12 INTERVIEW Julian Hanford
Julian Hanford
J
ulian Hanford’s conceptual works see him exploring the mysteries of the universe, and humankind’s changing relationship with the cosmos within which we exist. A long and distinguished career as an award-winning Creative Director in British advertising has informed his aesthetic, which utilises his advanced skills in image manipulation as well as installation and other media to create strange and unnerving observations and critiques of the illusions, self-delusions and ironies we have so far traditionally held to be true.
Tell us a bit about your process; what’s your starting point for a photo series? How much do you plan what the final image will look like before you begin shooting? So, firstly I should say that everything I do starts with a thought, and not necessarily with the idea of photography as the end result. True, a lot of my work has been based around photography, because (A) it’s a medium I have a certain mastery in, (B) there is a certain expectation with a photograph that it is somehow ‘real’, however manipulated, and (C) I don’t want a particular artistic technique to overshadow the message of the piece. In terms of planning, for certain series I am meticulous, but then sometimes, because I am often working and thinking along a particular theme, the universe seems to put fully formed images in front of me. It’s about intent - If you concentrate on seeing blue Volkswagens out on
the street, very soon you will notice loads of blue Volkswagens - the human mind works like that. So I either have an image fully formed in my head, which is then a case of making the real image conform to my internal vision, or seeing the image out there in the real world and capturing it. Your work can appear very slick, and often looks as if it would be just at home gracing a giant billboard as it would a gallery wall; would you say your background in advertising continues to inform your practice, both conceptually and aesthetically? That is deliberate - as a society we are all very literate these days when it comes to absorbing slick advertising imagery, so it is actually the perfect medium for subversion. And I am also highly influenced by the work of the great