An interview with Mike Press.

We spoke with Mike Press previously our Professor of Design Policy at University of Dundee and currently the director of Open Change Ltd. Someone we knew would have interesting perspectives on Changing Dundee as he is not from Scotland and has played a huge part of the city’s regeneration.

When living outside out Scotland had you heard of Dundee, did you know much about it?

“My uncle came from Broughty Ferry. I hadn’t got a clue were Broughty Ferry was and he was very insistent that he came from Brought Ferry. Most of my family were in Bristol…I only had a vague notion of where Dundee was, but he insisted that “no, I’m not from Dundee I’m from Broughty Ferry”. So, I had kind of heard about Dundee from quite a young age because my Uncle was from nearby.”

Had you visited before moving?

“The first time I visited was 1997 and by this time I knew where Dundee was. I actually remember the first time it kind of got on my radar as a Creative City. I go down to New Designers in 1991 I think it was.  It’s full of all these students showing their work… thousands…about 120 different colleges. I remember saying to my colleague “what’s the top ones to go and see?” and he says “What you got to do is go to Cordwainers for the shoes, Brunel for all that like high tech, Product Design stuff and you got to go to Dundee to see the textiles.”…so that was the first time I knew that there was an art school.”

What was your honest first impression?

“I came to Dundee for the first time with a colleague, who later became my wife. We were trying to recruit fourth year students onto our masters’ courses. At the time there was a bit if a financial incentive for Scottish students to move to England, so we were trying to exploit that a bit. I remember being taken for lunch at really the only place there was for lunch, the Rep. Then someone said “I’ll show you our shopping centre” which was the Wellgate. The Overgate wasn’t built yet.  I remember driving back over the bridge thinking I really, really don’t want to go there again, it’s horrible. And I end up living here. Weird eh?”

Has this impression changed?

“My first Impression really wasn’t great. But what you’ve got to appreciate is that the DCA wasn’t built, the Overgate wasn’t built, and the cafes didn’t exist… I’d moved up to Scotland and we had visited Dundee a few times because my sister-in-law lives here. After visiting more often I realised there’s actually some quite good stuff going on.”

So it was a combination of the city evolving but also your mind set changing?

“Yeah, it’s also having a sense of expectation about places. I’m becoming increasingly interested in how cities reinvent themselves as destinations. That’s what Dundee is doing at the moment its shifting from somewhere where people work and live to a place where people want to visit, that’s a big transition that a city makes. In the past there were the tourist destinations that were almost exclusively capital cities and then the rest of the places where people existed. Now everywhere has got to have that unique offer.”

How do you think the V&A will positively impact Dundee?

“First of all it’s going to generate a lot of jobs… Tourism is now a 12 month thing. If you succeed in tapping into it will generate jobs, bring you wealth, and encourage enterprise to happen.”

Do you think it will impact negatively in any way?

“Inevitably you will get gentrification which in other words means the price of housing will go up. People like Ryan McCloud who runs a web design company and works with clients in London like Coldplay and so forth, why does he do it in Dundee? It’s really cheap to work here and live here…The demographic will shift, it’s incumbent upon places to try and steer that change rather than and say “oh, it going to destroy the culture of this place so were going to oppose it”. That’s not really an option or just to kind of lie back and think what will happen will happen.  I think we need to have some sense of priority about what we want to do. If we want our young people to take advantage of the opportunities then were going to have to create new training courses for young people… We’ve got to meet the same qualities of service you’d get in Edinburgh or New York or London because that’s effectively the competition.”

To wrap up, could you describe Dundee in three words?

“Ambitious, modest and characterful. They see that the city needs to change…They can be really fucking grumpy sometimes. About themselves in particular and that comes into the modesty thing, they don’t like showing off. That’s a Scottish thing anyway and they always accuse the English of showing off. My argument there is that you’ve actually in a globalised world, globalised economy got to at least communicate what your good at and if you don’t no one is really going to care. So it’s not about showing off it’s actually about asserting what it is you do well. That doesn’t sit easily with a Presbyterian culture which essentially is what Scotland is at heart and that Presbyterianism is impediment into some of the characteristics to what a city needs. So it has that modesty that can sometimes be really frustrating to work with. But it has this ambition and that ambition you see politically actually. In the Scottish referendum the city voted pretty overwhelmingly yes. That shows an ambition, you know we want to create a new country. I didn’t agree with the ambition. But I completely respect it and think it’s fantastic. The other thing about Dundee is I suppose it goes outside your remit of the three words is that its very internationalist. Dundee collected more food, clothing and money in Britain per head of the population for the refugee camp in Calais. That’s the kind of city this is, and that’s why I live here.”

“Dundee is one of the hidden jewels of Britain and it is part of its modesty that people don’t know about it, people don’t know about the amazing things that are in the city.”

(Image sourced from Mike Press’ LinkedIn Page)

Hanna Brown.

LOCAL WORDS OF WISDOM

An Insight into the Life of Local Dundee Photographer Shahbaz Majeed

Having been born in Dundee and getting my education and obtaining my degree in the City, it has been home for a very long time.

I only really started to appreciate Dundee and Scotland in general when I got into photography and it certainly was one of the driving factors in making me take notice of the surroundings from an admiration point of view, otherwise you could say I didn’t really give it much thought. But through my photography, I started to feel I was capturing the City in a way that really showed it at it’s best to make others take notice of indeed how beautiful our location and setting actually is.

Of course, having such a location on the doorstep helps as you don’t have to travel very far to get great views. I started off learning through making lots of mistakes and just through practice (having had no formal training in the subject) and joined Dundee Photographic Society to see if I could get some pointers. It turned out to be the best thing I ever did. Not only did it allow me to learn how to use my camera but by seeing such a variety of images from a whole background of people, definitely helped me develop.

What kept me going was the response I started to get to my images, especially the emotional connection people would make, and the bonus being the successes in national and international competitions over the years. After a few high profile wins, the momentum just took off and I have since been very fortunate to have had opportunities many would give their right arm for, with having my image on the first UK polymer banknote a notable highlight. I get to travel all over the country to give talks to other photographers and organisations to inspire them with my work and indirectly promote the locations that I have visited, including Dundee.

I often get asked why I still have a full-time job competing with my photography, but I genuinely love what I do in my ‘day job’ as a Web Developer and for me they don’t compete at all. I am fortunate to have two jobs that I love and photography is not a job for me, it is more of an escape. I go out and take pictures I enjoy taking and showcasing locations in a way others can only imagine but at the same time make those that see them, want to visit that location for themselves. Not many people can do that and enjoy themselves whilst they do it too so on my evenings and weekends when I am out taking pictures, I am relaxing rather than working.

One of the things I get asked a lot is how I am able to capture such images of what to some can be seen as a ‘typical’ or ‘unexciting’ view but the answer lies in your approach. If you can’t appreciate the beauty of something then you will never see what you don’t wish to see. If you have the belief that there is always something to photograph, you just have to be in the right place at the right time, so know how the weather/the light will be changing and to be prepared to put the effort in, success as they say, will follow. If you are always willing to learn, then the only thing stopping you is you.

If I had to give a top tip, then it would be that the camera does not matter. A lot of people get hung up on buying the latest and greatest or the most expensive and whilst the equipment you are using does matter in some cases, if for example you are doing it commercially, it does not matter when you are trying to learn the art of photography. It does not matter if you have a new camera or an old camera, an expensive one or a cheap

one – all that matters is how you use it. After all, it does not matter what kind of pots and pans a top chef uses, its what they do with it all that matters.

From my point of view, I hope to continue taking photographs for a long time to come, even if I never manage to sell another image again or no longer have success in competitions as for me, as nice as the recognition is, it is not why I do it. I do it because I love it and if people continue to enjoy my work over the years – that is just the icing on an already very delicious cake.

 

Team inspireD would like to thank Shahbaz for taking the time out of his busy schedule to write such a thoughtful piece for us. Follow him on Instagram or visit his website to see more of his astounding photography. 

*all images curtesy of Shahbaz Majeed*