Nicholas Hopkins

Nicholas Hopkins has been taking pictures continuously over the past 20 years and has an archive of over 20,000 images. He is self-taught and enjoys distilling striking images from everyday scenes. Hopkins uses little equipment — just a simple mechanical camera (a 35mm rangefinder) with a standard lens, almost all images taken hand-held. He always uses natural light and takes un-staged photographs. Each image is hand printed and treated with selenium to prevent fading.

Hopkins takes advantage of varied weather conditions to bring out the textures of his subject matter, either profiting from clear sharp days to maximise detail and contrast or, especially in city scenes, using rain to let reflections shine off the tarmac, cars and trains.

Although contemporary in subject matter, Hopkins' photographs are redolent of the 1950s and have a cinematic quality. Among his influences he names the German photographers August Sander (1876–1964) and Albert Renger-Patzsch (1897–1966). In his city scenes he captures still moments against busy urban backgrounds; in the countryside he concentrates on the forms and patterns to be found in nature.

Locations for photographs include New York, California, Estonia and Latvia, London, Suffolk, Poland, Ukraine, Andalusia, Germany, Portugal and Vienna.