Manchester photographer Matthew Comer has his feet placed firmly on the floor. This is a surprise given his career has been flying over the past few years.
Matthew has shot film for the likes of Burberry and Dolce and Gabbana, but he is level-headed, and his work is all about getting back to basics. He religiously rejects photo editing software; he has never airbrushed and he doesn’t want to learn how.
He dished out some philosophy on the subject which made good sense: “You’re capturing a moment in time aren’t you? And if you’re capturing it and, then changing it, are you changing a moment in time? You’re changing it to an image that didn’t exist.”
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Matthew Comer is an obsessive. This is slap-you-in-the-face obvious when looking at his 260-page book entitled ‘Block’, which documents every block-shaped building in Manchester. But his obsession is with what’s real, and he creates beautiful and astounding bodies of work, which show a true commitment to photography.
In his art he is arrogant, as the best artists are: “I like to be the creator”. And rightly so, by doing independent bodies of work independently of commissioners he has been able to make the work he wants and usually finds that people like it that way. “You don’t ask, you don’t get” is his motto, and has served him well. After sending his work to Urban Outfitters they elected to exhibit his work in their Manchester store in was 2009/2010 and more to be shown in 2011.
The Manchester-made man has rarely stayed on home soil for long in the past few years. His Urban Outfitters exhibition consisted of six selections taken from ‘On the Road’, a collection of photos documenting his 11,000 mile drive from California to New York. Stopping in diners and truckstops, with a picture of Edward Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks’ in the back of his mind, he became inspired, and obsessed, by the never-ending neon of the US. From these pictures he pieced together a great collage of neon over five months, which he was unsurprisingly “really happy” to sell to Rio Ferdinand.
I asked him to tell me about the best photo he has ever taken. He said he was on Coney Island during one of their daily storms.
And then I noticed the diner. I’d seen the diner tons of time before but never at night time; but it wasn’t even night time, it’d just gone dark ‘cos of the storm. And I noticed that the Coney Island Tower was in the background of it, and I was like: “I need to get this photo”. So I started trying to get the photo I could see in my head - I always see something first and then try and create it on the camera. And then I got it. I was really happy.
At first it looks like its shot at night, but it’s not - you can see some of the clouds and the lightning glaring on the right hand side and the way the road in front was really bumpy, and you could see the rain on it. And the silhouette of umbrellas under the diner. It was my favourite image ‘cos it was like my ‘nighthawks’, what I’d always wanted to capture, and it sort of happened in a fluke.
So what next for this photo-obsessed freelancer? Among other projects he is still in the process of releasing footage from his role as the First Ever Illinois Route 66 & Chicago Ambassador, which he managed to secure above 99 other applicants. He's publishing new book entitled 'Wonderland' jumping into the fashion world of lace, leather and denim. He has recently been appointed as the Official photographer for Josh Beech & The Johns, fronted by famous fashion model Josh Beech, become the head fashion photographer for local new creative magazine, Matter Magazine, and his imagery is about to hit Vogue, Tatler & Harpers Bazaar from a recent shoot with hair giants, Fudge. As if all that isn't enough he is also in talks with the legendary Gio Goi about doing some big projects of which he is very excited about.
His ambitions are as high as the water towers he snaps: “I always think I could better myself, I don’t think I’ve done it yet. I want to be able to say that history has wanted my photographs.” And his advice for everyone else...”Don’t wait; create”
Words by Joanna Eckersley
