Chris Crossley
Dream images: Chris Crossley gains international recognition for his stunning photography
Chris Crossley is developing his photographic skills and getting attention for his haunting, engaging and unique images which capture the emotions of his varied subjects to stunning perfection.
A life in art
“I’ve always had an attraction to photography,” muses Chris from Talbot, Victoria.
“I have a vast range of work that shows I am capable,” Chris says, “but I never had some sort of certificate to show people that I can really do what I say I can do!”
“I’m a qualified graphic reproductionist,” explains Chris, “which is a role involved in the printing trade.” He speaks of his former career in graphic reproduction in the 80s and 90s.
“I started in 1981 and the system was analogue back then,” he says, “Everything was done by hand – on tables, with paintbrushes, lightboxes, cuttings and masks,” Chris remembers. He began his graphic career creating imagery for popular Australian novels, bringing the authors’ ideas to life.
“The work I was doing for book covers and illustrations were the bits that the illustrators couldn’t get to ‘work’,” he says. “Often, they would have the concept in their mind and they’d have some of the work done, some of the pictures. But to make it ‘how they saw it’ they needed a graphic reproductionist to do it.”
“I was Photoshop before Photoshop existed,” laughs Chris. “So I had a fairly good grounding in the use of cameras, enlarging and colours and all that stuff.”
“For my former work, I had to use a process camera and I had to use enlargers – that was what we termed ‘basic camera craft’.”
Chris says that he has always had a love of cameras, since about the age of nine. Although he dabbled with imagery in his career, he says that he always only considered himself a hobby-ist.
“I haven’t really taken it seriously, really, apart from the last three or four years.”
