Personal Statement
This is your day!
Photography and photographers can be painful. Some people love having their pictures taken some hate it. Moreover some venues welcome photographers, some are not so keen. It is paramount that I am as invisible as possible, particularly during the service. I am very aware of peoples' sensitivities and respect them. I always ask the minister or the officiant for clear instruction as to their preferred parameters for photography. To this end I work with natural available light with cameras in silent mode.
I make every effort to encourage everyone to enjoy the experience and participate, and they always do!
I am clear that this is your day. It is my aim to never be intrusive and to work closely to your guidelines.
ABOUT ME
I studied Fine Art, painting at Goldsmith’s College, University of London. After leaving art school I worked as an audio-visual producer making multiple projection shows for corporate events. I later worked as an animator and rostrum cameraman. This developed my interests in photography and film. I applied for a 2nd degree in Photography Film and Television at the London College of Communication. After this I ran a successful studio just off Brick Lane in Central London shooting advertising and editorial content specialising in fashion and interiors.
I later was invited to apply to the Royal College of Art, leaving with a distinction and the Basil H. Alkazzi Award. My master’s film ‘Witches’ won the Munich Film Festival (1991) and was a finalist in many more. I went on to have a career in film and television as a director and Director of Photography making many landmark films, mini-series and series for television and cinema. I won the Knight of Illumination Award (lighting design for television: Hetty Feather, 2018) and won the GCT award for lighting design: Kingdom, 2008). I was also nominated twice for a BAFTA for Hetty Feather (CBBC) and for my short documentary, E9;6c (BBC).
I am an associate lecture in Film (documentary) at Edinburgh University and at UAL, London College of Communication (Direction and Cinematography).
Beyond Photography
With my background in fine art painting and photography I am also available for commissioned portraits. I use a method developed by me which I call Beyond Photography. It is something that I thought about when I was at Golsmiths and came about through conversations with other students about the innate existence of objects
"Photography relies on the innate existence of objects. A photograph is taken, and it records the light, shade and colour as it reflects off the object. If the object doesn’t exist, it cannot be seen. This is not so with painting which relies on nothing other than feeling and imagination. Even if we attempt to paint an object that sits in-front of us, it is not that thing and never can be. It is an interpretation fed through the eyes, filtered, and re-articulated through our mind and senses, arms, fingers and brush. In the process things happen that we cannot expect. This is the story of our relationship with the object, and its beautiful".
Dominic Clemence -2024
Beyond photography embodies these two things, the innate existence and the pure expression, to create portraits that are at once, undeniable renditions of a character while also possessing a depth and expression of a something that can only be told with painting and drawing; the freehand.
Girl with a Pearl Earring. - 2023
The Painter
I continue to develop my work as an artist working in pastel, oils and watercolour. Some of his work is digitally based being strongly informed by my work as a painter.
"Oil pastels are like tubes of colour, I like to work them into the surface of the paper, sometimes scraping them off and then drawing again, layer on layer. The medium, becomes maluable and I like to push it about as if it is oil paint.
I have recently experimented with a more abstract route expressing the intangible, things borne from a strong emotion or state. I have always shyed away from the abstract believing that sometimes it is a foile for artists who cant draw very well. I think it is important to earn the right to be abstract, to first be able to draw and manage your subject".
Dominic Clemence - 2024
Spit of Rock, Iona, Scottish West Coast. - 2023
Interruption - 2024. Painting and digital.
View from the Minde, March. - 2024
Photography
I have a huge portfolio of commissioned, published and personal photography. One of my most exciting ongoing projects are massive, wide landscapes with exceptionally strong narrative. Much of this work concerns itself with mans' symbiotic relationship with land. Five of these images are on permanent display in the National Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland.
Other projects due for publication are ’Out in the Engish Mid-East’, a series of photographs taken on 5”x 4” film plate camera at horse fairs in East Anglia. The project is a comparative study of people pushed to the peripheral, where a strong attachment to cultural history seems to cling to they persona. The images are inspired by and in answer to Richard Avendon’s book ‘Out in the American Mid-West’, drawing a parallel between two places, far apart.
‘People I meet at the Weekend’ is a series of spontaneous portraits with excerts of conversation with characters who clearly ‘wear their background’ or expose (usually a dark) history in their presentation.
There will be a website appearing soon dedicated to fine art and photography.
I was a tube driver. I liked to put money on the horses and that's what I was doing when I got in a tussel with this bloke and he came at me with one of those little pencils and stabbed me in the eye. Popped out like one of them fruits, wadyacallem [lychee?] yeah that's it, lychee. How many one eyed tube drivers have you seen. Lost my job and that was it, really.
Boy with Gun, Watton Horse Fair. Norfolk
From: People I Meet at the Weekend
Buttermere Triptych. Permanent display, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw
All work is for sale by contact via email: dominicclemence@me.com
A portfolio site is expected soon.