Talking To...Nick Elliott

#NK And that flexibility extends to the payment?

#NE You can do it on instalments, because they can be seen as expensive, but that's because of the quality and the exclusivity, but we also recognise that there are a lot of people that would like a book like this and not be able to commit the money in one go in the current climate.
These books are fine art, that's what they are, there's no disputing that, that's what it is. As with other fine art though, we want it to still be accessible.

#NK Away from the book, directly, what got you into photography in the first place?

#NE I've been in the photographic business, as they say, since dinosaurs ruled the earth. It's all I ever wanted to do, all I ever hoped to do. I'm in it, I guess, to change things and leave a mark. I want people to want to own one of my finer images. I want to be like a brand and everyone to know that that's Nick Elliott shot.
What got me into was my dad. My dad used to take me down to a nearby field where there were some horses. He was a very happy enthusiastic hobbyist and was really into wet room-dark rooms as it was then and me and dad just got really big into it.
We would go out and shoots, comeback, knock out copies and contact prints, full printing and all that kind of stuff, so that's where it comes from.

#NK Do you still go out on photo walks, pick up the camera for fun or is it exclusive music?

#NE I don't do that type of photography anymore, not that I would knock anyone that does it, photography is a chosen art form and it covers a very wide area, both hobby and professional. Unless I know I'm going to get a kicking shot I really don't think about shooting it, I don't do hobby photography.
I specialise purely in the music business now, album covers, promos, touring with bands to get the live shots. I do a lot of mono-live stuff, which is the avant-garde stuff that I get commissioned to do. Also the fine art that I've moved into an awful lot in the last couple of years.

#NK Has that partly been a reaction to the phrase, a mutual friend, Bryan Ledgard, uses, 'We're all paparazzi now?' You know, pits filling out with lots of photographers blasting away with digital cameras?

#NE I think it's partly a reaction to that, but I've always seen the camera as the tool I use to craft the art that I do. Pretty much everybody in the world, well certainly in the UK, Europe and America is a photographer. Have Mastercard and can buy a load of gear that has brought on the digital revolution with Light Room and Photoshop. It's taken away the one thing that made most of the world's greatest photographers, which is a style.
The likes of Bailey, Litchfield, Donovan , Terry O'Neill, they all had a style. Rankin has a style. I think photography has lost style. A lot of photography has become a digital way of reproducing and image, whatever that image may be, but...I think style is coming back. I like to think that I have a style.

#NK I certainly would dispute that with your monochrome work. It's different to a lot of the shots that come out of the pit. So with your monos and fine art, what's next?

#NE We start work on the rock book in September with a second one to come towards the end of next year. I'm working on a number of band projects that I've started or I'm talking about. The studio is talking to bands about projects that I've always wanted to do. I'm looking at about four volumes of music pictures to follow on the back of this.
The Cambridge Folk Festival book leapt to the front of the queue because of the timing, because of the ten years. There may also be a book to celebrate the fiftieth year of the festival. It's going to be a busy few years.

#NK Thank You

Photocredits: Neil King