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Derrick Feole

Derrick Feole
Extraordinary landscapes
Looking through the lenses of simplicity
 
“Photography is about taking a picture, without using the mind. Thinking and knowledge sometimes makes it difficult to see with your heart and feel the simplicity of life and nature” says Derrick Feole when I meet him at his studio in Lucerne on a fresh late summer morning. I’ve recently read that Derrick has paddled the circumference of Lake of Lucerne while shooting images that would be used to make a book. He paddled on a surfboard 113 km for 23 hours and 32 minutes around the complete circumfrence of lake Lucerne with only two to ten minutes breaks. And I have also heard Mr. Feole playing the sax on several occasions in Zug at the City Garden and in Lucerne with the blues band “The salty dogs”. When I ask Derrick who he is at the end of the day - a photographer, a musician or an explorer - he says that he is a little bit of everything, but he feels closest to photography and music. Among the many roads he has travelled in his life is even flying as a pilot for Crossair.
 
Derrick’s images look striking with a breathtaking simplicity I am astounded to think I haven’t noticed. There is a feeling of surrealism that only a particular moment can hold; the emotions pour out of the black and white. “I don’t take the picture, the picture takes me” says Derrick, while I keep staring at his “Sun’s fire”. “This is a cloud, over the top of the Matterhorn, lit by the setting sun”, explains Derrick. It’s difficult to believe he is not using photoshop to manipulate the picture beyond what he did in the real dark room many years ago: “I use photoshop for basic photoediting which is limited to desaturation (for black and white conversations), sharpening, dodging and burning when needed, cropping and then file preparation for printing which I do myself on my large format printer. I believe the best results come when a photographer knows how to manipulate the camera” says again the 46-year-old photographer. He started taking pictures for the first time at the age of 6. His grandfather gave him a 35 mm pocket-size camera and taught him that people have the ability to see things differently. “When I am photographing a person or a landscape I see the best thing and pull it out, then place it at the centre of the photograph.  I have the ability to think and look in three dimensions, so why should I manipulate the picture once it is ready?”.
 
Derrick Feole was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts and grew up under the guidance of his grandfather Angelo (now 98 years old), a professional photographer and musician. He was a quiet child who dealt with his loneliness through music and photography.  He studied biology and piano. His first real landscape image was taken with a medium format camera while he was in the Southwest to run the St. George Marathon in Utah. In 2000 Derrick Feole became a pilot for Crossair, “but I could feel that was not me, it was exciting and I could go anywhere, but what was in my heart was photography and music” says Derrick about this period of his life. However, on one of those flights from Boston to Zurich, he met Colette Bastin, who was working for Swiss Airlines at that time. She loved Derrick’s photography and offered him to do some images for the Swiss Airlines menu. For a second time in his life Derrick Feole saw that people appreciated and wanted to buy his work, but was still not confident enough to make a living out of it.
 
“Why landscapes?” I ask. Derrick finds nature a great source of inspiration, his images have power that pulls you in, makes you part of the picture. “I have an ability to think and look in three dimensions” says Derrick and adds “I don’t use digital change, it is always what I see through the lenses”. 
 
In 2005 some of his images were displayed at the First and Business Class Lounges of Swiss International Airlines in Zurich and New York JFK. A few years later, Biogen Idec in Zug bought some of his photographs and with the increasing interest, Derrick decided to devote his life to his dream. More of his images are exhibited today at the Panorama Lounge, Terminal E, at the Zurich Airport and Star Alliance at Los Angelis Airport.
 
 
Tsitaliya:How do you see the future of photography, where do you see the limits of photography today?
Derrick Feole: Strangely I see the limits in equipment. Today I do my images with a full frame 16.6 megapixel camera, but I am looking for the 40-60 megapixel medium format cameras. They offer much better resolution for printing the large format images. Talking about techniques and ways of improving the image I have to say that the human mind could be the greatest limitation on the way a photographer takes a picture. Our eyes are not trained to notice the simplicity and they lack the focus on the details in nature. We are not hunters any more and we don’t live in caves, technology has made our lives so much easier and comfortable, but on the other hand, we don’t see nature any more the way our ancestors did.
 
Tsitaliya:In what way have your images developed over the years?
D. Feole: My photography has its own life, it is a living organism that has become more and more abstract, right now transitioning into a surreal type of work. I have returned to black and white.
 
Tsitaliya:What or who made you the person you are today?
D. Feole:A few things, but most of all photography itself and music. If I did not study those two things when I was little I wouldn’t have been able to find myself as an artist.
 
Tsitaliya:What was the most important lesson you’ve learned from your grandfather?
D. Feole:He kept telling me “What I see is not what you see” and “Good photography is a result of experience, not knowledge. If you understand how the camera works in its most basic principles you will be able to photograph anything”.
 
 Tsitaliya Mircheva
 

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