Jason Dorley - Brown

As a teenager in 1983 my love of photography took me from my home town of Bath to London to start work as an assistant in a professional B/W darkroom. I worked assisting some wonderful printers including John 'Johno' Driscoll, Tony White and Danny Pope. I progressed to eventually own and manage my own lab, 'BROWNS B/W' in the late 80's through the mid 90's in three locations in Clerkenwell and Hoxton Square.

Over the years my work as a photographic printer brought me into contact with many inspirational photographers including: Norman Parkinson, David Sims, Albert Watson and Rick Guest in London and Peter Lindbergh, Mark Seliger, Patrick Demarchelier and Steven Klein in NYC, where I moved in 1996 before returning to London in 2003.
Although my first love is B/W, my time in NYC was spent working at a colour (C-41) photo lab and this is where my appreciation and love of colour developed.

As a young man I fell in love with the process and mechanics involved in creating a finished print; from selecting a film, releasing the shutter to take a picture, developing the film through to printing the final image. My understanding and recognition of what it is that excites me visually - my ‘eye’ - has developed over the many years spent working in such a creative environment.

Although many of the photographers that I have printed for can been counted as visual influences, it was the passion, inclusiveness and willingness to share knowledge and ideas shown by a few that was my inspiration.

My love of analogue photography has been joined by an appreciation of, and growing understanding for, the digital process of image making. Indeed the vast majority of my images here are taken using a digital SLR. I have also embraced the use of Photoshop and digital image apps to enhance and, in some cases, to completely change the original image.