Tom Pope lives and works in London. For Tom’s photographs he uses a film camera and develops the images in a light room. When we went to the Jersey Archisle for a workshop with Tom he explained that his photography has an element of chance, he believes that a studio is too isolated to work in and he uses the theory of psycho-geography, whereby he gets inspired by the location he is in to take the photographs. To take Tom’s photographs he uses no post production or does not plan to shoot his photographs as he believes it makes for a more “truthful document”. Tom’s work involves “drifting around and seeing where the city guides you” i think this is an interesting idea of exploring the terrain.

Tom Pope studied photography at the Swansea Metropolitan University and the Royal Collage of Art and he is a champion Archer.  Tom is also interested in Philosophy.

Tom Pope sees his photography as him ‘recording a performance’ as the film is made until the video is over. For example Tom Pope’s video of him shaking a tree and the performance is over when the petals have covered the camera lens. In a performance there may be no record if the performance is trying to hit the shutter. Tom believes that photography and film is intertwined and that it is ‘lens based media’.

In addition Tom Pope says that he ‘subverts the meaning and lines of objects I see’ and he ‘subverts social situations’. I think by this he means that by going to different places and going to different situations then he can subvert how we would usually see people act in those places and shock the people around us. I think that in Tom Pope’s images this is shown by when he makes his videos the audience’s reaction in the back of the videos.