Kevin Mason, better known on the internet as Dark Daze, is a UK-based photographer I’ve been following for a few years now. I’ve been reading a bunch of interviews with photographers, thought it’d be fresh to interview Kevin, see where his head’s at, what makes him tick. So here we go:

Here’s the obligatory first question: how’d you get started with photography?

I got started in two ways really, once when I was a kid my dad was working a lecture tour of America, and being a real good guy he took us along. We drove pretty much from NYC to San Francisco. On the way we stayed with some Mormons in Salt Lake city, they were slightly odd couple but as we were pulling out their drive and ready to start the long trek to cali, the lady handed me a plastic instamatic camera- the kind that took those weird film cartridges. I had never owned a camera before, and was so stoked, I even stuck my favourite pink panther sticker on it, and copied my dad in almost every shot he took, standing by his side and pointing at whatever I thought he was pointing at. It was so much fun until I got the pictures back and they were hopeless, fingers over the lens, tiny subjects in a massive landscape, colours nowehere near what I expected. (my dad shot slide film- as most peole did then- I thought my shots would look the same. ) Over the years my parents have bought me 2 secondhand film cameras that at different points in my life got me shooting again. I had a couple of bursts of enthusiasm- mid teens and then early 20’s but then started to be really consumed about 7 years back.

Does the camera matter?

Yes, undoubtably, but also so does the user and the picture. The camera is the instrument, some people make beautiful over whelming images from a shoebox pinhole, and some need the worlds biggest Polaroid camera before they really come alive. I have certain shoots when I absolutely need a better camera, my newest super secret Halloween shoot ended up being shot, on all things, a Nikon- I kinda shudder when I think about it now- but it had to be able to handle a huge range of lighting that I sure as hell wasn’t gonna composite in Photoshop. Although my hands were burning with shame, I knew it had the best lens, and sensor for what I had to achieve. The camera matters in other ways to me tho, some of my cameras I love, couldn’t take a ‘fast’ shot with them, they sometimes feel like they lead me down a different road, and sometimes I lead them. I have talked on my site a lot before about how I love the feel, the weight, the slap-thunk of my bronica, it’s a thing of beauty and rarely allows for ugly pictures. But my little ricoh is fun, it takes throwaway images that sometimes reveal a gem. But I am a geek, I could talk about them for hours, though I guess the context of this question is more aimed at those that upgrade every model, or obsess about sensor size etc.

Is digital vs. film a valid discussion?

Yes for some people. I love many aspects of digital photography, it helps me learn, helps me ‘see’ pictures in the studio and reconstruct them. Plus it helps me get paid, no-one really wants to hire a ‘film’ only snapper- budgets, turnaround times, they are very real aspects of many photographers everyday lives. But to me film is a very real tangible thing, whatever passes through your lens and onto the film is very real, you are left with a negative that has ‘been’ in the space when you took the photo- a digital sensor has none of this idea of being, it nomatter what happens has no soul.

You float seemlessly between high concept and on-the-street shots. Do you have a preference?

I like the high concept ones at the minute- I like to challenge myself and I find studio stuff very difficult- it’s a chance to test myself in a very pressured environment. I don’t really take these photos because I enjoy them, but because I want to see what I can do. I kinda don’t even find it fun- which as I write this makes me realize its pretty criminal situation to be in- but I also have to get them out- it’s a cliché but the images are in my head and I have to put them out there.

Plus and this is a huge point- matt- until recently my ‘assistant’ and now business partner helped me realize almost every one of the ‘high concept’ shoots, it would have been impossible to predict where it would have gone, if at all without him, the lines got so blurred that it made sense to drag him full time into this. Even though he was hesitant for about a year. There are a few others that have helped a massive amount, especially the Ophelia Girls- but sally and matt have kinged it for me.

Do you go into a shoot with a particular intent? Is there a Big Motivation/theme in your work?

Yes there is a continuing theme, or intent. honesty truth, beauty, desire, awkwardness, and falsity are all things I am intent on showing. I am naturally an uncomfortable person with others- I am not a talker when it comes to shooting- I cant really coax things from a model the way that some charmers do- but I do like a nice awkward shot.

I think our image obsession is very false but also very revealing- we construct encounters in social situations, I construct them in my pictures- even the most apparently intimate ones may be very staged. I kinda think of it like how people create a persona when they go to a bar to meet people- my pictures do that, but they don’t ever lie, I hope.

Your girlfriend features in some of your most popular shots. How important is Sally to your work?

Sally is at the hub of almost everything I have shot since I met her- I cant really tell you the fractured mental state I was in before she allowed me to shoot her. But lets say that opening my front door was a trauma sometimes, I didn’t sleep, I walked the streets at night, I was on some crappy police bail, , I was paranoid, drank too much and I didn’t like almost anything that I shot, nowadays I may love a picture a month- that’s huge for me. Anyways she somehow showed me a bit of how to shoot girls- kinda unknowingly- as she hated having her photo taken- really that’s true- she cried when I showed her my first print of her- and not in some affected girly way- but just plain up hated it. It affected me hugely- but somehow we broke thru it. I cant say she really enjoys it now- not with me anyways- but I think she sees that somehow there is a body of work that is kinda her life as I see it over 2 ½ yrs.

Would you consider her a muse, a partner?

I don’t know…. I feel I haven’t really got to grips with how to shoot her yet, so a muse is a difficult one- in some respects absolutely she is, but a true artist would have some kinda idea on where this might lead? Plus I spend so much time with her and am endlessly frustrated that I cant convey what I see and know of her, her true self- but I am trying- maybe if you put all the 100’s of pics together in a flick book- there might be a glimmer of that spirit.

A partner- yeah man- shes huge to me. I cant put it into words so I put it on the internet.

Do you feel yourself in “a groove” as it were, when you’re working?

No I constantly, and I mean constantly am concerned about the next image- I have no doubt I can nail it- but not like Joe Montana knew he could nail it- but the new set up is changing that- I am learning to ease back a bit in the pressure I put on myself. But maybe 50% of my mindset is fear.

Are you worried about your passion being your profession? About the potential to have to compromise your art to make a living?

I am notoriously bad about compromise- that’s part of the reason I bought a Studio Manager on board- to liase and help. I have no doubts about fulfilling a clients needs, ever, but I tend to do it my way as much as possible. I do a lot of personal work that I never put out anywhere, and some I just sit on and let it eat me up inside.

You use Polaroid a lot in your work. What is it that makes Polaroid so special for you? Do you have a particular favorite Polaroid camera?

Yeah the Macro 3 cos it helped me achieve the best 2 images I have made.

But the 340 land is amazing in the summer when the light is good, and the sx70 is just sex really, everyone wants a piece of that baby. *Ahem*

Which is more important: food or film?

Film. Period. I don’t eat when I shoot. At last count I weighed 9st or 126lbs, I am 5’11”, I think that’s borderline unhealthy fixation, but film or digital- this image- this one I need to see next is everything to me- and all other things get put to one side. I am working hard on fixing that though.

Anything else- yeah I probably come across really bad in this- but I held back a whole tonne- if it reads like some kinda Prozac Nation shit then feel free to can it. Oh and come shoot with me- its fun really- I keep all the other stuff hidden out back ?

Thanks to Kevin for being awesome, and for answering all my questions. For free. Now if only he’d come out to LA so we could finally battle.

As well as his studio’s site: Garage Studios