The Documentary Photographer

I get asked a lot whether I shoot colour photographs. It’s a by-product of showing a lot of black and white stuff.

Actually, I really like colour. It’s just hard to incorporate it into a photograph properly. I’m no Jay Maisel, Ernst Haas or Steve McCurry, and if you’re not careful the colour can overwhelm the photograph and the story you’re trying to tell in it. Red in particular can be a pig. You can have your subject big in the picture, in one of the strong compositional locations but if there’s something in the photo that’s red, you’re stuffed. That’s where the eye will go.

Still, occasionally I get a colour picture that just works and would lose big time if it were converted to colour.

I’m working on my website at the moment, adding some galleries. In my back catalogue, I came across this picture, which will be appearing in one of the new galleries soon. It was taken in Suriname a few years ago while I was on the best corporate shoot I’ve ever done. In fact, it merits its own post. Check back next week for that.

The managing director of JP Knight was so excited about this shot that he made me enter it for a FujiFilm Professional Merit Award. It got one. Taken in Suriname, it shows a shipment of bauxite (the raw material for aluminium) being shipped down river from a mine in the jungle - (c) Roger Overall 2004