About Steve Speer

Photography has been a common thread throughout my life. From my early forays in the mid-seventies, to the present I have had a passion for photography that has never waned; in fact, I am as excited now about my photographic pursuits as I have ever been.

Photography provides me with a sense of perpetual gratification. It is exciting to see a potential image on the ground glass or through the view finder of my camera and that excitement returns when I look at the freshly developed negative or raw digital file. Each progressive step (from the first work print to the finished fine image that is framed and hung on the wall to share with others) adds to this sense of excitement. I exhibit some of my work in colour but prefer to work in black and white because when you strip away the “crutch of colour” only the key elements of composition and ‘quality of light’ remain. It is an exciting challenge to work within these constraints to create an image which is strong enough to draw in a viewer and resonate with their sense of connection.

Bio/CV

BIO/CV (PDF format)

The Art of Photography:

If any medium could be said to dominate our cultural life, it is the photograph in its various forms. Photography is indisputably a mass medium with unrivaled reach and potency. Today, it is being increasingly appreciated as a major art form – perhaps the major art form of the 20th century.

Over the last few decades a solid foundation for the collecting of photographs has been established, not only by museums and private collectors, but by the increasing interest of the medium as an art form and as a communications medium. As Pierre Apraxine, curator of the renowned Gilman Photographic Collection in New York, rightly says, "to collect photography is to collect the world".

From the book, Collecting Photography by Gerry Badger

Upcoming Event

I have been invited to speak at the Figtree event "As We See It" during the Exposure Photo Festival. My talk will be focusing on "Photography as an Agent of Change" and I will be highlighting my most recent trip to China where I visited four lepresoy colonies in Yunnan Province.

My Doorway, My Life, Yunnan, China

Book: CHINA | Guangdong Province Portfolio

Available now; CHINA, Guangdong Province, Portfolio, is a finely crafted, hard cover photography book focusing on the people and landscapes in and around Nam On Village; a small farming village in southern China. I visited the village in October 2007 and March 2008 and the images in this book are the result those trips.

China Book