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– 037 –Interview: Dan Tobin Smith– 036 098 –Interview: Rafaël Dan Tobin Rozendaal SmithHi Dan, your work always feels very confident and refined but we don’t hear much about how and why you started? WellI’ve probably been taking pictures for 20 years, and I’m 33 now. I grew up in London and my dad teaches one day a weekon the photography course at the London College of Communication. He lived in Cambridge and I used to go there everyother weekend and he’d teach me how to print. I just liked being in the darkroom. He also knew photographers, so whenI did my work experience at 17 I worked with an advertising photographer and that’s how I got interested.——What wereyou taking photos of then? I think when you start taking pictures they’re always quite basic. I used to shoot what I guesswere little still lives – I’d take pictures of gardens and probably quite cheesy landscapes but also some more interestingthings. Then I got on to medium format and did a lot of pictures of my dad’s garden, some landscapes and portraits butthey were quite strange. I printed them myself too, mostly black and white, and there was a friend of my dad’s who taughtwith him who showed me how to print when I was really quite young.——Was that a big advantage? Well yeah he’s oneof the best and he used to be able to get quite amazing results – he had an amazing idea of the scale of black and white.Getting that kind of exposure was handy, also my dad did a bit commercial work and he is really technical. He never didstill life but he did a lot of interiors and he taught me a lot. Learning 5x4 and the movement of large format when you’re16 is quite handy.——Did you then go on to study photography? Yeah I worked with him and then when I was in schoolthe only subject I was good at was art. I got a ‘D’ in history and a ‘U’ in economics. I failed maths GCSE, which I retookand got a worse grade second time around, but only because I stole the test answers the first time. I went to a school inNorth London which had a really good art department and after that I did my art foundation course at Central St.Martinsbut I was doing painting rather than photography. After foundation I took a year off and assisted a bit, worked at a pub ,travelled and didn’t do much, but then I went to the London College of Printing and did a degree in photography. WhenI left there I went to work straight away – I didn’t assist which was kind of unusual.——How did you manage that? I wasskint for a while! I only started making money about four years ago. It was hard but I was lucky that the mum of the girlI was seeing was Swedish and she was writing a book about Sweden which needed some photographs. That job paid forme to buy a camera and then I quite quickly started working with a company called Wink Creative which was originallypart of Wallpaper* when Tyler Brûlé was still there. I knew that crew of people quite early on so I was just lucky – I pickedup Wallpaper* and Wink as clients and then worked on a lot of commercial interiors.——Did you make a consciouseffort to avoid assisting? I didn’t think about it, I’d done a bit of assisting when I was younger but I thought I knew whatI wanted to do. When I left college I didn’t really do the kind of work I’m doing now, I did more interiors than anythingelse. My final project at LCP was about service areas in the City of London at night. There were some nice landscapes andit was good but it wasn’t much like what I do now. Then I got more architecture and interiors work for a few years withWink and there were a few other random clients. In those days there was more money in editorial so I used to get sent tonice places. I remember getting sent to Istanbul for five days and I had my own suite at the Four Seasons for a one pagejob! My assistant had his own suite too – it was quite amazing but that’s what used to happen in the early days. It wouldnever, ever happen now though. It was a bit different ten years ago – just before 9/11 people were spending a little moremoney, I think it was a bit of a dot-com thing. Wallpaper* at that time was about being ‘jet set,’ it was cool to do that andnow it’s cool to drive around in a Prius and grow your own vegetables. They wanted the people working for them to go offand do things properly.——So did you then make a conscious shift to still life? I did commercial and interiors workbefore they got me to do a little bit of still life for their design stuff – I really had no idea what I was doing. I remember nothaving a clue about flash and I taught myself on the job which was a bit scary, but I was technically OK from my earliertraining. In the end I just got bored with that kind of work and wanted to do something that I could do on my own andthat was smaller work. At the time I had a tiny front room that I used as a mini studio and it became interesting again. Iloved the freedom of being able to take some pictures and print them without it having to be a huge production.——Looking at the crisp, set-up style of most of your work it feels like you could be classed as more of a designer. What bitsdo you think make you a photographer and not a designer? It’s weird because sometimes I get asked to submit work forbooks and people have approached me as a designer which is totally fine as that’s probably the way I work. I don’t knowhow it happened really. I do a lot of collaborations and work with lots of different people so it’s probably a lot to do withthat.——Maybe it’s something to do with the definite nature of the pictures. They're usually one, final image and thatpreciousness and process of stripping back feels very ‘design’... I think I’m drawn to that kind of work. I don’t know whybut I like things that are real ball-breaking experiences and a bit complex. If the experience is enjoyable I like a longprocess, working towards something slowly with lots of different levels. Of course you get a single, final frame at the endof it that you have to live with but if you put a little extra in the making of the shot it’s reflected in the enjoymentafterwards.——It’s interesting that you say you enjoy the process because your work usually feels quite guarded, usuallyonly showing one, final image. With the recent Jay-Z shot there is a behind-the-scenes video but even that feels quite slick.It’s funny there’s not more made of your process... Well we’re starting to. With the alphabet project we’re doing some timelapses because I think it shows people the effort that goes into them. I suppose they’re a little bit like installations. I’veSwedish Trees, 2003– 036 098 –Interview: Rafaël Dan Tobin Rozendaal Smith– 037 –Interview: Dan Tobin Smith

– 039 –Interview: Dan Tobin Smith– 038 –Interview: Dan Tobin Smithalways liked building something for the camera because you’re physically in control of the image and you can spend timeperfecting it. I don’t mind it all being a little bit mysterious. It’s nice to confuse people a little bit. It’s quite nice if you canplay with the viewer’s idea of scale so they don’t really know. Perspective is always good for that because they’re seeing aletter but they’re also seeing a built object and they can’t figure out what’s going on.——Is the letter series just a personalproject? It’s become a little bit of an obsession actually. I started with an ‘A’ for Creative Review and then I did a biggerone and I really liked that so thought it would be nice to do some more. I also started seeing this girl a few years ago whois a set designer so we’ve done quite a few together. We designed the red and white ‘E’, which went on to inform the Jay-Zcover which I worked on with her. It feels really free as a project because they have to be letters in Helvetica and of acertain proportion, but there are no other constraints. For some of them there isn’t an idea and for others there is. I’mworking on one with cylindrical mirrors which has a lot to do with perspective – we’re going to photograph pieces ofRenaissance scientific equipment, make an illustration out of the pictures and reflect those illustrations into a mirror tomake a letter. It’s quite a process but it’s a nice process and there’s an idea there – not a big, shouty idea, just a little one.We’ve just done one with a lot of flowers for an ‘S’ and I find it fun because loads of different things can work.——It’sgreat to see such enthusiasm for personal work from someone who is obviously incredibly busy... It’s just what I do. A lotof photographers probably do more editorials than I do and I made a bit of an effort a couple of years ago to limit theeditorial work I was doing and concentrate on more of my own stuff. There are a few projects that I’ve been working onfor myself for the last couple of years – I just have to do it. ——When you’ve shot a new piece of personal work, do youshow it to people in an attempt to get commercial work straight away? Well they go into the folio and onto the website. Ithink it’s good to have a website that changes regularly and one that people respond to. I really love that everyone looksat the site. What’s nice about my studio is that if we want to shoot something quickly, we can plan it, get into the studio,and shoot it in two days. My retoucher then works on it, it gets scanned, retouched again and it’s done.——So the setupof the studio really helps it? Well it is a business, you know? This is a business and things have got to run smoothly. Myretoucher Martin’s been working here for about six months now and that’s helped quite a lot in terms of being able to getmore work out, faster I think it will probably just continue like that so whenever I do get some spare time I know I cancome back here and do new work. For a lot of people it’s a job but for me it’s not really a job.——How do you manage theprocess of working with a set designer? It’s something that changes a lot. For example I’m working with Rachel Thomason one project that was an idea I’ve had for a long time that we then developed together so it was a total collaboration. SheLetter Y, 2009often comes up with an idea for something and then we’ll meet up and talk about it. We tend to chat quite a lot beforehandbecause they’re usually quite technical. We have to decide things like the angles, lighting, or how we’ll build something.Other set designers might have an idea for the story or sometimes it will be based on something I’ve done before and they’llwant to apply it to an idea they’ve got, so there’s no real definite way of it working. The set designer is really quiteimportant and I think they get a little bit left out, especially in London because everyone thinks the photographers doeverything. I’ve worked with the same people – Rachel Thomas for about seven years, my girlfriend Nicola Yeoman for afew years, also Leila Latchin, who used to be the interiors director for Wallpaper*, who I worked with just yesterday. I’veworked with her since 2004, so they’re long, close relationships.If you’re not in the industry, the whole ownership issue is a little bit of a mystery. When you add an art director to the mixas well does it become even more complex? I don’t think so. The photographer is a bit like the director in the film world.I think lots of it is also to do with style. As a photographer, you are involved from start to finish, whereas a set designerwill probably not be involved at the end. They’ll be involved at the start and an art director will probably work in themiddle. It seems to me that the photographer is the first and the last person involved. They physically take the image andare responsible for how it looks, so that kind of ownership probably rests more on them in some ways. But I don’t reallylook at it like that because I think if you’re a set designer you own it just as much as the photographer. It’s the same wayit works with stylists – they’re super important and it’s one of those things that isn’t really understood outside of theindustry.——It’s nice and fluid though – does having all these different people to work with make for a more interestingfinal piece? Yeah I think you just choose things that you think are going to work and that’s just part of the process, partof the idea.——Would you say the ability to direct people makes you more suited to making moving image work as a moreclassic director? Well we just did a little film for Absolut which is in post- production at the moment. I have done a fewlittle things and I’m actually getting a kind of showreel ready at the moment.——Is that where you see your workheading? I think there’s bound to be more moving image work.——Everyone seems to be talking about the death of printat the moment, do you feel as if your work transcends that? If we all go completely digital will you still be working? I hopeso! I think it’s a bit like when photography came in. What happened to painting? It got a little bit sidelined but it also fellinto a really interesting place because it had to. I imagine photography will get sidelined but I still think that commerciallyit will always be there because you’ll always need an image. Maybe the images might move a little bit, they might beanimated on certain formats but I think they’ll still be images.——It’s interesting to think about what could happen. It’s– 038 –Interview: Dan Tobin Smith– 039 –Interview: Dan Tobin Smith

– 041 –Interview: Dan Tobin Smith– 040 –Interview: Dan Tobin SmithDetail from Jay-Z, Blueprint 3. 2009– 040 –Interview: Dan Tobin Smith– 041 –Interview: Dan Tobin Smith

– 043 –Interview: Dan Tobin Smith– 042 098 –Interview: Rafaël Dan Tobin Rozendaal Smithdifficult enough to imagine magazines flying you first class for a single page shoot... You know what, editorial alwayscosts money and I think spending money on it is alright. I looked at the amount of Wallpaper* stories that I’ve done – it’sabout 22. So you do spend money but you also make it back from advertising. I think that’s going to probably stay thesame. I’ll still spend money on editorial and I’ll still end up making money from advertising. Advertising might change abit because you already get asked to do both the print and moving image. I think that some photographers can do a littlebit of both. I really like seeing physical, tangible things. Take photography books and fine art for example – people justlike objects, don’t they? They like things, and if anything we’re probably getting more materialistic, not less.——Thewhole topic of consumption is an interesting one. Your Jay-Z cover is an example of serious mass consumption – how doesit feel that kids all over the world now, will own a piece of your work? Well what’s really nice about that is the fact that allthese kids are going to be looking at still life photography. Because I’m a bit of a nerd, that’s the only thing that I reallylove. It’s not glamorous and you don’t see much still life photography in the art world so it’s a really nice feeling to give ita bit of exposure.——It’s even more unusual to find it in the hip-hop world too right? Yeah, totally. It’s probably neverbeen on a record like this before.——Isn’t it the only cover from his back catalogue that Jay-Z’s not appeared on himself?Yeah, exactly. When you think about it like that it’s quite a big deal. It’s also really nice because people are going to belooking at it and questioning it. I don’t think he particularly likes being photographed or maybe he’s just brave? It didn’thave him with a cigar on the front but a lot of people loved it. At least it’s prompting something – people seeing it and notknowing what it is. Everybody thought that it was done in Photoshop, but I shot it on 10x8 and we could blow the printup huge and it’d still look good. It was born out of me and my girlfriend messing around in the studio for one weekend ona personal shoot. She wanted to do something with white and red stuff. I love white things and I’d been working withRachel Thomas on a few white shoots so it just seemed right. It’s a classic colour combination – those colours just look sogood together. We shot it and then somehow it fed into someone’s imagination in New York...——So you’re expecting2010 to be a busy one? Well I just joined a new agency who are really good, so I’m hoping to try and work a bit more inNew York and I feel like I’m being drawn to doing things slightly simpler, a bit smaller and probably slightly more towardsfashion as well.——Fashion with a still life emphasis? To be honest, it’s been a weird year and London’s been kind offunny, I think because of the recession. There’s a lot more of the simple work around, especially in New York where theprocess is a bit easier. The agency, Art Partner, is based in New York and Paris and it’s more of a fashion agency really. Itwill be interesting to be involved in a slightly different world and to see how I can work in it, so we’ll see...dantobinsmith.comJay-Z, Blueprint 3. 2009Letter E, 2008– 042 098 –Interview: Rafaël Dan Tobin Rozendaal Smith– 043 –Interview: Dan Tobin Smith