ABOUT DANIEL GUERIN

Daniel Guerin was born in 1979 and educated in Guernsey. He made a brief year-and-a-half escape to Sweden in 2002 where he began teaching himself photography with a 35mm SLR camera he’d bought two years before, pretty much on a whim. An injured foot while hiking in the Swedish countryside forced him to stop and camp for a few days in a small site with a stunning view of a river and ruined mill. Here he shot several rolls of film with one image being good enough to inspire a passion for photography that has grown constantly ever since.

From the beginning, his strongest passion has been for landscape photography, although he had always experimented with other genres too.

He is entirely self-taught. People often ask him what qualifications he has and which university he studied at and often react with surprise when he tells them that he has never taken a lesson in his life. His real lessons have come from persistent experimentation and learning from a great deal of mistakes made out in the field. It wasn’t all that long ago when he would wait with excitement for a roll of film to return from the lab only to find not one decent photograph on it. Then there were days when perhaps just one image worked perfectly and gave him the drive to get out there again, learn from his mistakes, make some new ones and perhaps next time, come back with two or three great images.

People often comment positively on his photography having a certain style or indefinable character that is very much his own. Some say he seeks out unusual angles and viewpoints, others that he looks for dramatic lighting situations. He believes this is a quality that has evolved from being self-taught. Had he been taught in a traditional way, his work may have been just an extension of that teachers’ style.

When one does something one loves, situations often present themselves automatically. Daniel soon started receiving the odd request for images from various publishers and organisations. In 2005 he entered the Guernsey Eisteddfod competition and was surprised to be awarded with several commendations for his colour images and the Photographer’s Award, with honours, for Best-In-Class Monochrome Print. This was the moment he realised that he was really on to something and could cut it with the best of them. Not long after, a job was advertised for a photographer at the Guernsey Press. He felt compelled to apply but only while filling out the application he realised that, aside from his mothers’ wedding, he’d never really taken any photographs of people. Not convinced of any success he sent in the application, ran through the interview process and was offered the job.

He admits that people photography had never really appealed to him before. Of course, press photography is 99% people photography – and so a new avenue unfurled in front of him.

Daniel has always thrived on new challenges. He’s not content to just stick with what he knows and has always liked to include dynamic elements in his images, be it moving water, clouds or plants blowing in the wind. People photography just adds another set of dynamics, but ones that can – most of the time – be directed and controlled.

There is a trust placed in the photographer by the subject and he has a responsibility to render that person correctly to conform to the story being told. Daniel thrives on the social aspect of his job and the people he meets and photographs make the job even more enjoyable. His work has inspired in him a much-needed growth in self-confidence.

Digital processing has always been a part of Daniel’s workflow. Even when he shot 35mm film, all photographs would be scanned and digitised. He took a brief step into large format photography, perhaps the most traditional method still used today, but eventually realised that it’s slow, methodical approach, although very satisfying and educational, just wasn’t congruous to his way of working. These days, he works entirely with digital capture and advanced processing methods. He believes Photoshop has become a by-word for 'laziness' or 'fake' for some who don’t understand the process, but he says digital processing, when performed correctly, is as essential to modern photography as dark-room processing was to print-makers throughout history.

What will happen next is anyone’s guess. Daniel is committed to the constant development of his skills and is always up for the challenge. He currently sells his landscape work in two Guernsey galleries and online; all areas in which he plans to expand. He admits to never having had much business acumen, the photography itself being his passion and motivation, but understands the need to develop this area, both in order to survive comfortably and to gain a wider reputation. Three years ago he would never have imagined being where he is today. With a little luck and a lot of hard work, three years from now he’s certain he’ll be able to say the same thing again.