Given your passion for craft and texture, do you ever find it a challenge to translate those tactile qualities into the 2D medium of photography?

I’ve been a photographer for a long time, and a comment I get often about my photography is its tactile and painterly nature. Those elements result principally from the light in the image and also the fact that I like to photograph spaces that have texture and patina. Along the way, I've started to explore texture in 3D and to build a whole visual world - my own universe.

Would you say you have a signature photographic style when capturing a space?

When I was first working as an interiors photographer, I’d go to peoples’ houses and completely rearrange the furniture to make the photo look right. I just thought that's what you did. Later, I discovered that wasn’t what you needed to do, and that photographers typically just went to people’s homes and photographed them as they were - I just thought the whole point was to make the best photograph you could. That was pure naivety on my part, but it’s because I looked at everything through the lens of what the daylight was doing at the time, so I would just arrange the room around the light, which is how I organize my own home.

What sparked the concept of converting your images into textiles?

I worked principally as a commercial photographer for 20 years and, at some point, I just had the desire to create more personal work and to experiment more. In that process of experimentation, I was looking at different modes of reproduction, and different mediums on which to produce a photograph. Fabric and fabrication have been something I’ve always loved. Before I was a photographer, I made and designed clothes. Then I became a fashion photographer. My photography thus came from quite a tactile place in the beginning and, to take that one step further, I really wanted to create a tapestry using an image I had made. At the time, technology and digital print were evolving to make these experiments possible, so I had the photograph woven into a tapestry, and that’s what started my journey with textiles.

From textiles to ceramics to interiors, you have a talent for so many artistic mediums. Does photography still hold court as your preferred artistic expression, or is it an ever-changing hierarchy?

I think photography runs along the side of everything I do. It’s always there, always present for me. I like taking photos. I’ve done one or two series of floral still lives, and I’m about to launch another one that I’m really excited about at the moment. I’m always using (photography), and I use it in lots of ways. I’ve had the opportunity recently to make products that have been installed in different places and, and when I put a camera on those installations, it’s often how I judge whether it’s working or not.

Your photographs are very singular in the vivacity and boldness of your colors. What are the developing processes you employ to achieve this effect?

This is a yes and a no answer. I have always worked (or at least for 99% of the time) with daylight and I am attracted to a certain type of light at (a) certain time of day. There’s a mood of light that I’m attracted to, which in and of itself creates the color. When I see that sort of color palate arriving, that’s what I want to photograph, so already there’s an embedded color code in the picture. I have done various things along the way to play with that and enhance elements but, very often, the resulting photo is just the room as it is in that moment. Camera, subject, click. The color results from the quality of light that I like.

I have explored a few different techniques outside of that. When I first started taking photos in the '80s, people were experimenting a lot with processing E6 film through C-41 and vice versa, and I indulged in a lot of that experimentation. When I was finally forced into working digitally in the early noughts and it became easy to print your own photos, we played around a lot using the “wrong” paper in the printer to create different effects. These “experiments" led to me creating the fabrics. However, though I’ve definitely played with techniques, that’s not present in my interiors photography.

Your images of interiors are unique in that they always manage to portray a human, emotive element, regardless of whether a person is in frame or not. Was this a conscious stylistic choice or something that organically evolved with your aesthetic?

I’m very attracted to “the artist’s studio” and things that are in process, that spirit of making. And it’s probably why I keep trying my hand at different things because I love the making process. It’s almost as if once something is up and running, it has less appeal for me. I love that sense of “beginning,” and I’m not personally attracted to the neat, tucked-in, finished result. I can really appreciate it in other people’s work. But, for me, I prefer a sense of evolution rather than a sense of finality.

Prince St Living Room, 2016 c/o Martyn Thompson

You’ve worked around the globe throughout your career. Has this had a particular influence on your aesthetic and, if so, are there specific places that speak most to you?

I think that everyone has some sort of internalized aesthetic or has elements of things that they’re attracted to that’s natural to them because I can see from the first works I ever made as a teenager to today, there are some consistencies in color and tactility. But what happens over time, definitely, is that you go places, you meet people, and your whole life is a process of introductions to new experiences and things. Those things have an impact on you. Sometimes you meet someone or see something, and it stays with you. I would often integrate that thing into my practice somehow. I think one’s aesthetic becomes more and more interwoven and sophisticated as you grow older. You sort of embrace what suits you, which isn’t the same as consciously taking ideas from people. I think you just take things on board when you love them.

I've done two books with Ilse Crawford, who introduced some important ideas into people‘s consciousness around interiors to do with the senses and tactility. In working with her, I got to meet a lot of people, many of whom are big players in the interiors world, and that definitely influenced me. When you watch talented people working it’s inspiring.

When you’re young and are trying on different identities for size, they look distinctly different. You might be this thing one minute, and that thing the next but, eventually, everything starts to merge together. I do believe there is an aesthetic we are born with - a kind of internal editing machine. For example, as a teen, unaware of the visual aspects of Bloomsbury, I absolutely loved the writings of Virginia Woolf. A few years ago someone compared my apartment to a “modern Bloomsbury.” So, although I was originally attracted to the writing, years later, someone is comparing my space to the more visual side of Bloomsbury. I think I was attracted all along to the spirit of that movement - but it took time to uncover all the elements. There’s a nature and nurture influence on everything. Things influence you that you don't notice but as you get older you are more able to define what it is that you’re attracted to.

You’ve authored two of your own interiors books (and worked on many others, to enormous acclaim). Is another photography book something you’d be looking to produce in the future?

Never say never! There was a moment in time when I had a couple of books published and I became aware of how many books there were out there in the world. All that paper. Things do look wonderful on the internet these days. If I felt I had something really great to show that was new I’d be interested. And if it don't, that would be OK, too!

H. Bazaar L. Crawford c/o Martyn Thompson

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