Biography

Jonathan Olley born in London in 1967, he attended Chelsea School of Art in 1985 with the intention of studying fine art. When he discovered the war photography of W.Eugene Smith, Don McCullin and Lee Miller. Olley then determined that photography was the best way to combine his artistic and social interests. However the dean at Chelsea did not agree and Olley was ejected. Despite this Olley persuaded the post-graduate course at the University of Wales Newport School of Documentary Photography to take him on.

Olley photographed the transformation of Eastern Europe including the fall of the Berlin Wall and the wars in the former Yugoslavia. On February 5th, 1994, he found himself caught up in what became known as the market massacre in Sarajevo where 68 people killed and 200 others were fatally wounded. Bosnian Serbs were blamed for the mortar attack and in turn they accused Bosnian Muslims of staging the massacre in order to force western intervention. Either way, Olley came to feel that the media was complicit in the carnage. This episode became a turning point in Olley’s style and approach to war reporting. Olley’s images of the Market Massacre were exhibited at Visa pour L’Image in Perpignan, France in 1994, and his photo essay on Sarajevo won him the Observer Hodge Award as the Young Photojournalist of the Year in 1995. However, by then, Olley was becoming more reflective about his work, moving away from breaking news toward a more considered approach to photography.

Why did you fall in love with photography?

A wish to communicate and engage a broad audience in ideas beyond their personal experience. I liked the technical aspect of photography and the 'magic' of processing and printing images. Remember this was before the digital age where the process of producing photographic images had no changes very much since its inception in the early part of the 19th century. The photography of Edward Curtis, W.Eugene Smith, Lee Miller, Don McCullin and Sebasteo Salgado greatly influenced my early love of photography and the power of photography.

Can anyone become a good photographer?

Yes. I think anyone can become a good photographer but the question I think you should really ask yourself is can I become a GREAT photographer? You have to be sensitive to changes in your environment, basically observant and have an urgent desire to record using a camera. Without this last facet the reasons not to photograph something or someone become insurmountable. The other thing I should mention is the amount of hard work good photographers put in to become good and this should not be underestimated.

What is more important, creativity or technique?

Both are as important as one another, good technique enables confidence which allows an opportunity for creativity to take place. It is vital to become familiar with the equipment and materials that are going to be used. Practice technique and you can be a good photographer, creativity can be encouraged but not really learnt, I think creativity is partly a product of early influences, a continual desire to understand the environment that influence our decisions and having the time and confidence to apply creative urges. We all have the ability to be creative but it's about having a language to express oneself and that language can be facilitated through technique. Creativity and technique are inextricably linked in great photography, art and architecture.

Is there such a thing as a perfect picture?

Yes and no, but I'll qualify that answer, simply put the perfection is in the eyes of the beholder, what is perfect to one individual often is imperfect to another. However there is a broad philosophical school of thought in a mathematical perfection in composition. In mathematics two qualities are in the 'Golden Ratio' if the ratio between the sum of those quantities and the larger one is the same as the ration between the larger one and the smaller. Also known as the golden mean, golden section, golden number, and the Greek letter phi. Leonardo Da Vinci's (1452-1519), painting 'The Last Supper' is considered to be the perfect picture and throughout history artists and architects have loosely based their compositions on the Golden mean and therefore could be considered perfect. Photographic compositions are also subject to this philosophy.

What one piece of advice would you give a budding photographer?

Ninety per cent of success is turning up" Oscar Wilde (1854-1900).