Daniel Dale is a photographer and self-publisher working in the North East of England. His work has not been widely exhibited or entered into many awards, although has been complimented many times by his mother. He graduated in 2013 from CCAD with a BA in Photography and has since spent his time trying to find what the f**k he should be taking photos of, for it to finally click around May of this year and has since released two self-published zines and is currently working on releasing one for his most recent project. Dale is currently looking into completing his Masters starting next year.
Why do you use photography to explain the world around you?
Both bodies of work presented hold similarities, similarities which lie in the fundamental nature of my practice, something that only materialised in the past year working. When I look back through my images I don’t get the feeling I’m explaining anything through photography, ‘to explain’ would insinuate I have discernible answers; It’s more about trying to find answers, and through the taking of pictures, building a piece of research and attempting to flesh out an idea. So to me the keyword ‘explain’ doesn’t fit my work, but ‘explore’ does a lot better, or even an hypothesis on the world and mankind.
With my project ‘The Night is Quiet for Me’ it explores the idea of apotheosis and eternity through the death of Elvis, the images are of the fandom, souvenirs, and place. Describing the work as partially abstract it holds both a documentary merit, in the fact it was shot around the 40th anniversary of Elvis’ death; but abstract in the goal of exploring something more philosophical within death and eternity. If we take documentary as an act of explaining (but in no way a solid definition) I am not using photography to document the death of Elvis, but to try and understand the idea of living forever, and what it looks like in the largest concentrated form. ‘Loci’ almost strips itself completely of a documentary aspect as there is not a lot of imagery that lends itself to the location or a significant theme, but once again it is heavily based around the abstract notion of memory and ‘in between’ moments.
Photography is the synergy of what really interests me about the world, the physics of light, chemistry of film, and the philosophy and psychology within the act to photograph and to view a photograph. Photography itself is what I enjoy when I’m taking photos, and it allows me to take in the world as I perceive it, this is most likely why a lot of important points of my work, for me, are very practical and look at the choices inbedded in how to take the photo as well as how to present it; choice of film is just as important as the choice of print size.
My choice to use photography to view the world is because what I enjoy to photograph is reflected in my joy to photograph.
To view more of Daniel’s work please visit his website.