I stumbled across this fantastic video on YouTube this summer, produced by Ilford (makers of photographic films) and highlighting the film photography of Jason Lee. For those not familiar, Jason was a professional skateboarder before becoming an actor. About 15 years ago, he discovered photography, and like so many of us, photography became a passion. The video itself is a work of art, and I have watched it a few times now.
I became a bit curious about his work, which led me to this podcast with Jason and the folks at Kodak about a photography book he created called, A Plain View. The book is out of print, but the images on his website of the book are simply beautiful. I hope I can track down this book in the secondary market at some point, but for now, it’s unavailable to me.
Few things that stand out with Jason photography:
-He doesn’t have a social media presence at all. He doesn’t collect likes or followers on Instagram or Facebook. His work is in books, short films, fine art prints and his own website. How refreshing.
-You can tell from his work that he loves the beauty of film photography, from exposing the film to printing the image. He mentions his use of old lenses not because they give him a photographic look that he seeks that cannot be matched by new gear or digital manipulation.
-His curiosity leads to experimentation. Jason’s work is across 35mm, medium format and large format. You get a sense that each format is intentional and also the photographer on a self exploration of the unknown.
As you can tell, I am quite taken with Jason’s approach to the craft and the final output. I highly recommend checking out Jason’s work on his website.