Colin Prior: Window on a Wild World
Colin Prior began working with Macs five years ago, when he launched his own publishing business. “You have to use Macs in publishing”, he says, “but once you’ve used a Mac, you don’t want to go back to Windows”.
“I think technology empowers people, but we must be the master and technology the slave. With Windows, it’s the other way round. The Mac environment is so simple to use, and there’s no viruses to worry about”, he adds.
Aperture is a real evolution. It’s demystified the technology and put the imagery back in front of photographers for perhaps the first time since digital photography evolved.
Prior makes extensive use of Aperture, importing images in RAW format directly from his camera, editing and adjusting them. He likes the all-in-one nature of the solution. “Where it’s really good is that when you want to email images to a picture editor or colleague, you can send them using Aperture’s built-in distribution system”. The software’s ability to take images and apply batch conversions is also incredibly helpful, he remarks.
When Prior is at work, he’ll capture numerous images, so Aperture’s easy management of metadata and its built-in ability to stack images in groups according to when they were captured, or other user-configured criteria, based on the EXIF data imported with the pictures from the camera, is essential. It helps him manage his ever-growing image library. “It makes the whole process of editing much easier”, he says. “Batch processing is far more instinctive than it is in Photoshop”.
Prior sees Aperture as the digital equivalent of working in a photo lab: “It turns information from your camera into information your brain understands”, he says. Being able to quickly and easily add keywords and other information to individual images and groups of images “gives you the ability to communicate with those images”.
“Aperture is a real evolution”, he says. “It’s demystified the technology and put the imagery back in front of photographers for perhaps the first time since digital photography evolved. I think the evolution will continue to make this whole process more streamlined”.
The move to digital photography has been a challenge, requiring Prior to relearn many aspects of image capture. “If you want to understand what’s beyond the programme button on your camera, you still need to learn the basic principles of photography”.
Prior has published three books, with a fourth, ‘The World’s Wild Places’ scheduled for release in October 2006. Ten years in the making, the book showcases many of the world’s most remote locations — from the Atacama Desert to the Ofoten Islands near Norway. ‘The World’s Wild Places’ will launch with an exhibition at the OXO Tower in London, which runs from October 5th to 22nd, 2006.
At one stage, Prior spent four years taking pictures for the British Airways corporate calendar, “I travelled over a million miles to 35 countries in that period”, he explains. “My career has been driven by my passion for wild places. Capturing digitally still leaves me searching for the same photographic opportunities. I still see the same things and connect to the landscape the same way. Technology can’t replace that”.
