Phil Sanderson is one of those people who instantly makes others feel comfortable. I worked with him for three months at The&Partnership and he went out of his way to make sure I settled in. However, it was only after I left T&P that I discovered Phil is a very talented photographer! He kindly agreed to let me interview him, so settle in and let’s dive into Phil’s story.
What’s your earliest memory of creativity?
When I was about 6/7 years old, I lived in a farmworker’s cottage with my family on a farm. My Dad was a graphic designer and a painter so drawing and creating was always an aspect of play at home, but the farmer (Jimmy) had a ‘Farmers Weekly’ magazine he passed onto me as he knew I liked to paint, it had a competition to create a ‘Farm Safety’ Poster for kids, the first prize was a 50cc dirtbike… I came up with a poster concept and idea that was called ‘Last Play Time’ which featured a kid falling off a stack of hay bales onto a sharp bit of farming equipment. (Jimmy the farmer was always getting me into trouble for building dens in his hay barn, so it was very present in my mind). Anyway, I won the competition and that was probably where my love of creativity sprang from, especially posters and the static image.
Tell me about your career and all the places you’ve put your creative skills to work.
I started life as a finished artworker and typesetter, working on Linotype and other photosetting equipment before the Apple Macs came in, which I then learned and ended up being a Mac artist for a good few years, I moved about a few typesetting houses and design companies before getting my first taste of advertising life at Barkers in Glasgow.
I then moved to an Agency in Edinburgh called Strathearn, where I ended up being the Studio Manager but I was lucky enough to have a Creative Director there (Andy Archer) and the senior writer (Dawn Kermani) who encouraged me to start working on creative ideas during pitches, and I really got the bug for trying to push into creative work, fast forward a couple of agencies and I ended up at Frame in Glasgow and given the opportunity to work as an Art Director / Writer team and the rest, as they say, is history. I loved creating ideas, especially poster work – there’s something about the purity of an idea that’s in good a poster, that great visual and line combination has always excited me the most, and I guess this is where my love of photography came from. I started working with a lot of the top photographers in Scotland and was always hungry to understand what they did – and, of course, any photographer is more than happy to talk about their profession and get nerdy on a shoot chatting lighting and techniques, so it was my informal training ground. My starting to get into photography really sprang out of being frustrated at the lack of budgets available for doing shoots, so started picking up a camera and experimenting with it myself with the intention of being able to use this skill set for my own art directed campaigns.
Why did you choose horses, hounds and humans in particular to capture?
Portrait work is where my heart’s at, capturing a moment of emotion or character or back story, whether it’s a human, horse or a hound they all present amazing creative opportunities. I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of it.
I fell in love really with horses, after my daughter had been going to riding lessons as a kid for a good few years. It eventually grew into her passion in life and I bought her a horse and, well, it’s not a part time hobby, let’s say that, so I’ve been around these magnificent animals daily now for years (mostly as a stable hand), and I can’t help but be inspired by them. They’re so powerful but beautifully gentle, it feels like you’re blessed when they accept your presence, it’s almost a spiritual experience I think, and I’m just fascinated by the grace and shape of their movement, I guess I’m obsessed with capturing some of that.
As for hounds, well there’s been a dog in my family ever since I was a small child, and that continued all throughout my adult life, they’re fantastic companions, and really good fun to photograph, you get everything from power and drama to pure outright comedy with them. They’re beautifully honest animals and express this so well when shooting them.
I guess though where you can go with human portraiture is entirely different – we’re a lot more complex in terms of being able to evoke so many different aspects of emotion or message and ideas, so the opportunities are endless but again it’s all about capturing that special emotion or narrative for me.
Any funny stories where the animal subjects didn’t cooperate?
Pups cause the most chaos and amusement on set I think. I shot a beautiful 9 month old French Mastiff recently called Bleu and he was so friendly he spent most of the shoot trying to jump on me and slobber the camera and he’s a big lad. I got flattened a good few times during our day together. But to be honest I loved it as much as he did.
Any tricks you’d be happy to share for getting animals’ attention?
Dogs are easy: treats and their favourite squeaky toy. I’ll use the toy or treat held directly over the lens by the owner while I’m shooting, or sometimes I’ll make a high-pitched squeak with my lips to catch them off guard which usually elicits a great response from them. But it does help if they’ve had some basic training and can sit on command. It really becomes a challenge when they’re not willing to sit in the area you’ve lit for, so you have to be prepared to play it by ear and work around how they behave. I had two beautiful rescue greyhounds in recently, and they didn’t know how to do anything like sitting to command – so all my pre-planned shots went out the window and I had to modify the poses as to how they were willing to behave, which generally was laying down where they’d been directed to stand.
Horses are much more difficult – they’re prey animals and have a very high instinct for flight or fight, and you don’t want to be on the wrong end of a panicked horse. I’ve had a horse bolt in fear just at the sound of my camera shutter once when shooting in a field… so I usually spend a good 10-30 minutes with each horse allowing them to gradually get used to the strobe lights and me – I also get the owner to bring a friend, so the owner can manage the horse who’s usually held on a lead rope with halter, and their friend has a box of treats that can be shaken to entice the horse to look in the direction I want it to pose. It’s also important to give the horse a pathway through your lighting set up to escape, so if they do panic, they can have a clear path around your lights. I usually shoot in indoor schools, so I make use of the jump stands (wings) to surround my lights creating a more visual barrier, the horses are used to avoiding these, so it helps keep the horses safe (as well as my precious strobes).
My dream client with horses though is someone who practices natural horsemanship and liberty work, these clients and their horses can provide so much more in terms of allowing a horse to move naturally and be guided without a halter and rope, and generally I’ve found the horses to be so much more relaxed when they have that freedom of movement.
Your use of lighting is very striking – can you talk me through how you set your equipment up and what you look for in terms of good lighting?
Lighting is the most exciting thing about photography for me – I see it as my opportunity to ‘paint’, which is why I love strobes so much as I can control the light so much more this way. I’m really interested in the interplay of light and dark, so I’ve always been drawn to Rembrandt (Chiaroscuro) or low-key lighting, I also love experimenting with coloured gel lighting.
I always have in my mind that I’m at least attempting to shoot and light like an old masters painting… whether I succeed of course is an entirely different thing but that’s my ambition.
I was lucky enough to go to a talk by my all-time photographic hero, Nadav Kander, and he talked passionately about the importance of what’s not seen in an image being just as important as what is seen, and this struck a chord with me, and I guess this is why I’m drawn to more dramatic lighting set ups. It’s also just beautiful, I’ve never really seen the appeal of super bright photography, but that’s more down to my own personal tastes and aesthetic.
Technically wise, every shot is so different but to sum it up for me I’m always looking for a strong directional light of some description just making sure that it’s balanced well with additional fill lights and reflectors, I like to shoot tethered to a laptop wherever I can and build up the lights slowly on set so having the laptop available is a great way of doing this.
What would your ideal photoshoot look like?
I think every shoot I do is my ideal shoot, from the simplest of hound portraits to more complex shoots for humans and horses, they’re all amazing experiences.
I love something director Jean-Paul Jeunet said, when asked about why his ‘director’s cut’ for Alien Resurrection was the same as the cinema release, which was that every movie he makes is his director’s cut, and that’s how I approach my shoots, I love photography too much to either take on a project I’m not passionate about or that I think I can’t do exactly the way I want to.
But, I do have a burning ambition to pull all three aspects of horses, hounds and humans into one image which I’ve not done yet, a little bit like a modern version of an old masters painting of a lord or lady on their horse surrounded by their hounds. (Takers anyone?)
Do you mainly work inside your own studio? Tell me a little about that.
I work in studio mostly for human shoots, but when it comes to horses, you’ll find me at the stables or an indoor school – with hounds it’s really flexible, and I can travel and set up a rig in a living room (my own included) or out about on a favourite walk.
I think I love the control that a studio affords you though, so much more space to use lights and build an interesting set. But I also use specialist locations, most recently I hired a theatre space to shoot a set for an actress, so we could use the stage and amphitheatre to tell her story, so basically, I’ll shoot anywhere.
What are your other hobbies?
When I’m not taking pictures, I’m at the stables with Ellie or walking my dog, Nala…. but I tend to obsess and get hyper-focused, so photography is an all-consuming passion, any spare time is taken up learning new techniques or practicing.
How can people commission you?
You can contact me directly on my website or find me under @philyboy on Instagram (if you don’t mind lots of dog walking and stable life pics too).
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