I'm Never Fully Satisfied With The Images I Get
William Sheepskin’s photography is full of life. The vivid colors of local landscapes, the play of light gently caught with the lens, the sudden focus on a small element - create an experience of hope and an endless adventure. People who appear in his work seem to live the moment, fully being in the present, whether caught in a mundane
activity or engaged with their thoughts displayed as a portrait. Working with his subjects to convey this specific feeling, William thoughtfully approaches each frame. With his latest photographs, he explores the beauty of nature and the area working with long exposures.
William Sheepskin is a photographer from Cape Town, South Africa. William spent some of his childhood years in Tanzania and Mauritius, as his family kept on relocating due to his father’s work. In later years, William decided to move to London to study towards his Bachelor's degree in the University of Arts. William speaks of his approach and explains that “there are infinite scenes out there waiting to be stumbled upon or conjured and I've only just started making photographs that I'm consistently excited by.” We chat with William about his childhood, bringing up some warm memories. We discuss one of his latest projects Strange New Habits, a response to the societal changes during the pandemic. William also speaks of his love for experiments in the darkroom and with print photography.
‘I'd often spend days on the beach hanging out with the fishermen, as a 10-year-old, observing their catch and messing around with the crustaceans they threw away. I suppose interactions like that taught me to treat everyone as equals.’
The Beginning
Traveling a lot as a kid and visiting countries in Africa, what do you think you learned and how this might have affected your aesthetics and subjects you choose in photography?
My dad's a Geologist and at a certain point in my childhood, we started moving around a lot, so he could be closer to where he was needed for work. I ended up spending time in Mauritius and Tanzania, with the bulk of my formative years taking place in Dar es Salaam. I think growing up in places like this, where we, for the most part, lived quite isolated lives separate from the expatriate community, gave me an opportunity to experience the places as they were as opposed to through the lens of a foreigner.
I'd often spend days on the beach hanging out with the fishermen, as a 10-year-old, observing their catch and messing around with the crustaceans they threw away. I suppose interactions like that taught me to treat everyone as equals, and by default, everything else around me was equal as well.
When I started making photographs I wasn't very into the 'In your face, THIS IS A GREAT PHOTO' kind of photographs. I think the first image I made with intent was of a bean plant I'd been growing as a homeschooling project when I was 11. When you think about it, absolutely everything around you has the potential to be photographed in a manner that represents it in a great way. It just depends on composition, light, and how well you've observed the subject matter, in my opinion.
‘The most striking insight was probably the realisation that there are always going to be people out there who really don't care for the magic in the world.’
Strange New Habits
Your ongoing series Strange New Habits depicts the way society changed its norms and behavior as a response to Covid-19. What was the most striking insight you discovered while shooting the series?
The most striking insight was probably the realisation that there are always going to be people out there who really don't care for the magic in the world, haha. There's an image I made of a formation of dozens of Cairns for this series that someone built near a popular tidal pool during the strictest stage of lockdown. To me, the fact that someone had gone out and built these wonderful structures was super beautiful. No one knew who had done it, and no one really took credit for it. They were just there as a testament to the fact that in spite of everything going on there were still folks around who could decide to go out and make something for the sake of making it. Then the government knocked them all down, sigh.
What do you think will stay long after the pandemic is forgotten?
I think the limitations of movement and freedom that came with the pandemic have inspired many people that may not have been seeking adventure before to venture out more frequently. I reckon that will stay with them long after the pandemic. Once you've gone out and seen what the world has to offer it's difficult to go back to staying inside and watching TV all weekend.
‘Once you start darkroom printing color negatives and compare them to scans you realise that a lot of the digitisation techniques available these days are super inferior.’
Long Exposure
You’ve recently released some images of nature made with long exposure, which allowed you to captivate deep, saturated colors at night. What are some of the experiments you engage in connected to photography, the gear, and the technique?
I'm always messing around in the Darkroom or playing with new weird camera gear to see if I can stumble onto something that will add to the look of my work. I spend an excessive amount of time trying to get the most out of negatives in scanning them too. Once you start darkroom printing color negatives and compare them to scans you realise that a lot of the digitisation techniques available these days are super inferior when it comes to color rendition. So, finding new ways to bring the color and tonality out of images is a fun pastime, haha. My friend Kent Andreasen, who I believe you've spoken to a few times is super, super good at that.
‘I personally ended up too depressed to get out of bed in the morning because a lot of my self-worth comes from the photographs I make, and being lost in terms of my work made me feel lost in life in general.’
B.A
You received your Bachelor’s from the University of Arts, London. How was this experience living in Europe for three years and leaving Cape Town?
I didn't enjoy London much during the time I spent there. I met some really great friends, and studying photography definitely did develop my sensibilities and choice in the subject matter. However, living in an intense metropolitan area like London, when I'd spent so much of my life in lush tropical areas, definitely didn't agree with me. I was very depressed for a lot of the time that I was there.
The course I was on at UAL was also not the most engaging, I think largely because during my second year they made us guinea pigs for an experimental new form of tutorials where we swapped tutors every week. All this really did was make it so that each tutorial was basically the same, with everyone having to present their entire project from the beginning, and then getting different feedback on the same stuff. It was so confusing and frustrating. It killed my desire to make or talk about photographs for a long while, and I ended up only making work in South Africa when I visited. Both because it was a more inspiring environment, and also because making the entire project before I came back to tutorials meant that they could offer feedback on editing, but that the base body of work was the same, so I didn't have to question myself to the point of insanity when I got different feedback from different tutors.
I don't really feel like anyone was at fault as a tutor, just that it was a super short-sighted strategy from whoever came up with the idea and that it had a negative impact on a lot of people's work. I personally ended up too depressed to get out of bed in the morning because a lot of my self-worth comes from the photographs I make, and being lost in terms of my work made me feel lost in life in general.
How did the subjects of interest develop or change after you completed the degree?
The technical team at LCC is amazing though, I learnt so much about the darkroom, digital printing, and different techniques one can use to make work. I wouldn't be making work as I do now if I didn't have access to their facilities and the super warm, friendly, and incredibly knowledgeable team of technicians.
In the end, this technical knowledge as well as a strong theoretical background did impact my work, and once I'd left university, I was able to just make the work I wanted, but with what I had learned to help inform the decisions I make. This is of course invaluable, but I wish they hadn't done the tutor swap experiment with my year, because I very nearly stopped wanting to make photographs altogether as a result of that period.
The Drive
What is your main passion in photography or what drives you to continue working?
A lot of my self-worth comes from the images I make, I think I'm my own harshest critic, so I'm never fully satisfied with the images I get. I have to go out and make more in the hopes that I'll be closer to where I want to be with each roll I shoot. I don't really think there's a specific point I'll reach where I feel like I am satisfied, but gradual improvement and the interactions along the way are what keep me going. There are infinite scenes out there waiting to be stumbled upon or conjured and I've only just started making photographs that I'm consistently excited by, so hopefully, that continues!
Upcoming Projects
What’s the next thing we’ll see from you? What is the stage this project is in today?
I'm working on a project in a tiny town about 8 hours away from Cape Town that I've been visiting for the last 5 years and am quite excited about. Getting out there consistently has been a struggle with lockdowns and such, but hopefully, once we start getting into winter I'll have the time and freedom to drive back out there and keep meeting people. It's currently just beyond the 'proof of concept' stage, so I've made a bunch of images and can convince myself that it's worth continuing, I just need to get back out there and wander the streets for a while.
