Roger Bays

My art practice is built on a mix of aesthetic appreciation and technical exploration.

I was born in England in 1958. I took my first photograph in 1961 when I was three years old. I shot the image, of my mum and dad, on their 120 roll film camera, which they often carried in a gas mask bag kept from World War 2. Whilst the negative suffered a burst of stray light the key parts of the image were not destroyed. My parents later gave me a Kodak instamatic 25 camera, which used Kodak's new kodapak 126 film cassettes. We did not have a lot of money for film, so image taking was a bit infrequent. However, owing a camera offered a gateway into photography.

In my teens I took extra studies in technical drawing and by my early twenties I was working as a design draughtsman for Philips in Cambridge, England. I had really wanted to become a photographer, but this seemed out of the question. I later worked for Cambridge Consultants Limited. I was part of the inkjet development team. It was the early days of inkjet printing and customers had to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a printer with very low resolution. I still find it hard to believe that today . . . inkjet printers are available for a fraction of that cost.

In 1978 I took up rock climbing and a few years later skiing. I travelled the world in search of rock, snow, and adrenaline; scary trips to the French Alps, cold nights benighted on hillsides, hanging onto handholds that were always too small, and skiing narrow couloirs between rock bands that were too steep to fall on. In 1988 this outdoor lifestyle led to a guiding job with British Antarctic Survey. One of the most exciting memories was driving a skidoo back to our campsite in a whiteout. Visibility was close to zero, yet, we managed to navigate with bamboo garden canes, the sort you get in a DIY store, and a compass. Going to Antarctica gave me the opportunity to work with scientists, and it reawakened my interest in physics. On my return I studied physics for a year at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Despite good grades and a love of physics I decided to buy an old railways bus and head to the snow for another ski season. I put the Kawasaki 750 and bicycle in the back of the bus, hooked up my old Hillman Hunter to an A frame, and took off to Wanaka. In 1995 I started writing and illustrating how to ski book, 'Ski Magic - the secrets of skiing explained,' which I published in 1997.

Since 2001, I have been mainly working with photography. The development of high quality digital cameras has been really helpful. In 2003 I was able to shoot over 6000 images, this would have been uneconomic just a few years earlier.

In 2005 I collaborated with the Human Interface Technology Laboratory at the University of Canterbury. During this collaboration I built the Semaphore installation, which utilised cutting edge augmented reality technology. I was then invited to study their Interaction Design Course and became their top student that year. I then, for a brief while, became employed as a video editor at the university. In 2007 Semaphore was accepted into the Anthony Harper competition held at the Centre of Contemporary Art (COCA) in Christchurch, New Zealand, and went on to win, 'The Press people's choice award.'

I now have an art practice in Christchurch, New Zealand.