Launceston photographer speaks through the lens

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NewsLaunceston photographer speaks through the lensBy Piia WirsuSeptember 3 2016 - 4:00pmBy Piia WirsuSeptember 3 2016 - 4:00pmFacebookTwitterWhatsappEmailCopyWHAT REMAINS: An abandoned New

York State psychiatric facility now stands empty and unused. Picture: Jasper Da Seymour The silence of a forgotten, empty space is broken by a mechanical ‘click’. 

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50% off EOFY SaleAll articles from our website & appThe digital version of Today's PaperCrosswords, Sudoku and TriviaAll other regional websites in your areaContinue The shutter opens, light

floods through layers of convex glass. Waves of colour shaft through a hole at the back of a lens before scorching their image on a 36 by 24 millimetre digital sensor. 

Captured.

Jasper Da Seymour thinks an image is more than just an picture; it is a story that culminates in one captured moment. 

A chance photo of Launceston’s city hall at night sparked a passion that has defined Da Seymour’s adult life. 

“I don’t do what I do for money, I do what I do because I love it and I want to share it with people and get them excited about it,” Da Seymour said. 

The images he creates are intriguing, beautiful and at times disturbing. Each second spent examining the frame seems to reveal another small detail that, when combined, tell a story words

couldn’t.

The debris of lives left behind. Picture: Jasper Da Seymour Da Seymour recently returned from the US, where he wanted to uncover the hidden story of economic ruin that swept across the

country in the global financial crisis. 

His images document the abandoned infrastructure of once mighty cities, now skeletons of a failed capitalist society. 

“Whether it’s industries that have died out like car manufacturing or whether it's unneeded industries… all these decaying spaces that have been left and just sit there rotting slowly,” he

said. 

The photographic project, titled Unmasking America, uncovers the cracks in the glitzy Hollywood facade, uncovering the layers of a complex economic story. 

Da Seymour first went to the US in 2013 in the height of the economic collapse. He describes the experience as apocalyptic. 

“It’s like an economic implosion and you’ve got these redundant and affected souls and these old buildings and it’s just bizarre that it can exist in a space like that. It was like being in

a post apocalyptic nightmare,” he said. 

He was driven to return this year to follow the story and show it was an issue bigger than just one city.

He thinks the lessons that can be learnt from the American experience are global. 

“Being in the American culture, with the fast food and the chain stores, I could see that there are some instances where Australia could follow,” he said. 

“This potential economic fallout could happen at any time and you have to be ready for it. The right factors have to be in place, but people need to realise that it can happen and it has

happened and here’s proof.”

Places were left as though the inhabitants just stepped out, expecting to be back. Picture: Jasper Da Seymour Da Seymour laments the constant drive in the globalising world that everything

has to be done faster, quicker and bigger than it ever has before, leading to redundant industries and lost jobs. 

“That just has a massive knock on effect that’s just like a domino effect straight through the entire country… [It] can affect smaller towns and that can then render industries redundant,”

he said. 

The themes in Unmasking America are echoed in some of Da Seymour’s Tasmanian work, where he has similarly sought out the abandoned places that only hold the echo of the life that once

inhabited them. 

“I’ve always had an interest in why things just get left and why people suddenly go. It's literally just like everyone’s left their tools or left their clothes and they just leave. It’s a

bizarre and a strange atmosphere to be in that space,” he said. 

You’re enveloped and you soak into that space and you feel the thousands of people that have been through those hallways

- Photographer Jasper Da Seymour Perhaps a key ingredient in Da Seymour’s striking images is the way he approaches and experiences the places he enters. 

“You’re enveloped and you soak into that space and you feel the thousands of people that have been through those hallways and you feel the souls that have passed in rooms and you get a sense

of what happened just from being in the space,” he said. 

“For me it's almost like a meditation. I go into these spaces and there’s no one there, but I can feel something … I just try and represent that in the work that I produce.” 

Documenting these spaces does require a certain daring and panache. Da Seymour has encountered some unusual characters, drawn to the abandoned places each for their own reason. 

“Some spaces you don’t know how much time you’re going to have in them because you could have someone living in there,” he said.  

“It could be, like, a gang member hanging in there, which there was in some places. So you want to make sure you’re in and out as quick as possible so that you don't put yourself in any more

danger than you have to.”

LIGHT: Da Seymour's first passion, light painting, uses light to paint an image with no digital manipulation. Picture: Jasper Da Seymour Like many artists, Da Seymour’s success hasn’t just

happened. He worked for years to develop his skill, exploring where the lens can take a viewer, whilst still working to support himself and his passion. 

Until his most recent Unmasking America project, which was crowdfunded, Da Seymour has been entirely self funded. 

“I just wanted a chance. If I can do things off my own back, like my trip to Detroit in 2013, imagine what I can do if someone’s behind me,” he said. 

It seems after years of driving his own success, Da Seymour is getting the backing he deserves. He is now the photographer in residence at Scotch Oakburn College and also runs his own 

photography business. 

Recently two of his photographs were selected as finalists in an international light painting competition. Light painting is a technique that uses light to create an image, with no digital

manipulation. 

The pure and creative nature of light painting immediately captured Da Seymour, who describes it as his first passion. 

“It’s just completely organic. There’s no photo manipulation, it’s just this beautiful visual representation of a performance in space where you’re painting with lights,” he said.  

As he brings together his body of work from Unmasking America, Da Seymour continues to test himself through his photography so he is ready for the next big project. 

I will never stop learning about myself or the world we live in, which is pretty exciting in my eyes. You never know what tomorrow will bring.

- Jasper Da Seymour “I will never stop learning about myself or the world we live in, which is pretty exciting in my eyes. You never know what tomorrow will bring,” he said.  

One thing is true; the world needs artists like Da Seymour, who challenge, inspire and tell the forgotten stories from which we could all learn so much.

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