Charlie Waite | Hidden Works

"One of the most wonderful things about landscape photography, and in fact all photography I suspect, is the extraordinary element of surprise. You can be travelling along, and I am sure other photographers would agree with me, you can be travelling along, walking along, bicycling along, and suddenly you will notice something that is a piece of absolute magic, and it is hard to describe the elation that one feels at such an event. It's truly, truly almost, as I once called it, a quasi-religious experience. And oh my, when I got to east of Child Okeford at Cranborne Chase in Dorset in 2017 and found these trees in this extraordinary state of part blue and part pale orange yellow colour, it was just the most marvellous experience. So, I set myself up and within a very, very short time I made the image, probably only a matter of 20 minutes. What was intriguing was, and that was very strange for me, I was suddenly aware of the middle distance being slightly soft, and yet the far distance being sharp and of course the front of the image being sharp. And the blue trees were blue to my eye, and sometimes it's a consequence of the material, the media you are using, be it digital or film, but it was just the most wonderful phenomenon. And then I found out what was responsible for the unsharp area in the middle of the image, and it was a breeze that had just blown through a tunnel as it were, and only affected that middle area, hence the front of the image being sharp and the rear being sharp. So, it was particularly beautiful the way there was this misty sea of grasses that were very indistinct. The whole thing just gave me immense joy, immense spiritual joy to be quite honest, and looking at it now I find this image evokes precisely what I felt at the time. For me, that's the mark of a rewarding photograph, and hopefully, that's transmitted to others." Charlie Waite

"I well remember travelling to Venice with a group of enthusiastic photographers in January 1996. Our arrival on the vaporetto was impossible to forget, because just a few hundred yards away there was a terrible fire, and the Teatro La Fenice was burning out of control. The following morning, I went to see what remained, and managed to get a glimpse of the steps in front of a pile of ashes, where there was as single red rose laid on the bottom step. I will never forget that experience. In the following year, 1997, I came again to Venice and the burnt out remains of the theatre were still there. Nothing had changed. But Venice of course was still the wonderful fantasy city that it always has been, almost a city in one’s imagination. The gondolas, especially the old ones, have a wonderful way of rocking, because they are rather unstable, or appear so. The rocking was exactly what I was after, as I wanted just a little hint of movement. But with this image, it was very important that the bow of every one managed to reflect some of the shimmering evening light. I also wanted them to not be obstructed by the vertical poles, so it took some time to arrange them to be precisely in the position they were in. The cold blue colour worked very well, I thought, with the yellow of the poles. I have always been intrigued by warm and cold colours together, they seem to produce a sort of frisson, as it were." Charlie Waite

"When I first saw this remarkable building, I was completely struck by it. I had seen many photographs of it before but had no idea how to approach it. It seemed that the best plan for me was to find something, if I could, in the foreground, with a similar arc-like shape. It took me some time to find this row of empty chairs, and it was important that they were empty. The arms of the chairs had a fan-like shape and, to me, there was a clear relationship between these wire-mesh chairs and the opera house behind. Also, the opera house was reminiscent of things growing out of the ground, like artichokes or something similar. I believe the idea came from orange fruit segments, but, either way, it was an amazing experience for me, and I cared very much to photograph it in a way that perhaps isn’t normally seen. Each of these segments seemed to me to have faces, and hoods, which I found very appealing. I needed some animation, just to give it a little bit of life, and thankfully an individual came along in black trousers and a white shirt, and in a way he helped to hook the opera house and the seats in the foreground together. I was pleased that I pressed the shutter at exactly the moment he took the right step and that he had not gone too far, and still had his own shadow, which was important to go with various other shadows." Charlie Waite

"It is no secret that I have a huge affinity with archways. It has probably to do with what lies beyond the archway. And the arch acts as an introduction, as an invitation to look through or walk through or peer through. This particular archway in Morocco was one of the best I have ever seen. Not simply because of the fact that it was an arch, but because of what lay beyond. What lay beyond was the most unexpected sight: a white wall and an explosive cumulus cloud with blue sky. It was so elegant, completely beautiful and I fell in love with it in the first few seconds of seeing it. Then the battle comes, as it often does, of how to convey my human emotional response at this marvellous archway and what lay beyond or through it. So that’s the battle, and it was a battle. I only hope that I managed to convey what a sense of wonder I experienced when I saw this absolutely beautiful sight. I particularly liked the splash of yellow either side of the bottom of the archway and in the distance a matching horizontal line. So it’s a marvellous mix of horizontals and rectangles and arcs, and of course, the one thing that runs counter to all those quite severe geometric lines and arcs is the fluffy white cloud, which doesn’t really belong in such a setting. So it was a wonderful piece of theatre and I loved it enormously." Charlie Waite

"I think when everybody hears the name Cuba, the very first thing they do is think of an enormous amount of really sincere affection, for the country but of course for its people. I heard them described recently as indomitable, and I think that’s probably what they are. They withstood an enormous amount of instability over the years, and when you arrive in Cuba, as I have a few times now, I am so aware of that graciousness and genuine wholehearted affection without any questions being asked. But I was here photographing. I took myself to Cienfuegos, it’s a little further south from Havana, and I found these 3 trees, and of course the very first thing I felt like doing was thinking ‘I must photograph them, but I need a little bit of animation in there’. There were a number of activities, there were other cars, and actually there were other cyclists. But I just knew that the one I needed hadn’t yet materialised. So it took a little while, waiting, and I was worried about the sky and I found the shadows were absolutely wonderful from the palm trees, and there was quite a bit of wind. It was almost a photojournalistic image. And all of a sudden I saw a cyclist come, and I thought he is not going to look at me, but I need him to, so I raised the camera to my eye, as one does, and at that precise moment his head turned, and he was in mid pedal, if that’s the right word, and it was completely correct, I just felt that it was correct. With photography, I think everybody will know who loves photography, there is that marvellous moment when you have an inner confirmation that what you have just made in the form of a photograph will, rather like a beautiful melody, will work. I just felt it worked. His head turned, I hope not because he was feeling invaded, but it was just precisely the right moment. And that was a very, very exciting moment indeed. And that was way back in 2003, so 17 years ago, I enjoyed that lovely moment of my cyclist arriving, bicycling along the promenade in Cienfuegos. I do hope you like him." Charlie Waite

"There is absolutely no question that I’ve always loved marvellous arcs and semicircles or hemispheres, whatever you’d like to call them. In 1987, I scrambled up a hill, it was really quite a slog, but, oh, was I gifted with just the most wonderful elegant shape! And I thought that this has not really been a product of mankind, probably to a degree, but not a lot. The river Cuckmere just found its way making these absolutely glorious shapes, and I found it hugely, hugely enjoyable. The sky was not looking terribly good at the time, but all of a sudden it improved and became not too overdramatic, not too theatrical. It seemed to, I think, lent itself to this marvellous silvery ribbon beneath. But generally speaking, I think it was a successful sky. Skies matter so much to me. I often think the clouds that aren’t in your photograph are more useful than the ones that are, because clouds give you such a marvellous opportunity to distribute your light, curtesy of compliant clouds; I make a lot of friends with clouds. Cuckmere Haven, Sussex, England, 1987. Happy, happy memories indeed." Charlie Waite

"Looking back over so many years of photography, I do wonder whether it was my childhood noughts and crosses achievements that brought such an immediate response and a compulsion to photograph these Yorkshire barns and walls. I know that I am not alone in finding Yorkshire geometry so appealing. The lighting configuration is always pivotal  to the construction and design of a photograph. Here I felt that the lighting had to be harsh to deliver high contrast and strong diagonal shapes of rectangles and diagonals. With architectural photography, I much prefer to light the gable end of the building and leave the long walls in shadow. Depth is needed to mitigate the two-dimensional feel and look of the photograph. The gate in the bottom right hand corner meant a great deal to me, yet possibly no one would notice it yet I wish they might! As I left, I forgot my ritual of saying 'thank you', especially for the snow!"  Charlie Waite