https://www.nickknight.com/press/inewsrfmg
And it puts me directly in contact with the very large audiences of Weibo, Twitter, Facebook, SHOWstudio, Tumblr, and Instagram. I am getting through to them all instantly, and they, in turn, have all elected to see my photographs. It’s their feedback that makes it so exciting.
I find working with Instagram because of its spontaneity, so refreshing. Sometimes I want to work in a very considered and meticulous way but sometimes I don’t and Instagram affords me that little bit of personal freedom. I am unencumbered. It’s reignited a love for photography.
“Photography is often blamed, unfairly and incorrectly, in my opinion,” he says. “People are so distrustful of Photoshop, as if it’s some way of making people feel bad, that they’re being lied to. Even the word manipulation is negative, it’s one of the words that Kanye would cross out in the dictionary when he was taking out the bad words.
“Photography is a fantasy, there is no reality. So, the idea that photography, or image making, is in any way an abstract version of truth, is false. Photographers who are really good at their craft manipulate everything, because of course they do. All the great painters manipulate with their vision because you don’t want to see reality from me – you want to see what I see that you can’t see. That’s what makes it exciting.”
“Knight is at the forefront of democratising photography and re-establishing its place in our social-media saturated lives.”
Flora
Roses from my Garden
“If you step back and look at these images they’re very reminiscent of the Dutch flower painters of the 17th century, there’s a romance to them: they’re soft and gentle.
“But if you stand close to them, you can inspect the structure the AI has invented and see they’re actually quite mechanical, brutal and tough. And I love that.
i News – Rhiannon Williams (2021)
Nick Knight cuts selected roses straight from his garden and arranges them specifically, using only daylight to illuminate his subject. Photographed on an iPhone, the digital images are enlarged and filtered through software that uses AI to infill the space between pixels. What appears at first glance to be a historical approach to flower photography is actually at the very cutting edge of imaging technology.
Uses iPhone to photograph roses from his garden on his kitchen table. “He applies an Instagram filter (either Sierra or Hudson for the initiated, though he also dabbles with Ludwig) and plays around with colour and contrast before running the image through Topaz Labs, AI photography software that sharpens unfocused areas, and spending hours poring over the composite picture with his retoucher Mark.