“Watching the magic of images appearing on a blank piece of paper is what made me fall in love with photography.”

– Gareth Rockliffe

Gareth Rockliffe, a native of Southport, England, boasts over thirty years of experience in the realm of photography. Blending landscape imagery with sound and narration to tackle universal human themes, his soulful landscape photography has garnered international recognition, with exhibitions spanning across the United States. Gareth’s work has graced the pages of prestigious publications such as Naples Illustrated, Portfolio Magazine, Life in Naples, Florida Weekly, and Boston’s North Shore Life. Honored with titles like “Honorary Color Master” and recipient of esteemed awards from institutions like the Photography Masters Cup and the International Color Awards, Gareth’s artistic prowess knows no bounds.

Partnering with his wife, Jan Soderquist, in Naples-based Soderquist Photography, Inc., Gareth has taken on remarkable projects, from documenting wildlife on Sir Richard Branson’s private island to capturing the majesty of the Great American Coastline. Invited twice to Necker Island, their journey culminated in a wildlife publication and a sophisticated video production. Contracted by Clipper Cruise Line for advertising and editorial imagery, Gareth and Jan have produced breathtaking visuals from their extensive travels, including the remote Kuril Islands in Russia to the shores of Vietnam.

In 2014, Gareth and Jan launched the monumental “Great American Coastline” project, funded through a successful Kickstarter campaign. Over four months, they traversed from San Diego, California to Cape Flattery, Washington, recording the awe-inspiring beauty of the Pacific coastline. Recently, Gareth has expanded his creative expression through a collection of short films titled ‘Contemplations.’ These films showcase his multifaceted skills, from photography to video editing and narration, aiming to foster connectivity and dialogue among humanity.

Know more about Gareth’s story, the beginnings of his love for photography, his collaboration with his wife, his successes, and his other endeavors in this exclusive interview.

SM: Can you share the story behind your initial interest in photography and how you developed your unique style?

GR: My initial interest started when I was a teenager. My brother was a very keen amateur photographer who eventually turned professional. When I was eighteen, I asked him one day if I could borrow his old twin lens Rolleiflex. He loaded it with some black and white film and handed me the camera and a light meter and some brief instructions. On my return he took me into the darkroom where he showed me how to develop the film and create a contact sheet. Watching the magic of images appearing on a blank piece of paper is what made me fall in love with photography. Of course, it could have all ended there if my big brother had just dismissed me, or had a chuckle at my rather limited attempt, but he didn’t, he told me I had an eye for photography…which is more than most people.

After that point I shot all the time with a passion and, eventually I moved on from black and white film to shooting the intensely colorful Kodachrome slide film and in particular the subject matter became landscapes.

Slide film however was tricky, you really had to be exact with exposure, it became a wonderful discipline because it forced you as a photographer to capture the image in camera and not rely on darkroom technique to get a great image. I also liked the fact that if I ever wanted to sell my work to magazines then slide film was the way to go.

I had been told that when shooting slide film, it was best to have the light coming from behind me…but I always wanted to shoot into the sun…which was a challenge, you ended up with blocked up shadows or blown out highlights and then, I discovered gradual neutral density filters. These filters enabled me to balance out the light as it entered the camera and in the process of learning how to use these filters I developed my own style. In fact, as I look back there is one photograph that literally was a turning point. I call the shot “Solitaire” and it was taken on the beach in my hometown of Southport England. From that point on there has been a theme in my work that incorporates shooting into the light, with water and clouds, a sense of moodiness, and in some cases maybe even a little melancholy…I have a tendency to be drawn to billowing clouds and the movement of busy seas.

SM: What inspired you to create the “Contemplations” series, and how do you choose the themes for each short film?

GR: As I look back now at the journey that ended up resulting in my series Contemplations, it seems like a number of disconnected events that somehow culminated in a collection of work that I can only describe as being inspired. it definitely feels like something that came through me rather than by me…I simply added my voice to the song, so to speak.

It was during Covid that it struck me that I wanted to do something to try and get people to talk about what we had in common as humans, rather than all the fear based bickering that was grabbing the headlines.

A couple of years earlier I had participated in a course called “The Artists Way” and one discipline that stuck with me was writing morning pages, every day, three pages longhand. Well, after a few years I had quite the collection of ideas and thoughts and Covid gave me the opportunity to organize these thoughts into short essays. Sitting back it became clear to see that these essays were part of a bigger picture…at the time, I just didn’t know what.

While I was compiling my thoughts into cohesive short essays something completely unrelated to anything I had done in the past came my way. The lockdown had just started and I got a call from a producer who needed someone who could give her three different English accents for an audio play she was producing. I had never done anything like this, but it was a paying gig, so I said yes. All went well and I came away realizing I could narrate if needed!

This whole period was a time of deep introspection for me, particularly after an event that led me through a “dark night of the soul” experience. I did a lot of soul searching and reading from spiritual teachers, Eckart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Rupert Spira, and others. Also, a good friend gave me a small book called “365 Tao” to assist me with my meditation practice. I loved this little book and decided to narrate a couple of exerts and add one of my landscape photos – Here I remember showing my wife and she looked at me and said, “that’s nice, but why don’t you narrate your own writing?”

So, over the next eighteen months I produced thirteen Contemplations. I didn’t choose a theme…the theme chose me; I had no plan what I was going to do with them outside of sharing with fiends and my Facebook following.

SM: Your work blends photography with sound and narration. Can you describe your creative process for integrating these elements into a cohesive storytelling experience?

GR: It became pretty obvious that I wanted each piece to be part of a collection, so before I even started, I designed an intro that would be used on the beginning of each short film. Visually, when choosing the photographs, I simply looked through my portfolio to find images or groups of images that I thought would fit with the narration. This was true particularly with “Dirt and Wreckage” I wanted a physical man-made structure to emphasize the weight of ideas and old stories we all carry around that so often stifle our very soul. That burden is true for most of us and it’s very real and very heavy, until we discover, for ourselves, we have the ability to shed, to brush away the things that have been said to us, and by us, that no longer serve us…we get to change the story, but only after we recognize the old debilitating ones.

Initially I had tried still shots, then video clips, but neither of these elements seemed right visually, they were somehow too familiar, I wanted something that just caught the viewer off guard just enough so as to keep them engaged, but not distracted from the narration. Once I found software that would animate elements of the still pictures I decided to just animated the sky and the water. This created something different visually. The animated images seemed to add the sense of the cinematic experience I was looking for. The sounds of birds, wind, rain and ocean were then added to complete the overall feel of connection with the visual, musical and audio narrative.

SM: Several of your short films have received awards at film festivals. Could you share which of these awards have been particularly meaningful to you and why?

GR: I think getting an award in of itself is a great feeling. I tended to target short film festivals in general, so getting selected or nominated by any festival is a thrill for me. I can’t say any one of them had more appeal than the others. The work producing Contemplations has been fairly lonely, I would come up for air and ask for feedback from my wife Jan, but by and large I was on my own, so to get recognition from anyone outside my circle was a thrill and a privilege.

SM: How do you stay updated on the latest developments in photographic and video technologies, and how do these innovations influence your work?

GR: Right now, I spend a lot of time on YouTube finding out what’s available and I’m just staggered at the pace of innovation, particularly with AI. So far, I’ve been using AI for upsizing and repairing old images and video I have not created any original work, although with the latest version of Photoshop it’s hard for me to imagine I won’t be diving into that in the very near future. I have been playing around with text to image and text to video, but I’m not too excited by the results, however that probably has more to do with my inability to come up with the best prompts! Either way, as a creative it’s better to embrace the new technology than run away from it. At the end of the day we are storytellers and anything that helps us do that has to be an asset.

SM: “The Great American Coastline” project seems like a monumental endeavor. How has this journey influenced your perspective on nature and photography?

GR: I would say that “The Great American Coastline” project was an epic leap for me creatively. For the first time in my life, I was able to immerse myself in a concept with no expectations or influence from anybody else. It turned out to be way bigger that I could have ever imagined, in fact, if I had known beforehand what I was in for, I might have held back.

Once I had started, I was like a kid in a candy store. I emerged into a coastline I had not experienced before. Everything was different, the weather, the smell of the Pacific Ocean, the size of the waves and the swell. To say it was an environment rich with opportunities would be an understatement. Having my wife Jan along with me took a lot of pressure off me as she organized finding camp sites, food and just the everyday necessities of life living in a twenty-seven-foot Airstream for four months.

For our Kickstarter supporters I produced a coffee table book and a twenty-five-minute video that was not meant to be a documentary. It was really simply a visual audio meditation of the journey. It marked the first time I incorporated video into one of my productions, it was also the first time I attempted to animate stills. What I learned during that trip and the work that followed, became a bedrock to my approach to producing “Contemplations”.

I learned to be open to other creative ideas while working on a project. While I was shooting for the Great American Coastline project something unusual happened. I started conversations with people, characters, who came into my space and I started asking them their philosophy of life, and then I would take their picture, just with my iPhone using an app that looked like a tin type photograph. When I had my exhibition at the Von Liebig Art Gallery here in Naples I had a side exhibition of the road portraits and I was surprised how much attention they got…again proof that we all want to know each others story! So, the lesson was, don’t be so focused on what your doing that you smother other creative avenues.

I guess the biggest thing I learned technically and stylistically, apart from taking the time to sit in the scene and let ideas come through me, was how incorporating both stills and video in my vision can be a very powerful storytelling technique.

SM: What do you enjoy most about giving personal presentations of your work, and how do audiences typically respond to your films?

GR: I have done a number of personal presentations. The thing I have enjoyed the most has been seeing the work on a big screen sometimes as big as thirty feet across. This is how I always imagined the work to be experienced. There is the impact of scale, especially when the visual is combined with a great sound system. I refer to my series as short films because I want them to be seen as cinematic, whereas video always seems to describe something smaller that you watch on a TV.

My initial intention was for the audience to have a conversation with me after each film is shown, however, that turned out not to be the case. I discovered that people are a little reluctant to share their deepest feelings at the best of times, this was especially true in a room full of strangers, however, I have had a lot of people telling me afterwards how much they enjoyed the films and that I had given them lots to think about, which for me is pretty much “mission accomplished”.

SM: Your website mentions the “Vidéage®” technique. Could you explain how this multimedia presentation approach enhances storytelling for businesses and viewers?

GR: A “Vidéage®” is a video production that blends moving stills with video. It is a style of storytelling that I have developed with my wife and refined it over my whole career. As a photographer I know the power of a single still image and I also recognize how video can make its own unique impact…so, when you combine the two together it can take storytelling to another level.

SM: You’ve been involved in philanthropic projects like the Florida Dental Association’s Mission of Mercy. How do you use your photography to contribute to causes you believe in?

GR: That particular “Vidéage®” is still one of my favorite corporate productions. I combined stills, time lapse, and video together. I think each element brought about it’s own impact to the storyline. I also feel using the different elements keeps the viewer engaged. For both me and my wife contributing to charities by helping them get their story out to the public has way more impact than if we simply made a financial contribution.

SM: Your recent post discusses the concept of “laying in fallow” and its parallels to the creative process. How has embracing stillness and reflection impacted your artistic journey, and what advice would you offer to fellow creatives undergoing similar periods of transition?

GR: I think incorporating stillness, reflection, meditation or contemplation into one’s life can only ever be helpful, the benefits touch every aspect of our lives and that includes emotional, spiritual and creatively. A busy mind is the surest way to kill the soul of an artist.

I find I now take less photographs, but the quality and depth seem to be better than ever. I have found that some of my best work has always come to me when I am out of my usual environment, when I have no deadlines and no expectations when I can simply be me, in the moment, lost in nature. I see my landscape photography as part of my spiritual practice, being present, being aware are both essential for great photography.

I try to be less busy these days in general, and I’m ok if I go out with the intention to take a landscape picture and I don’t get anything…I just simply enjoy the time spent walking in nature, and I know in my heart that when the right moment comes along, and my mind is quiet, I’ll be open and receptive to whatever presents itself to me. My job is then simply to capture it. 🔆

“A busy mind is the surest way to kill the soul of an artist.”

– Gareth Rockliffe

Useful Links

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook

Join the Conversation

Engage with us! After reading our insightful interview, we invite you to join the conversation. Share your thoughts by answering these three questions:

1. What aspect of Gareth Rockliffe’s journey resonated with you the most?
2. How do you think technology has impacted the art of storytelling in photography and video?
3. Have you experienced a moment of ‘laying in fallow’ in your own creative process? How did it shape your artistic journey?

Drop your comments below and let’s keep the dialogue flowing!

---

DISCLAIMER: Spotlyts Magazine does not provide any form of professional advice. All content is for informational purposes only, and the views expressed are those of individual contributors and may not reflect the official position of Spotlyts Magazine. While we strive for accuracy and follow editorial standards, we make no guarantees regarding the completeness or reliability of the content. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research and seek professional assistance tailored to their specific needs. Any links included are for reference only, and Spotlyts Magazine is not responsible for the content or availability of external sites. For more details, please visit our full Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Service.

Highlight of the Day

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

— Uncle Ben, Spider-Man

More Stories for You