About The Talk
"I am an advertising art director turned photographer and since my teenage years I have carried a camera everywhere I go. My time in advertising immersed me in the world of ideas and my photography is deeply influenced by this. I love it that life just happens and takes us where it will - because that means my camera never knows what is coming, and it is only the unknown that can astonish and surprise us. In 2018 I won the Leica/Street Photography International Award so people might categorise me as a street photographer, but I don’t feel called to conform to any particular style. My photography was reviewed in Ppaper Magazine in China recently and I managed to get the Cantonese text translated; the reviewer said: ‘Sometimes it needs you to just enjoy his work, sometimes it requires your eyes to listen to the jokes it is telling you.’ I now call the way I work Listening With My Eyes." - Alan Burles