"It started by accident, just with one picture."
How did you get into digital artwork?
When I left college in the early nineties I did a BTEC in photography, that’s when digital was just starting. I did my entire BTEC on film. Because of the style I was doing stuff in at that point, mixing in bits of graphics with this that and the other, one of the lecturers said you should try this ‘new Photoshop thing’. We had the ‘all new’ first edition of Adobe Photoshop. I’ve never looked back, I do maybe 99% of my artwork in Photoshop now and love it.
With a name like Video Mat video must be a passion as well?
Ah! Yes, and no, I do love my video but the closest I’ve got to actually working in film is doing movie style posters. The name came from years and years ago. There were two Mats in my circle of friends one into music and one into film. The name stuck.
Did you have a set of goals when you set out on this project?
"I’ve usually got a camera to hand, even it’s just the mobile. One Friday night round my house there was four of us and we were watching Fellini’s Papillon on TV, everyone was a bit wasted and hanging out. I thought that would make an interesting picture, put the camera in front of the TV for an on the spot panorama and it grew from there.
How do you put your living room landscapes together?
The panoramas are made up of multiple images stitched together, usually three images taken consecutively. Without flash, which makes for long exposures, so capturing people can be tricky!
What kind of camera do you use for your indoor compositions?
It’s nothing special, it’s a really old point and shoot, a Nikon Coolpix… nothing you can’t get out of Jessops! With this it’s inconspicuous but with, say, a medium format camera its cumbersome and professional looking so people forget to relax, whereas with a point and shoot there’s no setting up and you can get away with more.
Are the people in the photos all mates of yours?
They’re all mates, yeah, it’s just round their houses. It started off as just people doing whatever they’re doing at a particular time, so they’re simply titled with the time of day they were taken.
In a lot of cases that’s just sitting round in their pants.
Yeah. What I said to them is ‘what would you be doing if I wasn’t here?’ and a lot of the time it's probably just hanging round in their pants watching TV and stuff. If that’s what they want to do that’s fine by me, I don’t mind!
Have you got any exhibitions lined up?
This project is going up in a couple of places, I’ve got a little showcase going on in The Orange Tree and The Golden Fleece are showing the whole lot, which is great!
Video Mat website
Video Mat website
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