It’s About a Place

Featuring Jake Varker Words by Nastasia Khmelnitski

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Jake Varker is a photographer from the South West of England. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Documentary Photography from the University of Plymouth. Jake’s main interest has to do with lyric documentary, in which an artist’s view and inner world come to the foreground in a merge of documentary and staged photography. The poetic approach to making images and narration highlights emotions as a meaningful layer that allows for the photographer, subject, and viewer dynamics. In his project, In The Shadow Of The Rose, Jake goes back to St. Austell in an attempt to capture the atmosphere of his youth, bringing back the memory of what the place and its inhabitants used to be, creating a renewed image of the present.

We speak with Jake about processing emotions and interpreting personal feelings when creating an image. Jake explains his approach, “With my photos, I aimed to create a sense of place and use colour and tone to create something that was in my head.” We discuss the way in which personal experience can lead the project and enhance it with an additional layer of meaning. The exploration of angles and, consequently, the creation of the story by selecting and sequencing the images becomes a central means of constructing the narrative. Currently, Jake works on his new project in which he further researches the connection of color and light in connection to a place.

‘Before photography, I was always out on my mountain bike, exploring the landscape around me. It was this sport that sparked my interest in photography.’

My Story

Hi Jake, nice to have this opportunity to chat with you! Let’s start with what were your main interests before you chose to connect your life to photography. What was your passion before you took an art course at 16 and decided to leave your hometown at the age of 19? 

Hi, thanks for having me! I have a strong passion for the outdoors, and that started from an early age. Before photography, I was always out on my mountain bike, exploring the landscape around me. It was this sport that sparked my interest in photography. Going out into the world on my bike and trying to capture something helped me understand myself and the landscape that I lived in.

‘This project really taught me how to use colour and how it can be manipulated to create feelings and emotions.’

In The Shadow Of The Rose

In the project, In The Shadow Of The Rose, you decided to document your hometown, St. Austell, Cornwall, the place of your childhood. As if the lost memory is too blurred to be reassembled to the fullest, the portrayal of this place of your youth becomes a shadow of what it might have been like through what it is today, its inhabitants, its weather, and its atmosphere. What was your central learning from working on this project, emotionally, aesthetically, or as connected to the memory? What was important for you while working on portraits of the young adults you chose to make?

That project was really important to me and taught me a lot. The most important part was that it helped me mature. Emotionally, it taught me to be more open, and to accept certain thoughts and feelings. The project was inspired by negative thoughts and making that work allowed me to understand what I was feeling. With my photos, I aimed to create a sense of place and use colour and tone to create something that was in my head. This project really taught me how to use colour and how it can be manipulated to create feelings and emotions. With the portraits, it was important that I was honest and ethical, I didn’t want to portray anyone in a bad light, yet I wanted to create portraits that reflected my own feelings. To help with this, I spent time with the people I photographed, often talking about St. Austell, growing up in the town, and what we thought the future might be for the place.

‘My coursemates had a big influence on me. Many of them I’m still good friends with now. We all pushed each other to make work.’

Documentary Photography

You gained your Bachelor’s degree in Documentary Photography at the University of Plymouth. What led you to choose photography? What was the course or theme that had a major influence on your approach to making images?

Photography is something that plays on my mind a lot. Nothing else is like it. Going to university and studying the subject felt like the only way to understand my relationship with it. The lectures at Plymouth were really helpful and inspiring. The course allowed us to explore areas of photography that we found interesting, not limiting us to one area of photography. My coursemates had a big influence on me. Many of them I’m still good friends with now. We all pushed each other to make work and having that constant social aspect was really helpful for me.

‘Documentary photography has changed from something factual and objective to something more personal and reflective. There are a few different terms for this new style, Speculative Documentary, Poetic Documentary, New Documentary.’

Poetic Form

You often emphasize that it is important for you to create work that is, in a way, poetic and generates feelings and emotions. It seems that you enjoy the process, always being present and looking for something that might be touching, that catches your eye, rather than looking for something that will complete research on or a story about a certain subject. What is the concept of a lyric documentary for you? Could you elaborate on that?

This is an area of photography that I’m really interested in. It's exciting to see how it's evolving. Documentary photography has changed from something factual and objective to something more personal and reflective. There are a few different terms for this new style, Speculative Documentary, Poetic Documentary, New Documentary, or maybe it’s not even documentary at all. The term Lyric Documentary seems to call out to me the most, first coined by Walker Evans in 1964. I suppose Lyric Documentary is when you go out into the world and photograph something, yet you have framed it a certain way and sequenced it with other images based on your own feelings and experiences, you’ve collaborated with the world and your emotions to make something personal yet accessible to other people.

A Sneak Peek

What project/s are you currently working on, and what should we expect next in terms of themes you’re developing? 

I’m shooting for a new project at the moment, it's proving to be quite difficult and slow, but I’m enjoying the fact that I can take my time with it. Similar to In The Shadow of The Rose, it’s about a place, or rather it's based on a place. On one hand, I see this new work as being opposite to my last project; on the other, it’s a sort of sequel, I’m continuing the story I started with In The Shadow of The Rose.

I’m trying to step back with my new project. In previous projects, I knew what I wanted to make and what I wanted the work to look like. Whereas this new project is still in development, and I’m learning things about the work as it progresses. I’m using colour, tone, and light to create a sense of place again. There are a few things I wasn’t able to do in my last project, so with this new work, I aim to experiment with my photos and how I use them.