STEPHEN Innes is in revolt. Against style and against preconceptions
about disability, not least those that tend to be projected by the
disabled themselves.
Innes, 29, a disabled photographer, whose first exhibition is showing
at the Project Ability gallery, issued a press statement that has an
edge to it. He declared himself ''fed up'' with the ''hackneyed image''
of disabled people. Exhibitions of work by disabled people, he said,
tended to show what a rotten time they were all having, their work
portraying a sense of anger, rejection, or isolation.
''Well you won't get that from me,'' he stated, though in conversation
at the opening of his exhibition, he confided he was a little concerned
about being seen as stroppy.
''Even still,'' he said, ''getting into the Necropolis at night
through a hole in the gates, and climbing up to the top with tons of
equipment to get a picture of Glasgow Cathedral, while wondering if
you're going to be mugged, does require a certain physical dexterity and
determination.''
Innes's revolt against style is hinted at in the title of his
exhibition -- Dye Hard. Is this Bruce Willis with a Canon? ''Not at
all,'' he laughed, confessing a penchant for ''dreadful puns''. (His
photograph of a shaggily golden Highland bull, which has found fame as a
postcard, is entitled Matted d'Or.)
''My main problem with photography exhibitions is that black and white
has enjoyed a resurgence to the point that it has become de rigueur,''
he said. Innes's favoured form of photography is the colour slide.
''It's such an exacting discipline; one mistake and the slide is
ruined.''
Some of the photos in his exhibition -- a wide-ranging display of 23
pictures -- suggest trickery or clever use of filters: a spectacularly
dramatic night portrait of the Forth Rail Bridge, or the witty and
whimsical Ghost Bus, another night portrait, where the spirit of a
number 62D on the Clydeside expressway has been left imprinted after the
bus has moved on.
Not so. Innes eschews filters. ''They're a pain in the backside; they
give internal reflections and detract from the finished effect.'' His
effects are all achieved by timed exposures: ''that and the inherent
ability of the lens. All my lenses I've known for a long time; each has
a slightly different signature and I know its ability.''
By day Stephen Innes mans a BBC Radio Helpline (''I'm a grease
monkey'') and by night you're likely to find him clambering up a
near-unassailable height in search of his next target, armed with his
indispensable Canon F1n and Mamiya C330. Loaded of course. Dye Hard
indeed.
* Dye Hard, sponsored by Studio Trust, is at the Project Ability
Centre, 18 Albion Street, 10am to 5pm Monday to Friday until March 3.
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