Don’t Overthink It With Simon Dodsworth

Simon Dodsworth, photographer, artist, published author, curator, collaborator, welcome.

Relocating to the Isle of Skye, Simon  and illustrator Jo Empson co-founded the Post Room Gallery in Portree. Through their curation the gallery is a hub for creative collaboration, including partnerships with Art Skye.

Simon’s photography invites engagement with the landscape of Skye, capturing the familiar, creating an abstraction and shifting perspective, an invitation to move from the 93% the memory of the seen and explore anew the familiar and the unseen and see what remains to be seen. In this way, his photography becomes a meditation on presence, memory and time. The spellbinding nature of Simon’s art has been cast.   

Simon Dodsworth, is my guest on this, the first series of Don’t Overthink It. The aim, to connect with Creatives on the Isle of Skye and discover their who, what, why and more.

 Don’t Overthink It - Simon Dodsworth

1. What’s in the name the Post Room Gallery and why?

Simon: The home we moved to here on Skye simply didn’t have a letterbox, and for years the post was dropped through the unlocked door to the home office. As it didn’t have any other function when we first moved in, it quickly became known to us as “the post room”, and when we made it into our (tiny) gallery space we hoped using the name The Postroom Gallery would help suggest a small, friendly, place for people to visit. Nothing too intimidating or grand in scale.

 2. Your relationship with the camera describe it?

Simon: For me it’s definitely a tool, and a means to an end. I don’t obsess about the specs of my camera and lenses, and rarely update my kit. And it’s just the first part of creating an image that I’m happy with, processing and then getting a print being the other stages.

That said, I really appreciate the convenience of a digital camera; I wear glasses so fast and accurate autofocus is a huge help and the tech lets me  capture more images than I otherwise would!

There’s also a lot that can be done to creatively process an image to provide a print that says something about the landscape that’s more than a simple record of what was in front of me and the camera when I pressed the shutter release.

3. Your connection to the Isle of Skye where and when did it begin?

Simon: Simon: When I was young, I remember my parents talking about their walking holidays here and I was captivated by names like the Cuillin, Sligachan, Marsco, and so on, and I’d long wanted to visit but my first time here was much more recent. My partner, Jo, and I were on a new year break to Inverness and drove to Skye to spend just one night here before returning to Inverness. It was enough! We’d been looking for somewhere to move to so we could make a new home and a new studio for ourselves, and as soon as we saw Skye we knew this was it. Skye had won us completely.

4.   Your one word to describe the Isle of Skye, what is it?

Simon:  Elemental.

5.   Picture this, it’s summer on the Isle of Skye, the wind and rain vertical, you are standing in your favourite place, where is it and what are you

Simon: Probably Sligachan, taking in that immense panorama of the mountains. If it’s raining and windy, it can be wonderfully moody, and if I can hear the Curlew above the wind and rain, that would be a great addition. I know their cry from when I was a child; it’s magical and fits Skye perfectly. 

6.   Today, tomorrow, yesterday, what inspires you to create? 

Simon: I feel I’ve long had an ingrained need to make and share things that I find beautiful. That sounds too simple, but that’s it.

7.   Yes, or no?

 Simon: Probably a cautious yes; I don’t want to miss out, but I also want to be sure I won’t mess it up in some way, whatever it is.

8. Name the photograph you wish you had taken?

Simon: There are so many! But if I have to name something, it could be any one from the series “Sink/Rise” which is Chapter 3 of “The Day May Break” by Nick Brandt. To explain: Nick posed Fiji islanders several metres underwater on the reef, just wearing their everyday clothes and without breathing apparatus, to highlight how their homes will be lost to rising sea levels in the years to come. They’re incredibly powerful images.

At the very least look them up online, but if you possibly can, go and see them exhibited somewhere. The other Chapters shouldn’t be missed, either.

9.  What is the significance of ‘tread lightly’ in your practice?

Simon: Well, I just wish I could say something through my photographs that’s as effective as the images in my answer to the previous question. I hope I can make people think about the places we live. We’re so close to losing so many of them.

10. What brings the freedom, joy, and stillness, describe yourself in those moments?

Simon: Just being in the middle of a natural landscape, with Jo, sitting quietly and taking it all in. Especially when mountains are involved. Somewhere I can breath. That’s when I’m happiest.

11. What book are you reading or writing or listening to?

Simon: I’ve loved everything Ben Myers has written. His novels are really varied, some dark, some light, but always hugely entertaining. The stories are great and the writing brilliant. I’m currently finishing his latest; “Rare Singles”. I really enjoy reading, but audiobooks don’t work for me; in one ear, out the other!

12. What lies and reveals itself in the landscape to connect your work to place?

Simon: I’d say that it’s usually form and texture. I tend to abstract my images by showing details, or simplifying wider views to shapes and forms. For me, that’s the most effective way to work, and the most satisfying. I think that comes from growing up on the Pennies; a pretty austere landscape, really, where form and texture were the strongest things to work with.

13. What question would you ask yourself, share the answer?

Simon: Why don’t I create as much as I’d like to? I really wish I was more productive, but I think I question myself and my work too much. I should just get out more, see more sunrises and sunsets, get out in the wind and rain more, climb more mountains...

Thank you, Simon Dobsworth my super creative image abstractor.

 Simondodsworth.pictures & @thepostroomgallery