Roger Butterfield
Roger Butterfield
Welcome to the Artists Blog
1stAngel: When did you first become interested in art, in general?
Roger: My father was a sculptor and a craftsman, so I was exposed to art from an early age. Dad didn’t encourage me to follow in his footsteps, but I have always had a strong creative drive.
1stAngel: When did you first become interested in photography, specifically?
Roger: I started taking pictures in my early teens, more than three decades ago. I bought my first “proper” camera when I was sixteen and learnt to develop and print photographs in a friend’s darkroom.
1stAngel: In what other forms of art do you also work, if any?
Roger: Apart the occasional doodle, I haven’t done any drawing or painting for many years. I would like to try my hand at landscape painting one day, but I don’t have the time (or patience) right now. Perhaps when I retire…
Rocher Bog, South Yorkshire
1stAngel: On which style(s) of photography do you specialize?
Roger: My main areas of interest are landscape and nature photography, but I also enjoy photographing people when I get the opportunity.
1stAngel: Has your style changed from when you first began? If so, why?
Roger: My style has changed a lot over the years, as I’ve learnt more about light, colour, composition, etc. Moving from film to digital brought about major changes because it’s so much easier to experiment with digital photography.
1stAngel: What kind of equipment do you use (film, digital, cameras, lenses, PC, etc.)?
Roger: At the moment I’m using an Olympus E500 Digital SLR with three Zuiko lenses: 11-22mm zoom, 50mm macro and 50-200mm zoom. For image processing and organisation, I use ACDSee Pro 2. I’ve recently started learning how to use Adobe Photoshop CS3.
1stAngel: What made you choose that equipment?
Roger: I chose Olympus on the basis of past experience. The three lenses enable me to cover a wide range of subjects in landscape and nature photography. It took me a long time to find a software package that would enable me to organise a large collection of images.
Black Darter dragonfly
1stAngel: How do you choose what you’re going to photograph?
Roger: Sometimes I just take my camera for a walk and go in search of inspiration. At other times I set out with a particular subject in mind. In landscape and nature photography, so much depends on the location, the weather and the season.
1stAngel: What kind of editing do you perform on your photographs, if any?
Roger: I usually save my images as RAW files, so that I can adjust exposure, colour temperature and sharpness during processing. I often find that I need to rotate and/or crop images too.
1stAngel: How much time (on average) does it take to complete a work?
Roger: It varies. Sometimes I might produce a dozen good images in a day; at other times I struggle to produce just one. I often re-visit subjects that I’ve photographed before to try improve my technique.
1stAngel: How do you know when a piece is finished? Is it easy to walk away?
Roger: I think it’s important to avoid “over-processing” digital images, so I generally find it easy to walk away from a finished picture. Having said that, I can be a bit of a perfectionist – some might say to the point of obsession!
Priest’s Cove, Cornwall
1stAngel: What do you do to overcome a “block”?
Roger: It can be difficult, especially when we’re stuck in a run of gloomy grey weather. The only solution is to get out there and take some pictures. Poor lighting may not be much good for nature photography, but it’s excellent for long-exposure landscape shots.
1stAngel: How well do you take criticism and how do you make use of it?
Roger: It depends on the spirit in which it’s offered. I find constructive criticism and positive feedback very helpful, but I can’t stand nit-picking. Sometimes critics fail to appreciate the constraints of working “in the wild”. Having said that, I can be very critical of my own work.
1stAngel: Who is your favorite artist?
Roger: I don’t really have a single “favourite” artist. I appreciate art most when I see it in context. For example, I love the sculpture of Barbara Hepworth because it is so closely linked to the rugged landscape of West Penwith. That part of Cornwall has produced many wonderful painters too.
1stAngel: Which one of your photographs is your favorite?
Roger: One of my personal favourites is a picture that I took of my parents way back in 1972. A more recent favourite is a shot of Whitesand Bay in Cornwall, taken one bright May morning in 2006.
Whitesand Bay, Cornwall
1stAngel: Have you exhibited any of your work in galleries?
Roger: Not yet. I’ve been toying with the idea of organising a “50 at 50” exhibition later this year, but it would take a lot of work and expense to set it up.
1stAngel: Will your work be included at any upcoming contests or galleries? If so, where and when?
Roger: I plan to enter the CPRE – Friends of the Peak District Photo Competition and continue displaying pictures via my on-line galleries at Living Art, Photium and Imagekind.
1stAngel: What are your plans for the future?
Roger: To take more pictures!
Bank Vole
1stAngel: What advice do you have for budding photographers?
Roger: Take lots of pictures!
Thank you VERY much Roger for this great interview! Good luck in the competition 
By the way, I absolutely adore your picture of the little Vole!
You can view more of Roger’s work here at Imagekind http://roger.imagekind.com/
His photo website http://www.rogerbutterfield.co.uk/
His Living Art gallery http://www.living-art.org.uk/view/Exhibiting_Members/RogerButterfield/
