Bio

Born in London, but growing up in South Africa as the son of two working artists (painters), Bevil has been familiar with the art world from a very young age. Since moving back to the UK at 20, Bevil has worked as a computer programmer and IT consultant, living and working in London for the past 32 years. For all of this time, he has been an avid photographer, almost since the birth of digital photography. He has taken many paid assignments to photograph products, people, events, as well as hobbyist forays into the wonders of nature, from astrophotography, to nature photography, landscapes, macro, extreme macro, and most recently, photomicrography. Bevil has always enjoyed taking photographs of subjects that are difficult to capture. The challenge and uniqueness of these subjects is an exploration of visual interest, colour, detail and beauty. The Coronavirus pandemic was a catalyst for spending more time with a camera, and prevention from going out during lockdowns created new opportunities to find new subjects to photograph at home. Pointing the camera down the microscope is a project that has opened up an entirely new and exciting photographic subject. While biological samples of microbes and plants through the microscope are interesting in their own right, it is the creating, viewing and photographing of crystals of various substances in polarised light through the microscope that has had the most success, and heralded a new direction for Bevil’s decades long photographic journey. Of all subjects, the microscopic crystals are the most vibrant, have the most beautiful patterns and shapes, and as a result, are the most photogenic. That the subjects are actual real things, that can be viewed and photographed brings them to life. They are not contrived or digitally manufactured. The challenge in coaxing them out is the work it takes to find the gems - hiding in a tangle of shapes, and wild awkward landscapes of twisted colour. It takes many hundreds of hours of painstaking work to choose and mix chemicals, prepare slides, and then thousands of photographs to produce a handful of images that meet the highest expectations, and which cross the line from science to art. These are what you will find in Bevil’s recent work. The equipment used for this project is proudly not the latest most advanced development in modern microscopy. Bevil has sought out microscopes from a long gone era of scientific research. Leitz (who later became the camera company - Leica) were at the forefront of microscope technology during the 20th century, and produced better and better devices, culminating in the Leitz Orthoplan - a model that was made - unchanged from 1966 to 1991. Since 2021, Bevil has bought and restored to prime function four Leitz Orthoplan microscopes, one of these - made in 1970 - is set up permanently with contemporary polarising equipment. To this, he has added parts from equally ancient Leitz cameras in order to then attach his modern Sony A7Riv camera - which produces 61Mp photographs. Though a complex joining of a microscope made in 1970, and a camera made in 2020 and not designed for one another, along with the use of experimental wave plates made from sheets of mica, old CD cases, antistatic bag plastic etc. at various angles. An array of colour and contrast is achieved from the most unlikely subjects (artificial sweeteners, sugar, caffeine, paracetamol, vitamin C etc.) The crystals are placed on the microscope and photographed at high resolution, often focus stacked, and sometimes photographed as a panorama. This allows for the subjects to fill the frame, and be printed at very high quality and at the largest sizes. Photographs are somewhat sharpened and otherwise gently coaxed into more pleasing compositions in software (eliminating dust spots and water stains). However they are as close to the natural view as it is possible to get while still making an artistic composition. The latest direction of Bevil’s photographic journey resulted in a successful joint exhibition at Alveston Fine Art in Notting Hill, London in March 2023. Several of the as yet unsold works of his are continually displayed in the gallery. In September 2023, Bevil was awarded Non Professional Fine Art Photographer of the year in the 20th International Photography Awards (IPA). As a result, Bevil is among the 11 finalists for Discovery of the Year at the Lucie Awards - to be announced at Carnegie Hall on 30 October 2023. Although currently without a website, some of Bevil’s work can be seen on his Alveston Fine Art artist profile page: https://www.alveston.london/artist/bevil-templeton-smith/ as well as on his Instagram page: @bevilts