilled confidence in me. I was at the stage where I was a little bit hesitant to even show my photographs. Even if I thought they were good I would think “Oh but what do other people think?” and “are they going to like it?” In the end you made me realise that doesn’t matter. If you like it, you put it on your wall or display it or you ask for it to be exhibited and that’s the main thing about your own intuition. How you see it, how you like it so I like that…trust your own seeing. It’s very good.
Well that pretty much concludes our conversation for today as we’re out of time, but thank you so much for joining us Erik.
Thank you very much. A pleasure being here.
That’s great.
Also for Ezi Pix gold members Erik has kindly offered us a special offer which is…He has a correspondence course which I believe you can find on the website and he is doing that for half price for all of the Ezi Pix members. So if you’re on his website now, or if you’re not you can go there and have a look at it. It’s a correspondence course purely dedicated to landscapes, better landscapes. The course includes a video and the total course will be half price for Ezi Pix members, so that’s a fantastic offer, thank you so much and thanks for coming along, again.
Thank you very much.
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