Local Artist Series // Warwick Gow
Who are you and what do you create?
My name is Warwick Gow, and I’m a portrait photographer based out of the Sunshine Coast. My work aims to challenge ideas around people and places, specifically on the Coast and around Brisbane, helping to personalise current socio-political issues.
What materials and techniques do you use?
I work mainly with digital photography and try to minimise any post-processing work, focussing on capturing what I need for the image in camera and on the day. Generally, I facilitate shoots by creating safe spaces for people to be themselves — whatever that may mean to them. My role as a photographer is to ask the right questions, listen, and to capture that process.
What kind of inspirations go into your work?
Besides having creative influences, I take most of my inspiration from the people I’m working with and places I shoot in. By leaving room for a sense of improvisation and play on shoots, I aim to be able to capture something true to the time and place.
In what space do you like to create most?
I don’t have a specific place I like to create in per se, but I do find myself drawn to natural locations a lot of the time. One of my favourite things to do is to go hiking somewhere new with my camera and respond to places I find with self-portraits. It also helps to keep location scouting fun. My home studio is also somewhere I love to create in. I set up in my lounge room and invite friends around to test out different concepts.
What has been your favourite or most important work to date?
This is hard to define as so many of my works have been stepping stones with no real defining moment. But if I had to, I’d say my self-portraits for Creative Spaces (in Residence) during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020. It was the first time I’d really published my self-portrait works, especially something so vulnerable. The response to those pieces has definitely encouraged me to explore that side of my practice more.
To see more of Warwick’s work, head across to his Instagram.
