When you visit Simon Larbalestier's web site you enter a dark atmospheric place rich in texture and imagery. His early work will be familiar to Pixies fans from the many great album covers featuring his photographs. The journey takes you through his current work in progress 'Attracting to Emptiness', based in Italy and France, to the ongoing collaborative project with Michael Eldridge titled 'The Physik Garden'.

What is the most exciting aspect of image making for you?

It's all interesting to me - the research, the shooting, processing, printing and finally evaluating.

Where do you go to for inspiration?

My head, heart and gut.

How many hours per week do you spend working on your art?

It really depends on what other things are going on but everything feeds each other - sort of cross pollinates.

What influences the atmospheric qualities of your photographs?

My emotions at the time of printing the image.

What gave you the idea for the borders on your early work?

A sense of purity! No cropping, everything seen as it is. Now I'm more flexible.

Do you have a favorite site (or sites) on the web that you keep going back to?

Not yet.....

How much studio/darkroom manipulation goes into the finished print?

Depends on what you call manipulation - each print is toned in a particular way and that can take forever.....there is no electronic retouching unless it's for a commission.

Are your subjects on the covers of 'Come On Pilgrim' and 'Surfer Rosa' friends or professional models?

Friends and friends of friends.

Did you develop the photographs from the song lyrics or did you have work that fitted the words by chance?

For 'Come on Pilgrim' the work already existed. It was an area I was exploring whilst studying at the Royal College of Art, London. 'Surfer Rosa' came about as an idea from the band initially and then Vaughan and I developed it as we shot it.

Do you still do work with Vaughan Oliver and 4AD?

I haven't done in a while but I hope we will in the future. It's just a case of waiting for the right sort of project with a decent budget.....

You use hair frequently in your images. Is it a symbol or metaphor for you?

Not consciously but now you come to mention it hair does interest me.....

In your studio/workspace do you have a particular inspirational photograph, painting, sculpture or book?

Yes, it is a print of my son when he was 4 months old precariously balanced on a chair just before he could support himself. It evokes all the tensions that I feel about fatherhood and is one of my best (in my view) printed images on a paper sadly no longer available.

Are you consciously moving from the figure subjects in your earlier work to the mysterious landscapes in your recent work?

Yes but then this has been the case for the last twelve years. However it has only been the last two when the landscape imagery has become my major focus. The latest project 'The Physik Garden' encompasses this.

Will you exhibit this work outside of the internet or is it for online viewing only?

Through a chance fax enquiry (just before I launched the web site) Heather Snider from the Scott Nichols Gallery in San Francisco, has taken some of my prints and a show is planned for the fall of next year. I would like to exhibit the work elsewhere. I am very interested in exhibiting in the East. Australia would also be very interesting. Now that I have the site up and running I hope to be able to explore more avenues with a view to showing the work.

What photographers would you cite as influences?

Photographers' work I like runs like this... Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Minor White, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Arthur Tress, Duane Michals, Dieter Appelt, Hans Geog Berger and Joseph Sudak to name but a few.

The tree photographs on your site have a cinematic quality, especially with the misty light coming in from the background. Have you done any film work?

No but I would really like to be involved with film it's just something I have not had a chance to explore yet.

Your site design has merged so well with your image style and mood, do you see your site as an adjunct to your photography or as a potential artform in itself?

It's early days - the site was originally seen by myself and the designers, Brett and Dave at Reactor, as being an integral part of my work, really a bulletin board for posting new work and floating ideas but now I think It may well turn into a form of its own.

Has the Internet as a medium lived up to your expectations so far?

Even though the Internet requires low resolution scans of my work I am continually surprised at how much atmospheric quality is still retained in the images. At heart I am firmly rooted in the traditional side of photography. I use old methods i.e. I process my films one at a time using Pyrogallol and I have just set up two very old Leitz Focomat enlargers. I still print my larger film sizes on an old cold cathode head and I am using rangefinder cameras. The point I am making is that although part of my thought process and technical equipment employed to express my imagery is very traditional - the digital advancements still hold a high degree of fascination for me.

The web site and the Internet provide a new medium to explore the communication and potential marketing of my images - the way I see the world - and I believe that the site will undergo significant changes and link with much bigger and wider projects in the future. A new artform is a difficult term to describe web sites I think it's too early yet but things are moving.....and judging by the number of people visiting my site and sending me e-mails anything is possible!

What is the best advice you can give to an aspiring artist?

Trust your instinct and intuition.....

Can you share an art, design or photography trick with us?

No! I'm still looking myself..... 

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