Photographer of the month: Chris Milne

Our SOUND talk will Nick Stewart will be documented by Chris Milne, a photographer and designer based in Edinburgh.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m Chris Milne, 22, a recent graduate of Creative Computing at Edinburgh Napier. Since graduating I have been on a placement in Norway, travelled throughout a few of the Nordic countries and early next year I will move to Copenhagen, a city where I went on exchange, to complete another study and work on an exciting start up till the summer. I have been involved in the Edinburgh freelance and entrepreneurial scene for a few years now and it has been a catalyst towards my continual interest in pursuing creative projects.

What inspired you to first pick up a camera?

My Dad has been interested in photography for a long time and when I was 12 – I received one of his old cameras: an Olympus CZ730 bridge camera and just over a year later I bought my first SLR, a Nikon D50. I did a lot of photography as a hobby of many different subjects and it transitioned towards a freelance business in my last year of high school.

What subjects are you most drawn to?

I spend a lot of time in other countries whether for school, work or just my general interest in travelling. I love to photograph everywhere I go and I wouldn’t say I have any preferred subjects but I do a lot of candid, music and event photography.

What is your favourite gear you’re using at the moment? 

I inherited an old manual focus Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 AI-s and it is my favourite lens to shoot on just now. I enjoy using a prime because it encourages you to focus on internal creativity as opposed to zooming in and out. It also uses a manual aperture ring and it has an aesthetically pleasing look with the metal barrel. I like to shoot fully manually as I work a lot on my photographs in Lightroom, recently making a preset which I used on a lot of my photographs from Norway and Iceland that brought out the beauty of the scenes.

Can you list a few of your favourite creative resources?

Instagram is one of my favourites, mainly for travel purposes and also for the variety of techniques and visual styles people use to display their photography.

I’m a big fan of the creative networking bodies around Edinburgh – CreativeMornings, Creative Edinburgh, ESAF; me and my friend Katherine also started up Sandbox who are also on the scene.

Closer to home though, my personal network and the people I know are my favourite creative resource – we discuss ideas, share interesting links and take interest in each other’s skills and I think that is wholly important to a creative lifestyle.

Please tell us the story behind one of your favourite photographs.

I’m going to go for a recent one – I’ve wanted to visit Iceland for a long time and I had heard about the aircraft wreckage on the black sands. So on the Saturday morning with two awesome guys from Texas we drove in convoy before sunrise to go there. After an hours drive through the pitch black we arrived at the parking to begin the 4km walk in freezing temperatures with passing showers on a flat plain which offered little protection.  When were arriving there, it was just us and a Ukranian guy who caught up with us and we were the first five there so I decided to put on my ND filter and shoot some long exposures with the frequently changing sky. I hadn’t realised until I went to edit the photo later that the Ukranian traveller appeared as a ghostly figure in one of my shots which I thought was quite fitting since the crew members of the aircraft had walked away from it when it crashed over forty years ago.

Website: chrismilne.co

Instagram: @chrismilnecreates