Peter Coulson | An Exclusive Interview
Peter Coulson, An exclusive interview in Lens Magazine Issue #42 © All rights reserved.
Peter Coulson, An exclusive interview in Lens Magazine Issue #42 © All rights reserved.
Lens Magazine: It is a pleasure to have you here, Peter! Thank you very much for this interview.
Peter Coulson: Thank you, I am very pleased to be a part of your magazine.
Lens Magazine: Please tell our readers about yourself, what is your background, and how did you start with fashion photography, Do you have any formal training?
Peter Coulson: I was kicked out of Photography School after one month, so no formal training, all self-taught. I truly believe that self-teaching is the best way to learn. Photography is Art; you cannot tell yourself what to see and how to see it; you need your own eyes for that. Commercially, long story short, I took photos in my old business to advertise my business (Fly Fishing), and a Fishing magazine I advertised in loved my photography and ended up booking me to shoot for them on consignment. This went on for about 4-5 years until I did my first shoot in the studio. I fell in love with having control over the lighting and my subjects. I risked everything by making the change from lifestyle photography to fashion photography. I didn’t realize what I actually knew about fashion and how much I understood it. Seeing covers of magazines and going through “Vogue” seemed to have sunk into my memory which helped me ‘understand’ fashion.
Lens Magazine: On your website, we can Find very intimates photography projects, primarily nude; please describe the intimacy between the photographer and model in shooting these projects.
Peter Coulson: I see it more as emotive rather than intimacy. Nearly everybody I shoot, most of my work where the model seems naked, they never are. Unless you are with super comfortable somebody, I will always get a better photo if the models are wearing a g-string and tape on their nipples. I remove it in Photoshop. A lot of what I get is trust. They have worked with me for a long time, or they have picked up that all I want to do is take an amazing photo of their look when they look really pretty. I am not so much interested in the body, the emotion is the most important. What comes out of their eyes is where I put the most effort into posing.
Lens Magazine: Your photography work was published on the cover of important fashion magazines worldwide. How does it feel to be in that position (with a very respected name in the Fashion / Portrait industry)? Did you reach your goal?
Peter Coulson: No, nowhere near have I reached my goal. It is really cool to see my images on the covers of magazines. It gives me the confidence that other people also like what I like. It’s hard to be any type of artist because a true artist, and I do say photography is an art, no different to music or painting, that the more true you can be to yourself, more people will relate to you, and I take photos for me at the end of the day. I take photos of what I love and see them sit on a cover, a commercial space, or somebody’s wall, which is a huge reward. I have a long way to go; there are so many people I want to shoot and a lot of projects I need to finish and start. Time is my only hold back, but I believe the more somebody evolved, the better their work, their camera becomes an extension of their arm and brain. This means the longer we do something, the better we become.
Lens Magazine: What was your career path? How did you get from being an aspiring photographer to actually doing it full-time for a living?
Peter Coulson: I was lucky that doors opened at the right time for me. My photography was a hobby; I needed to take photos to advertise my business. Because I understood the industry I was in, I could photograph it in an attractive way to the clients. A large magazine chain was attracted to my work because it spoke to them and their audience. I was looking through my lens with the eyes of a Fly Fisher, not a photographer. A lot of it was hard work, people say I had a lucky break to be able to do what I do, but then I took the transition from lifestyle to fashion, which means I was shooting weddings, parties, headshots, babies, everything. Everything and anything to pay the bills. The 1 thing I always stuck to was giving myself time every week to be creative and shoot what I love; this kept my passion.
Lens Magazine: Tell us about the challenging part of Fashion photography in particular.
Peter Coulson: Especially now, fashion photography is at the lowest point ever since photography was invented. We have very creative companies that are not creative anymore, such as Calvin Klein, Tom Ford, and all those companies that used to have their designers and the company’s owner. The creativeness of the company is way far more important than selling boxes. Where it goes now, instead of Calvin Klein creating a fantastic campaign with incredible images, even if he isn’t showing any of his products, he’s showing you the emotion he wants you to feel when you wear his clothing. This doesn’t happen anymore. They are happy to just write their logos everywhere and sell the clothing for a higher price, not even put creativity into the campaign. Then they sell these boxes in enormous volume, which is a disgrace to the fashion industry. Instagram models, Instagram makeup artists, Instagram everything – The world has shifted from how skilled you are to how many likes you have. Bad models get the biggest jobs, but they would have no career if they didn’t have Instagram. They cannot walk; they cannot show any emotion or transform themselves into what their client needs them to be. I don’t think they are appealing; people get sucked into this Instagram-like crap which means likes are worth more than skill. When you get a famous soccer player’s 17-year-old son to shoot a high-end brand’s perfume ad, just because of his name, not his skill, this is what is bad for the industry and Art. The best eye and the best artistic ability are what the industry needs.
I am hoping we are at the bottom of this cycle; I am changing my work a little bit to get back to what the roots should be in fashion, which is Editorial. Outstanding fashion Editorial will always sell the clothing, always. It is getting people to look at fashion like Art, an ability to express themselves. Not like now, where everybody walks around with a t-shirt saying Calvin Klein, nobody expresses anything.
Lens Magazine: You were steady on your photography work for years; what were the “downs” and the “heights” of this career? What was the most challenging moment of all?
Peter Coulson: The challenge is to keep inspired, keep the passion and keep creating. Not let crappy commercial work get me down too much. Most people have their work and their hobby; they get to leave their work and go to their hobby. Because my work and hobby are the same, I have a balance to pay the bills and keep myself happy. Sometimes I let the bill-paying take the importance, but if I keep shooting what I love, that will generate money. As soon as I start shooting to make money, I stop shooting what makes me happy.
Lens Magazine: Describe your photographic style? How did you develop your current style?
Peter Coulson: Your style self develops. If you shoot what you love and not listen to anybody else (crop it here, light it, focus on it, third rules, etc.). If you keep shooting what you love and look at it from a viewer’s eyes, not a photographer’s eyes, that should give you a style. Your style will evolve. Suppose you are continually looking at photography in the genre. In that case, you love car photography, fashion photography, any form of photography, and start collecting all the images and looks that you love. Put them into the Nile; when you look at them as a whole, you will start to notice a style. This style should be what you are shooting. A part of my look was also developed by the way I retouched. I create helping layers when retouching (a down curve), which I would turn off before saving. But I really liked the layers and started keeping them.
Lens Magazine: What technology/software/camera gear do you use to keep focused on what you do best as you photograph?
Peter Coulson: I use the Hasselblad RAW program called Phocus. Because I can tether onto that, I can see and adjust my images before I even start the shoot. It sets the toning, vignetting, mood and apply it to all the photos. Meaning I only need to use photoshop to edit hair, skin, etc. I do a little bit of dodging and burning in the mid-tones, no different to the darkroom. Using light to even, soften, or darken. Most of my images are 90% the Finished look as they come out of my raw program and a small amount of cleanup in Photoshop.
Lens Magazine: What motivates you to continue taking pictures economically, politically, intellectually, or emotionally?
Peter Coulson: Money doesn’t motivate me, but unfortunately, I need money to live. I am more motivated to do things that have political views hidden in my photos. For example, putting twists into photos that many people don’t see, telling a story, capturing an expression. Making a mirror which means people look at it and tell me about themselves by their comments. Everything I put into the picture might not make any sense, but somebody will make a comment about the way they are viewing a prop or whatever I did in the picture. It might have been thrown in for no reason or a reason; nobody knows that. I am much more motivated by telling a story or creating beautiful visuals that please the eye to look at.
Lens Magazine: What is your best post-processing tip?
Peter Coulson: Less is more!
Lens Magazine: What do you feel the moment you are pressing the shutter release? What do you want to show to the world through your images? What are you “hunting”?
Peter Coulson: I am trying to capture something for people to look at and get the same power I get through the lens. Everybody’s brain is different. We read a book about a white picket fence; everybody will have a different visual of what they read.
Lens Magazine: Among your works, which one is your favorite? Why?
Peter Coulson: It is very hard; it is like asking me what is my favorite child. It is the same if you asked me my favorite song; it depends on the day.
Lens Magazine: Whose work has influenced you most? (Are there artists that have inspired you and your work?)
Peter Coulson: Helmut Newton was my biggest inspiration. I also love Peter Lindbergh’s work. My aim for the next ten years is to mix these two together. The strong, powerful stories of Newton and emotion and soul through the eyes like Lindberg. Newton’s models were always emotionless, like statues, but the photographs’ stories and emotions were incredible. I want to be able to capture the 2 together.
Lens Magazine: What is the one thing you wish you knew when you started taking photos at the beginning?
Peter Coulson: I think my photography would have gone a lot quicker if I didn’t try to be a photographer. Not learning all the ‘rules’ and always looking at images through the eye of a photographer, not the viewer’s eye. Viewers don’t see the color balance; they don’t see the rule of thirds etc. They just see an image that they love or hate. For most photographers, especially if they are in clubs or completion, the first most important thing to them is to get the eye focused. To the point, they over sharpen the eye. The second more important thing is exposure. They forgot about the subject, their expression, the story.
Lens Magazine: What is your best photography tip for a good fashion shooting?
Peter Coulson: You need to understand fashion. You need to look at fashion magazines and fashion label campaigns. If you don’t get it, then there is a good chance you don’t understand fashion. Fashion is the emotion of what you pick up from the image. But fashion is also a very broad statement. Is it e-commerce, lookbook fashion, is it a perfect representation of the garment on a mannequin, or is it a representation of what the garment looks like when you walk down the street or is it the feel of it when you wear it? All of the above falls into fashion. It is a culture, it is Art, it is a feeling. You can shoot a fashion picture picking on any of those things. If you look at the high-end haute couture photographs, you can see that there is no set fashion. Some tell it in emotion, others use form and shape, some in movement.
Lens Magazine: How it looks like a “photographic day” for you?
Peter Coulson: I wake up, check my e-mails, go to the studio, shoot, come home, edit, fall asleep. I do also eat.
Lens Magazine: Let’s talk about the online tutorials on your website. What inspired you to start with this field of online teaching, and what are the tutorials about? Do you have a large community of users?
Peter Coulson: I did a few workshops when I transitioned from shooting the campaigns for fashion. I always walked away feeling like I spent a lot of money to only learn one new trick. It frustrated me that there was nobody out there teaching the things I actually needed to learn. Everybody would 3luff around the edges and get participants to take a lot of photos to leave happy. What the participants forgot was that they were only shooting, not learning. I never had the intention of getting into the educational side of photography. But I had a small importer in Australia ask me to demonstrate their lighting at a trade show. This resulted in a massive crowd around me asking, “Where can we can see more of this?”. The importing company heard the feedback and ran workshops from their store for me to teach. Another major difference is that I try to dumb everything down; I don’t try to make myself look better than anybody else. I try to show everybody how it is simple if you make it simple, dumbing it right down without making it too technical. Otherwise, it starts to become really hard. I have no secrets. Anybody can hire a pretty model, awesome location, fancy gowns, stunning makeup, and hair, set up one octabox and bang—you create an incredible image. But by doing that, it doesn’t mean you have learned a single thing except that you cannot afford the model, location, gown, or hair and makeup—you cannot reproduce this tomorrow.
I have been running workshops worldwide for the past 10 years, but creating Inspire, my tutorial website, is my portal to show people how I work in real life and giving everybody accesses to it. To prove to people, you don’t need 20 assistants and expressive gowns or professional models. It crosses between the 3ly-on-the-wall to me narrating and teaching. Everything is smoke and mirrors – It is so easy to take stunning photos with small cheap cameras when you understand a few basic but vital things.
Lens Magazine: Let’s pretend you are not a photographer; what would have been the path of your life that you’d have chosen instead?
Peter Coulson: Music. My first job and career was with music; I have always continued to make a little bit of music in the background. Photography engulfed me, but I do a lot of TVCs where I film and write music. For all the video work, I write and record the music myself too. I thoroughly enjoy doing it. If photography wasn’t my life, 100% it would be replaced by music.
Lens Magazine: What gear do you use?
Peter Coulson: Camera body – The main two cameras I shoot with is the Hasselblad H6D-50c, Hasselblad X1D and Sony a7rii. I also use the Hasselblad H6D-100c, but this is specifically used for my portrait work.
– Lens – I have a lot. The main ones that I use are Hasselblad – 50mm f3.5, 100mm f2.2, 150mm f3.2 are my main ones; I do have more. Zeiss – Distagon 35mm f1.4, Distagon 50mm f1.5, Otus 85mm f1.4, and Sonner 135m f2.
– Tripod- I use ReallyRightStuff for location work but have a camera stand in my studio.
– Flash & Filters – My studio lighting is Broncolor and Profoto. I use everything from Octaboxes, bare bulks, beauty dishes – It depends on how I want my lighting and the feel of the image.
– Camera bag – I love Ona bags and use Pelican cases.
Lens Magazine: What kind of tools do you use for post-processing? Explain your workflow.
Peter Coulson: I use Hasselblad’s program Phocus (free to download) for my RAW work and bring it into Photoshop to clean up.
