tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49350461313851091052024-03-13T06:47:20.326-07:00BBlake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.comBlogger1498125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-21196781126106615102024-01-04T15:31:00.000-08:002024-01-05T08:39:46.977-08:00Q & A with Olga Yatskevich<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i></i></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWbf1NjbbCf52yFyaZgzqysslzMz4kdeGCoE08ZU9Zg-xXsNgrOhhp31ojZ84XWbyimLBNzIA175BJdNTpM8Wl_qtY0nX2Tnpb4WO9UV6vqA3qXXLJQLCqYkIh5MvfGUM6tWTd4cX_DqheoBS9mIi6gU4f6rt-T6tgl3lTDYGLG3pkLFfIZI0-3p4nKN4/s1600/94b2d2b4-c17c-43d1-9145-3d5e0bb0fac0.JPEG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1302" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWbf1NjbbCf52yFyaZgzqysslzMz4kdeGCoE08ZU9Zg-xXsNgrOhhp31ojZ84XWbyimLBNzIA175BJdNTpM8Wl_qtY0nX2Tnpb4WO9UV6vqA3qXXLJQLCqYkIh5MvfGUM6tWTd4cX_DqheoBS9mIi6gU4f6rt-T6tgl3lTDYGLG3pkLFfIZI0-3p4nKN4/w326-h400/94b2d2b4-c17c-43d1-9145-3d5e0bb0fac0.JPEG" width="326" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Photo by <span style="text-align: start;">Anna Yatskevich</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Olga Yatskevich is a photobook critic and collector based in New York City. This interview is compiled from multiple chats in December 2023.</i></span><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: xx-large; font-style: italic;">•</span></div><div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">BA: Where are you from? What was your youth like?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">OY: Let's start from the beginning! My family is from Belarus, and I was born in the far east of Russia (very cold winters!). Every summer we would fly all the way across Russia to spend time with my grandparent. I grew up in the Middle East, a couple of years in Egypt and then Syria (and many trips around the region). My family moved to Belarus when I was in high school. My grandfather was an amateur photographer and we always had cameras in our family. As we were moving around and I was discovering new places, I was always taking photos. Like many families, we have photo albums on various themes, and I would always play around arranging and re-arranging photographs.</span></b></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Interesting...</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think it is fair to say that my interest in photobooks started (and shaped) when I move to New York.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What brought you to New York?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I moved to NYC a little bit over 10 years ago for work. I got a job offer with the United Nations. I still work there full time.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Very cool. You said your interest in photobooks began with that move. Do you remember any specific books from that time which pulled you in?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was a book by Paolo Gasparini titled <i>Para verte mejor, america latina</i> (English translation, To See You More Clearly, Latin America). Around that time I also got a copy of <i>Chizu</i> by Kikuji Kawada. These books blew up my mind!</span></b></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFmTAtpjKzUzKOIZkNXvyi-pMVkyjUXXXpIxhUPJ1Zv-OW_V7RolO5Pl9dtKrSFjXcqBMieDiJjaZYAQzXdY3Bq9AL_pp5u-rmkc2k3Yu-EaNU7Y8q8ZDmb4WXAjKI6P_6QQxom_GptgwDdj1Hv3nptCOMqEEtKIpwjAUfuhFARc-1RCbZ4jPuGuK-rfs/s550/645748.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFmTAtpjKzUzKOIZkNXvyi-pMVkyjUXXXpIxhUPJ1Zv-OW_V7RolO5Pl9dtKrSFjXcqBMieDiJjaZYAQzXdY3Bq9AL_pp5u-rmkc2k3Yu-EaNU7Y8q8ZDmb4WXAjKI6P_6QQxom_GptgwDdj1Hv3nptCOMqEEtKIpwjAUfuhFARc-1RCbZ4jPuGuK-rfs/s16000/645748.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sample spread from Chizu (The Map) by Kikuji Kawada</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Wow, you started with the heavyweights. <i>Chizu</i> is pretty monumental. I have the Mack mock up edition from last year. But I’ve never seen the original. How did you encounter those books? It's not like you'd find <i>Chizu</i> just hanging around a regular bookstore.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think maybe I came across the video that <a href="http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/2009/08/review_chizu_the_map_by_kikuji_kawada/">Joerg Colberg posted</a>. I don’t have the original one, but I bought a reprint by Nazraeli, and then the one published by Akio Nagasawa. And yes, I also had to get the most recent mock up edition by Mack.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Were you also getting into photography in other ways back then? Were you seeing shows, taking photos yourself, hanging out with photographers? Or were you exclusively in the book world from the beginning?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Years ago I took class on the history of photography at MoMA with Sarah Meister. I started going to as many photography shows as I could. I very quickly got involved in the NY photo community, first connecting online (I think via Facebook and Tumblr). I went to a photobook meet-up (I think it was also organized by Joerg). And a couple of months later I started organizing photobook meet-ups myself. It was so much fun!</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Were/are you shooting photos in New York? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I do take photos like pretty much everyone today, and at some point I played around with old film cameras. But nothing serious. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Whatever happened to all the photos you shot in Egypt, Syria, and Belarus?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I still have photos from my childhood, slowly scanning them. Amazing to have these memories</b>.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Do you imagine making a photobook of those at some point?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe something like a family album! But not a book for a distribution.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Are you still organizing the photobook meetups?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">As I was connecting with the photo community in NY, I met Russet Lederman. Russet and her husband Jeff have an incredible collection of photobooks. They are extremely knowledgeable and generous sharing that knowledge. I invited them to one of the meet-ups to talk about Japanese photobooks from their collection. It was a hot summer evening, and we had our meeting in a very cute Japanese cafe in Long Island City. There was even a write up about it in a Japanese magazine IMA. That was the beginning of our collaboration. We started working together, and created a project called <a href="https://10x10photobooks.org">10x10 Photobooks</a>. Today it is a non-profit organization. </span></b><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">So, back to your question, these photobook meetups evolved into something else: 10x10 Photobooks!</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, 10x10 Photobooks is where I first learned about you. I love the concept. Congrats on the group and your last big compilation book. Are you saying that 10 x 10 has replaced the earlier meetings? </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX95ZRxpTlErZI60bl0BSB0q6pbvGj0yIUt2YZsibg7fgtu18oRAYveMjXMKkR31a5ZWnsUrWw_HlSKEtJeKfrY85n_qtEaXQslv-vypFlZ5e6uvB0BU_knH7BWaY7lyhS0-xLLPd-7-j_l9t6hDtpZmYZzZxlN-JrQo8MStWU4cPZK8BE4ur4cp_syxI/s5712/IMG_1392.HEIC" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4284" data-original-width="5712" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX95ZRxpTlErZI60bl0BSB0q6pbvGj0yIUt2YZsibg7fgtu18oRAYveMjXMKkR31a5ZWnsUrWw_HlSKEtJeKfrY85n_qtEaXQslv-vypFlZ5e6uvB0BU_knH7BWaY7lyhS0-xLLPd-7-j_l9t6hDtpZmYZzZxlN-JrQo8MStWU4cPZK8BE4ur4cp_syxI/w640-h480/IMG_1392.HEIC" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">10x10 Photobooks Salon with Mike Mandel and Chantel Zakari</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thank you, Blake! 10x10 is about community, bringing people together and collaborating. The format has changed over the years. Today we organize reading rooms, publish books, and also bring people together in our salons. Salons offer space for informal discussion with photographers, publishers, designers, curator in an informal atmosphere (often in people's home) over a glass of wine (or kombucha).</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You said you take photos like pretty much everyone. Indeed photography is a democratic medium. I love that aspect, and that’s one thing I like about photobooks too. They are more accessible and inexpensive than gallery prints. That said, the book world has an edge of exclusivity. Certain photobooks have limited runs and go out of print quickly. The whole thing seems to run sometimes on FOMO and insider trading. That’s not really a question, just an observation.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I agree! I love photobooks because they can be inexpensive and very democratic. A great way to share ideas and even empower!</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm guessing if you live in New York, storage space might be an issue for you? Where/how do you store all your books?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the beginning I was buying A LOT of photobooks, slowed down now. I still have many of them in boxes since the last move. Yes, space is an issue. Hopefully moving into a new house soon.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I seem to be going the other direction. Since the pandemic started I've begun acquiring more. Why have you slowed down collecting? Because of space limits or shifting interests? Or maybe after you've seen enough books it gets harder to find ones which surprise you? Or another factor?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe all of the above. At the beginning everything was exciting and new. Every year, like, many photobook enthusiasts, I would spend my weekend at the NY Art Book Fair and come back with maybe a couple dozen photobooks. I think it helped me understand what I like. And over the years space also became an issue! </span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_nY_xc1ULuSW40oiSN8rdXKiAvjsmQf-avj3BlD_VkNDN-kA49Y4Bw4aYP1Z5hdACj4d6xSjtsj82XALWimHk_FO3J0Qx_OFZByj3WbLbwl0HSTxHWq7kJAYYabOQi5jlAhSYPVsypghjwrKmv4eZ1JKlcYwUryqqmN5qKvzNxOIHcIyM0V1j_fwL4fY/s4032/IMG_6011.JPEG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_nY_xc1ULuSW40oiSN8rdXKiAvjsmQf-avj3BlD_VkNDN-kA49Y4Bw4aYP1Z5hdACj4d6xSjtsj82XALWimHk_FO3J0Qx_OFZByj3WbLbwl0HSTxHWq7kJAYYabOQi5jlAhSYPVsypghjwrKmv4eZ1JKlcYwUryqqmN5qKvzNxOIHcIyM0V1j_fwL4fY/w640-h480/IMG_6011.JPEG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">10x10 What They Saw reading room at <span style="text-align: start;">Boston Athenaeum</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So you've collected enough books by now to understand what you like. Can you put that feeling into words? Which photobooks do you gravitate toward? I know that's a broad question. But can you put some boundaries on it?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is probably still evolving, but yes, definitely over the years I became more picky. I don’t have any specific theme. I think for me it is first of all about photographs, how they work together and if the editing and book design reinforce that experience. I gravitate to self-published books and small publishers.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why do you think you gravitate toward self published and small publishers? Is it because those books are more experimental? Or you want to support small enterprise? Or something else?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think for me these books have more heart. They often take more chances with design. I love the experimental, unconventional part of it.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm drawn to quirky and unusual books too. My problem is I can't often find them. From the photographer's perspective I think distribution is a big problem. And that comes through on my end, trying to source them as a reader. I’m curious how you find photobooks?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I agree, not always easy to find them! I think social media used to be a good way to find and share books. A while back I started a Facebook group to share photobooks. It was a great way to connect with people all around the world and find new, often lesser known books. But that group is not very active now. I often find new books by talking to other book collectors, publishers, photographers, and trying to follow various book fairs (in person when possible or checking their websites).</span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpXgkC7w6dbXYRvTADIy4M_yooHaRNkdOK5WZGAYmbmp4BkzO6sAefZnxzR2dxI7G0hg3U5Ui7WB_z2yB2lmCBd6d_JcLwVf9PMA-VWo_kvZMqay644-8rOwfqYwP9SZLoD8Zp_j9DA_jpVhwiueXWhWFXcnndQ7Ke5ND_GXXWn3juKB7lKIviY3SHjL8/s3956/IMG_0788.JPEG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3956" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpXgkC7w6dbXYRvTADIy4M_yooHaRNkdOK5WZGAYmbmp4BkzO6sAefZnxzR2dxI7G0hg3U5Ui7WB_z2yB2lmCBd6d_JcLwVf9PMA-VWo_kvZMqay644-8rOwfqYwP9SZLoD8Zp_j9DA_jpVhwiueXWhWFXcnndQ7Ke5ND_GXXWn3juKB7lKIviY3SHjL8/w490-h640/IMG_0788.JPEG" width="490" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">10x10 What They Saw reading room at </span><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: start;">New York Public Library</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm part of that Facebook group. Sometimes there are interesting posts but yes, for whatever reason it's not very active. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think that’s Facebook in general these days. I hardly check it.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The annual year-end lists have begun. Do you follow those to get book tips? Or out of general interest?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I used to follow them, but less so in the past years. I definitely look at them when they pop-up in my feed or inbox. I appreciate lists that focus on lesser known, obscure titles. Maybe 10 years ago there were tons of blogs on photobooks, but I think the number went down now significantly (or maybe I don’t follow the new ones!).</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I fear that I'm missing some special group somewhere out there, a central spot where all the photobook gossip happens in private. Is there such a group? It seemed like there was a ton of public activity and discussion online 10 years ago. And now much less. But I know folks must still be thinking and writing about photobooks somewhere. So where does it happen now? Just once a year on lists? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I would like to know as well! If you ever find out, do let me know!</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I tried to jumpstart that Instagram account @photobookspotlight a few years ago. I think you were involved briefly? There were about 15 of us who would take turns posting about certain books. It was fun while it lasted. But then it kind of melted away, like social media tends to do. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, it was good!</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Anyway, some of the recent year-end lists have included some obscure/rare picks. Just depends on the person. <a href="https://blog.photoeye.com/2023/12/2023-favorite-photobooks.html">PhotoEye posted theirs</a> last week. And this week Photobookstore has begun <a href="https://photobookstore.co.uk/blogs/photobookstore-magazine/tagged/2023">posting their lists</a>.</span></p><p style="color: #0000e9; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I like that Martin keeps inviting a wide range of people to share their favourite photobooks.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For me the most interesting lists are compiled by other photographers, and he always invites several. I think they have a different perspective than collectors or booksellers or other groups. I guess that's only natural. Actually, what really fascinates me is the difference between these lists (by "pundits" for lack of better word?) and the annual <a href="https://aperture.org/editorial/announcing-the-2023-photobook-awards-shortlist/">Aperture/Paris shortlists</a> compiled by industry insiders. I've been following both lists the past few years, and there is usually very little overlap. It's almost like they're looking at two different worlds. A few books are on both, like Carla Williams’ <i>Tender</i> and the Japanese Magazine book, for example. But for the most part there isn’t much crossover. Makes me wonder...</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSQ6afuWc2Ur9u8jT8gf46QzUYVbKqCTZoPc7UpIDrCLgcDYlAemyI4QC1UIAAA6whu2GRl7AiCCMsgmO8Yp8ZtqB6g4WWlRF6vZhGXbDNiIqX-FOvNWSgnBPX3pDMsveaaYS3fylNDYk_RzBr6XpF0ucTx78JgfIlyQhjjoQYlmmjR2P9xl62Tz7HTB4/s2000/2023-Photobook-Awards-Shortlist-Aperture-paris-photo-hero.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSQ6afuWc2Ur9u8jT8gf46QzUYVbKqCTZoPc7UpIDrCLgcDYlAemyI4QC1UIAAA6whu2GRl7AiCCMsgmO8Yp8ZtqB6g4WWlRF6vZhGXbDNiIqX-FOvNWSgnBPX3pDMsveaaYS3fylNDYk_RzBr6XpF0ucTx78JgfIlyQhjjoQYlmmjR2P9xl62Tz7HTB4/w640-h426/2023-Photobook-Awards-Shortlist-Aperture-paris-photo-hero.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Photobooks shortlisted in 2023 for Aperture/Paris Photo Awards</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://collectordaily.com/about/">Loring</a> seems to value APP as a source of book leads. Maybe because from a collector's point of view they are important? But I generally put more stock in the other year-end lists. Honestly, it was hard to find books in the APP list this year which interested me much. Most are pretty conceptual/ideological. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think there used to be more overlap in the past years, but now I look at Aperture/Paris shortlists and see less books I know. It also makes me wonder! Do people contact you to send copies of their books?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, sometimes. What about you?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">The same, but I think not as often as maybe 5 years ago, so I wonder what has changed. If people find different ways to share their books, maybe more efficient networks?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I am a sucker for photobooks, so I almost always say yes. For a while last year I somehow got on the Mack review list. So they sent me a bunch of free books which was great. Manna from the book heavens. But then something happened. Maybe I gave a bad review or something? They cut me off without explanation. Easy come easy go.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oh interesting, had no idea they did that.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The other thing with free books is it can devolve into payola. When someone sends you a book there's an implied assumption that you will review it positively. Quid pro quo. If the book is good I don't mind., because a few hours of writing is like my way of paying for the book. I'd rather spend time than money. It's the mediocre books which create tension. Sometimes it’s best to just say nothing, but that can feel weird too. In all cases I try to keep the "free” aspect from interfering with review content. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, I guess that's usually the intention. But you can also hear from an artist you might not discover otherwise!</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Very true. I've discovered a few good books that way. But honestly I find more through my own efforts, digging around on sites and such. It's hit or miss, no real rhyme or reason. Kinda like photographs in that way. They just pop up on the film when they want to, regardless of what I do.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I also prefer to find books myself, and I always enjoy the process, it is part of collecting.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What did you see this year that you liked? Do you have a list?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was looking at the books I bought this year earlier this week. One of them is <a href="https://collectordaily.com/luis-corzo-pasaco-1996/"><i>PASACO, 1996 </i>by the Guatemalan photographer Luis Corzo</a>. He used the format of a photobook to document events around his own childhood abduction. He was six at that time. I like that he presented it as dispassionate investigation.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another one is <a href="https://collectordaily.com/mariken-kramer-i-hide-myself-within-my-flower/"><i>I hide myself within my flower</i> by the Norwegian artist Mariken Kramer</a>. It is very simple, just photographs of flowers she picked around the family mountain farm. Those flowers are used to make the paper for its cover. It is really lovely!</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I also loved <a href="https://collectordaily.com/oriane-thomasson-paradis/"><i>Paradis</i> by Oriane Thomasson</a>, it is quite exciting as a photobook. The visual flow is unpredictable, and all elements work together. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">And my friend Maria Lago who started her own publishing house a couple of years ago, Familia Editions, published a really beautiful book, <a href="https://collectordaily.com/marcos-chaves-bem-vindo-ao-rio-welcome-to-nyc/"><i>Bem-vindo (ao Rio) / Welcome (to NYC)</i> by Marcos Chaves</a>. As the title suggests there are photos of two cities in a conversation.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://collectordaily.com/elizabeth-clark-libert-boy-crazy/"><i>Boy Crazy</i> by Elizabeth Clark Libert</a> was also a great discovery. I found it at the ICP book fair. And, another epic book is <i>Glad Tidings of Benevolence</i> by Moises Saman. It is complex, deep, clever, and very thoughtful.</span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQXvPyfHmcNc-IEz4TxhBq0CHKfHa5ktNlkcWGzNi89ldnCvX0SGWWt-Tsig6hyE8GXBJSJFRIs4MWPk872R6mrZNXmO3afzjsxmCMhQWr8WvAKE_26GokBPeh7zxD-o2iJOOLLdsle4D8dPDTBgb1ITYAIbtgIw39WPKcOJdsrSbcBTZKDteoitgwNIY/s997/dd.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="935" data-original-width="997" height="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQXvPyfHmcNc-IEz4TxhBq0CHKfHa5ktNlkcWGzNi89ldnCvX0SGWWt-Tsig6hyE8GXBJSJFRIs4MWPk872R6mrZNXmO3afzjsxmCMhQWr8WvAKE_26GokBPeh7zxD-o2iJOOLLdsle4D8dPDTBgb1ITYAIbtgIw39WPKcOJdsrSbcBTZKDteoitgwNIY/w640-h600/dd.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I remember most of those from your <a href="https://collectordaily.com/author/olia/">Collector Daily reviews</a>. But I must admit I don't have any!</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, I wrote about all of them. Hope it helps people to discover photobooks I am excited about.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I always wonder about who, where, or what audience those reviews reach. Loring basically does zero promotion, and I rarely see <a href="https://collectordaily.com">Collector Daily</a> linked or cited by others anywhere. I'm guessing the book reviews have a regular audience but I just can't get a good read on it. Hopefully it helps people discover books. Even if not, the site is a huge resource for artist information and criticism. There are thousands of articles on there at this point stretching back more than a decade. It's like a private photography Wiki. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I hope people read it! But I also not sure about the numbers. I always recommend it to people who interested in photography and photobooks, I definitely see it as a great resource.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">How did you get started with Collector Daily?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Our common friend <a href="https://bryanformhals.com">Bryan Formhals</a> introduce me to Loring. We already knew about each other. He followed my blog <a href="https://photolia.tumblr.com">photolia</a> and I read CD. We met for a coffee and he asked me if I was interested to contribute. I started by suggesting photobooks for review, and a couple of months later started writing too. I always enjoyed working with him, and talking/sharing photobook ideas.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Do you still see him in person sometimes?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Not as often, but occasionally yes. He also on the board of 10x10 Photobooks.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Are you still in touch with Bryan? I lost touch with him after he moved to Minnesota. I don't think he's very active in photobooks any more. I just checked out photolia, which I'd forgotten about. Last update was in 2012. I guess that's the photobook blog crash you mentioned.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is hard to stay in touch once people move to a different state/country. I do read his newsletter! I think Bryan did a lot for a photobook community!</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It's interesting you use that phrase “community”. Because I don't really feel there is much of a community. There's a lot of activity, yes. But it seems scattered and provincial. And there’s not much dialogue or camaraderie. But of course that might all happen in the secret book group I don't know about. Maybe that goes to the question I asked earlier about CD review readers. They might be a loose form of community in theory. But there's zero interaction or awareness. It's like a black hole. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think there is one in NY, and I hope 10x10 helps to bring it together.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Of course 10 x 10 is an exception, driven partly by geographic proximity. Maybe it's a regional thing? And since I'm in Oregon I feel disconnected. There's this artificial expectation with social media that all humans can be connected at all times. That communities can form digitally. And that's not always true. </span></p></div>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-45572085793048350662023-10-26T12:21:00.013-07:002023-10-27T07:42:13.771-07:00Q & A with Mike Brodie<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRAa_nw-YTIgxEKHDanwrKXFGTzcCguOJmKnkNxtsTx2uSSTg6rpRNhp5No22P7asGP6bglAzXXfF574NZcWIZaftxPxrcuP_YvJz-zLtFac6XZVIxA-MMy7nqlk_AT12H2NZO8g0T1xw4hVjBse_3FmHg6lhFHJxoVV9X5w04PBCIu9QYnsE_KScelwU/s2999/000033(2).JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2999" data-original-width="1996" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRAa_nw-YTIgxEKHDanwrKXFGTzcCguOJmKnkNxtsTx2uSSTg6rpRNhp5No22P7asGP6bglAzXXfF574NZcWIZaftxPxrcuP_YvJz-zLtFac6XZVIxA-MMy7nqlk_AT12H2NZO8g0T1xw4hVjBse_3FmHg6lhFHJxoVV9X5w04PBCIu9QYnsE_KScelwU/w266-h400/000033(2).JPG" width="266" /></a></div></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Mike Brodie is a photographer and trucker currently based in Biloxi, MS. This interview was compiled over the course of several chats in September 2023.</i></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic;">•</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">BA: Hi Mike, How are you?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">MB: I’m exhausted. Long day of being on the internet.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sorry to make you spend more time here. The Internet can tire you out for sure. But maybe it’s not as exhausting as riding rails?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I guess it's exhausting in a different way. Staring at an endless screen or an endless horizon, both are addicting! Did you work today? I forgot, what did you say you do?</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I am a photographer and writer with a sporadic schedule. Every day is different. Yesterday I was in the darkroom. Today I played bball in the morning (maybe “work” in a way, fighting for space against big old dudes?), then finished up a few writing projects this afternoon, and then spent about 2 hours just now digging through your old interviews and photos. Thanks very much for the recent batch!</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oh okay, cool. So you’re a jock stuck in an artist’s body? I feel your pain. Looking at your blog I assumed you were a teacher just because of how academic it felt, no offense. I'm glad you checked out the photos, or I assume you did? It's ok if you didn't yet. I know there were a lot...I'm just trying to move away from my old work so to speak, so I sent you all that.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, I enjoyed all of them. I love looking at photos. And that folder was great. You mentioned in an email your pictures were taking a darker turn lately. I didn't really understand what that meant until seeing that batch, which are more explicit about drug use, nudity, vice, etc. Is that a conscious transition? Or were those elements always there in your photos but weeded out of the books? <i><a href="https://twinpalms.com/products/mike-brodie-a-period-of-juvenile-prosperity">A Period Of Juvenile Prosperity</a></i> hints at that world but in a romanticized way. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Unconscious transition, but I definitely have a fascination with those things. A majority of them I'd say were shot in the past 3 years and were mostly a response to my divorce, and then my subsequent relationship with Mia Smith. Juvenile Prosperity days were different. I was a bit younger, naive, a little insecure. The darkness was definitely there, but I mostly avoided drug users and troublesome women.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPPOZs2e3h7ohiVQ9GaQo9IP4PoDlOEGcVkUOaYMUoAhmIFwaqwBD-l5HqnyYkPNylEh3zYBG5ZWHv0NfXfp1dFejZ6Vp9SebgHD5HLdJQwOT5JEIm4eWhMHJ_JSnHB2ByrXmrq7xl710Hu6vP1Mi845gsxF9cErht5wlKTiBf5SnqT6Oxm_3bN3OxkXo/s2048/3_f737198e-da89-4141-976e-94bb7181b1c6_2048x2048.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPPOZs2e3h7ohiVQ9GaQo9IP4PoDlOEGcVkUOaYMUoAhmIFwaqwBD-l5HqnyYkPNylEh3zYBG5ZWHv0NfXfp1dFejZ6Vp9SebgHD5HLdJQwOT5JEIm4eWhMHJ_JSnHB2ByrXmrq7xl710Hu6vP1Mi845gsxF9cErht5wlKTiBf5SnqT6Oxm_3bN3OxkXo/w640-h426/3_f737198e-da89-4141-976e-94bb7181b1c6_2048x2048.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The <a href="https://www.stanleybarker.co.uk/products/polaroid-kid">recent box of Polaroids</a> seems even less "dark”.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah, those Polaroids are more silly and fun, most of ‘em taken 20 years ago! I was just starting out on the road, and had no clue what I was doing.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few (paraphrasing a zen saying).</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I like that! I wonder if there’s a Biblical version of the same sentiment.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe. I don't know the Bible very well but I don't think it's usually that open ended. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">You'd be surprised! </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Weren't you born again for awhile? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was baptized when I was 13, but it didn't mean anything to me at the time. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Is there any phrase you remember from that time which is similar?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">"You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." That one feels open ended to me, but I'm not sure. Is it saying live in the moment or plan ahead? James 4:14</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nice, I like that quote. I'm probably the last person to interpret the Bible. It can probably be pulled any direction you want. The zen quote seemed to relate more directly to your Polaroid pictures. You were just a novice shooting from the gut. But from that lack of training came a real spark I think, because you didn't know what not to do, or what rules not to follow.</span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHpjcOBVS1eUFrdB2CIFslXctcEiZgF1rdADNxP52wdd8YR6MmNPFqJc6Hycuksk5DtSHNYzTnknw12p-y9xbewpSDwy6_wOfcRxn8hUSoteMBAvzwmFrnFPSbNXm02C7gN8ui3J9DZhk3KGY-maOsOgMr0wNhVtv6erMLtXNJ8YELVZk11TNeje97wm4/s1090/18517.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="1090" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHpjcOBVS1eUFrdB2CIFslXctcEiZgF1rdADNxP52wdd8YR6MmNPFqJc6Hycuksk5DtSHNYzTnknw12p-y9xbewpSDwy6_wOfcRxn8hUSoteMBAvzwmFrnFPSbNXm02C7gN8ui3J9DZhk3KGY-maOsOgMr0wNhVtv6erMLtXNJ8YELVZk11TNeje97wm4/w640-h430/18517.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes I still shoot the same way. I just need a spark.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe that gets at another idea I was curious about. Reading your old interviews I sense a real tension between the "art" Mike Brodie, and the "regular" Mike Brodie who just wants to be a mechanic or whatever. You seem cynical about the art world and its schooling/formality/aristocratic systems. I think you want to hang onto the "spark" way or less academic shooting. And the art world is doing its best to suck you back in.</span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitiD6BqEsJAcn2cfZh_wBYrxgAFAI6tXn5OYqMmvaDONdEH64w0gbq46oHe_ScdP6MXeuJBoDHsKJKDd29-xtlTKgz5UhsvL5R5_VNo_bazfx0pOMpJKAGxrWw5ytsGQ57CJmUkVwqgjn4c14Y-ccr3fBAYXzBEe-uenK7PeXg3qYVT2hEsKggihU0MHE/s1090/12236.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1090" data-original-width="731" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitiD6BqEsJAcn2cfZh_wBYrxgAFAI6tXn5OYqMmvaDONdEH64w0gbq46oHe_ScdP6MXeuJBoDHsKJKDd29-xtlTKgz5UhsvL5R5_VNo_bazfx0pOMpJKAGxrWw5ytsGQ57CJmUkVwqgjn4c14Y-ccr3fBAYXzBEe-uenK7PeXg3qYVT2hEsKggihU0MHE/w430-h640/12236.jpg" width="430" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You nailed it with the second statement. Really it’s just a tension within myself, and my own ego. How the world perceives me and how I perceive myself, it's like these two ideas of a man that are tangentially connected, and both must exist to inform one another to sincerely create art. In my 20s I wasn't satisfied with just being this young punk kid roaming aimlessly taking pretty pictures. I would see tractors, trucks and trains and men working on them, and this fascinated me. I was fucking envious. Why can’t I do this? I didn't grow up with a dad to put a wrench in my hand and show me the basics. I didn't see the point in going to art school since I already knew how to make art, so I went to trade school. This gave me a good basic foundation to join the workforce and learn as much as I possibly could. I worked on trucks, I worked on trains. I got married and started my own business. I wasn't shooting a lot but I was really satisfied with my life. I loved my wife, I loved being married, I love working hard. But then shit fell apart, my wife wanted a divorce. Then I got my girlfriend pregnant, and all those tools I worked so hard for I sold at a swap meet in Arizona to make some quick money. What I've realized is, I lean on my art to express myself when other aspects of my life are failing. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but I need to change my ways if I want any semblance of stability. But what’s tough is, work sucks! And I'd rather chase the spark.</span></b></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You said "Work sucks”. And yes, if you are selling hourly labor to a boss with little control, that's fucked. Being a mechanic or an artist might fit into that model, depending on the situation. But if you feel empowered, any activity can be fulfilling. Is it fair to say that you are giving your art career more energy now? The new Polaroid box is just one example. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I agree with your perspective on work. I did enjoy aspects of it when I had my own business. It felt creative to me. There was never clocking in or clocking out. It was in fact a positive outlet. I'm definitely giving my art career more energy now. I've travelled 1,000s of miles and worked really hard on these photos. It would be foolish to squander opportunities that have been coming my way. I've recognized that I AM in fact an artist and that is OK, and I can also do other types of work. Life is cool in that way. Even if I don't shoot photos for the next couple years, I have stories to to tell, photos to share, books to make!</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Tell me a little bit about that big picture batch you sent me. What are the pictures about? You mentioned Mia Smith earlier. Is she in any of the photos? Are you exploring your relationship with her through photos?</span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8PZkkzKiFIK765dbSbkaKwBl7YID2OkWjbjKFiuwRtow1kzHdhASKTiybCD53oE9vR0ypiFnda9ns-73KE-QMNjJ1xjV8nH6oJFENnpMeY-FnWWjGCgU42ZufQC9qXjFk7znoZi5nD1WPHtBknrYEbQGwRJNAtAkFCD-ch_V6f1adrnDXEFWiP0Jb1_w/s2999/000030.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1996" data-original-width="2999" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8PZkkzKiFIK765dbSbkaKwBl7YID2OkWjbjKFiuwRtow1kzHdhASKTiybCD53oE9vR0ypiFnda9ns-73KE-QMNjJ1xjV8nH6oJFENnpMeY-FnWWjGCgU42ZufQC9qXjFk7znoZi5nD1WPHtBknrYEbQGwRJNAtAkFCD-ch_V6f1adrnDXEFWiP0Jb1_w/w640-h426/000030.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Ethereal Wraith” by Mia Justice Smith</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Great questions...we might have to pick this conversion up tomorrow I'm trying to meet up with my cousin for dinner tonight...</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">OK cool. Have fun with your cousin, catch you soon..</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">——————(BREAK)——————</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hey Mike, you there?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah I’m here, exhausted again. I should probably make some coffee.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">How was your dinner with the cousin?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was good, he's kinda insane. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What do you mean by "kinda insane"?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well not insane, just a character! He's a tattoo artist, just tattooed me today.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">No shit, what tat did you get?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I told him I wanted something patriotic. He drew a train inside an American flag with a big boat anchor. Traditional, I love it.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why did you want something patriotic?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I suppose I'm patriotic, and I like my country. My last tattoo was also American traditional, "Sailor Jerry" but not so patriotic.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I love America too, although it has its issues. I'm bummed that the right wing has coopted the flag, or that’s how it seems sometimes. Maybe your tattoo is one small gesture to claim it for free thinkers.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">That's a really good way to put it actually. So the right took the flag and the left took the rainbow! Haha. I remember seeing a lot more American flag and patriotic symbolism within the punk scene when I first start train hopping. Even though a lot of it was said to be worn "ironically" it was still meaningful and cool. Now it’s pretty much unacceptable within those circles to rep the flag.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Dmoq4lrduutaKNRhKfD5aj-yf2pwEp7pmWfve_KJ2dt-lVfaLp0DT_mKC8hM73jkQJIBNv4HkKEFaEDn1gTTvhxtdSs1zVbgxoTCyJsDaKtEccrxXJ7VM-DkpT3NOgbx_S7MLqjwHKKGZseAkYNgS3qD6lpRj7FBbEOk_sEu-2n-IhHBq-ahP3Fr7iE/s1090/18568.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="1090" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Dmoq4lrduutaKNRhKfD5aj-yf2pwEp7pmWfve_KJ2dt-lVfaLp0DT_mKC8hM73jkQJIBNv4HkKEFaEDn1gTTvhxtdSs1zVbgxoTCyJsDaKtEccrxXJ7VM-DkpT3NOgbx_S7MLqjwHKKGZseAkYNgS3qD6lpRj7FBbEOk_sEu-2n-IhHBq-ahP3Fr7iE/w640-h430/18568.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Since you mention tattoos I have a related question. I noticed in the batch of new photos that one woman has a similar tattoo to yours. A large X on her arm. Your X is on your chest. And she also has tattooed thin small lines below her eye, similar to yours. Is there some connection? Who is that person? </span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisnXF9UFHGMmsYkjYD9oJe-PdrYeqheDhJ9BjG_Hl9Z8Ux6kubLdigJdAkkQNFOU7_M1JbcyZkO9Q7bwmE1ywxaCQAGqKh1899JkIWM1jxSi-0CrobKV_5LJfkDA7z-oxLzuN3t9y-ryf0W1vlMgRxaRDA6uyQXdiuEDdEG2jhEH29MOrqZSFaFVg0rDw/s2952/2837.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2952" data-original-width="2000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisnXF9UFHGMmsYkjYD9oJe-PdrYeqheDhJ9BjG_Hl9Z8Ux6kubLdigJdAkkQNFOU7_M1JbcyZkO9Q7bwmE1ywxaCQAGqKh1899JkIWM1jxSi-0CrobKV_5LJfkDA7z-oxLzuN3t9y-ryf0W1vlMgRxaRDA6uyQXdiuEDdEG2jhEH29MOrqZSFaFVg0rDw/w271-h400/2837.jpg" width="271" /></a></span></div><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">That's Mia Smith! She got that as a symbol to represent her newfound sobriety from heroin, and put it right over her most predominate track mark. My X tattoo came a bit later after we had met. Her friend tattooed it on me in Portland. It was a painful and very spontaneous decision but served as a way of showing my unconditional commitment to Mia, and the work we were doing together. She was also a photographer, but started using pretty heavily after we met, so that tattoo jokingly became "X marks the spot."</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Where do you live now? You mentioned central time zone which threw me off because I thought you were out west somewhere. Where and when did you in Portland? I lived there off in a few different places near Belmont, roughly 1994-2006</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I lived in Portland in 2004. Beyond that I've just passed through over the years. Mia had an apartment there at one point. Currently, I'm staying with my brother in Pensacola, FL. She lived here with me for a moment, but most of our relationship was spent on the road, either in my truck, or hopping trains.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAPj4dQzAeniRKJIGucN-i9jNzCWGnRqd8DNnaBn2qNSzuPA_DKw8IdYVytBioGANdx_9Z-FG1ee9D1zLGpc22sIC6TvmVAvOZ3eBJlx8uOedv77ihHSL3YEC_v9eFun-fj7r0aibf9ImvmYgyAPaIckxIUn8DXhZBlNvMnCBA-IUFsfglARfPZipwR9U/s1090/18650.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1090" data-original-width="731" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAPj4dQzAeniRKJIGucN-i9jNzCWGnRqd8DNnaBn2qNSzuPA_DKw8IdYVytBioGANdx_9Z-FG1ee9D1zLGpc22sIC6TvmVAvOZ3eBJlx8uOedv77ihHSL3YEC_v9eFun-fj7r0aibf9ImvmYgyAPaIckxIUn8DXhZBlNvMnCBA-IUFsfglARfPZipwR9U/w269-h400/18650.jpg" width="269" /></a></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Wait, isn't Pensacola Eastern Time Zone? </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Florida panhandle is Central time. It confuses me too! </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That's Matt Gaetz territory. Fuck that guy. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Who's Matt Gaetz?</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">US Rep from Pensacola. Trump-worshipping fucktard. But let’s move on to happier thoughts. Is your brother in any of the photos you sent?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have only one photo of my brother, not sure if I sent it. He hates getting photographed. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You’re a very personal photographer. Your camera is kind of in the flow of life, and you shoot people as you encounter them and spend time with them. So to me it seems odd that you wouldn't turn the camera on your family more. I understand your brother doesn't like being photographed. But that's probably true of most people initially. What about your parents, relatives, etc. What about your ex-wife, or your cousin the tattoo artist? Did you take pictures of them?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Funny you ask! I literally just pulled up this old Polaroid scan of my cousin I shot in 2005. He’s like 6 years old holding fireworks. We were talking about how crazy it was that 18 years later I'm sitting there getting tattooed by him. Beyond that I'm rarely around any of my biological family. All interesting people, but most of them aren't very photogenic. Of course I photographed my wife tons when we were married, because I loved her and she was the only person around most of the time. But looking back as I'm editing my work most of those photos aren't very good. I think I sent you one or two of her, the up skirt photo with the pink panties. My dad’s been in and out of prison my whole life, so I never know what he's up to. I haven't talked to him in a while. And my mom hates being photographed because she's an aging woman and rather self conscious about that. They're both in Arizona</b>.</span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKVxL6XjYbFlHbHVZkf3Va7QvDJ2CeHAkDPAEodNe6Iqfcb6u8DYAzFkyiEuDMzluB7XHoyA80dXsIOAXPDFidQgrBIgTtj4x56HGDo8SbogmRrJBRhiQhRIC33PnbjFIU-CkORYDA-paVfbfqSL1TBZsPYmtYkjw6mr-x2PaX183270u1Xmhd4r59yyM/s2952/2055.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="2952" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKVxL6XjYbFlHbHVZkf3Va7QvDJ2CeHAkDPAEodNe6Iqfcb6u8DYAzFkyiEuDMzluB7XHoyA80dXsIOAXPDFidQgrBIgTtj4x56HGDo8SbogmRrJBRhiQhRIC33PnbjFIU-CkORYDA-paVfbfqSL1TBZsPYmtYkjw6mr-x2PaX183270u1Xmhd4r59yyM/w640-h434/2055.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What makes a person photogenic? Maybe the irony of this question is that many photographers would not consider your subjects "photogenic' in a traditional sense. Their loss.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">For me, it’s a visceral feeling (the spark) that happens within certain circumstances. It's an emotional response to my everyday life. I used to pursue photos subjects almost like a formal date to take portraits, but that got old fast. I prefer shooting candidly. I suppose it’s just a gift I was born with and I've honed the skills over time with practice. It's mostly just interacting and socializing with people, but making sure you always have a camera handy, always a little exciting and awkward. But technically speaking I think what makes a PERSON photogenic is their facial geometry, but that’s a boring answer.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So you put yourself in the company of others. And some people provoke that emotional response which results in good photos. Can I assume some people don't? I guess that's the heart of it. What's in those people that provokes some connection which makes good photos? Not that there is any answer to that question. And by the way, facial geometry isn't a boring answer. That's very interesting actually.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">The decisive moment perhaps? It depends on what type of relationship I have with them. Is it romantic? A traveler? A co-worker? Or are you just a fellow bum off the street? If I hang out with people who already know of me, my reputation may proceed me, so it's expected that I will take photographs or at least try. Things are different these days. Phones make everyone a photographer, not to mention film is making a huge comeback. The heart of the matter – it’s an emotional impulse I feel around someone. It can’t truly be described. I want the feeling to remaining a mystery.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBPmL3inq_3jJiXBwNYN0IOcYn0fOyZ1pgR47FkhutLw7L6fUHuXQd-rCnoKphKc6lAab84wApD4wiPIHS515Mz1R9XeT8Ykbn4iJ0Q_51EG_PbSbg-tJFQqcucFoxVB_rbbiqx2rq1oirTR2VMP6003rVAlhpdN2Bv-WR_wcC4I-iweSFxUB3Ngbwa2I/s2999/000042%202.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2999" data-original-width="1996" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBPmL3inq_3jJiXBwNYN0IOcYn0fOyZ1pgR47FkhutLw7L6fUHuXQd-rCnoKphKc6lAab84wApD4wiPIHS515Mz1R9XeT8Ykbn4iJ0Q_51EG_PbSbg-tJFQqcucFoxVB_rbbiqx2rq1oirTR2VMP6003rVAlhpdN2Bv-WR_wcC4I-iweSFxUB3Ngbwa2I/w426-h640/000042%202.JPG" width="426" /></a></b></span></div><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">How do you keep the act of photographing from interfering with your lived experience? As soon as you raise the camera to your eye you remove yourself (at least on some level) from what's happening. How do you deal with that separation? Say you're on some flat bed train car and you see your friends in a photogenic pose. The minute you take a photo you break the cosmic chain. Or no?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">The cosmic chain definitely feels broken every time. However, I feel cameras ARE just part of that lived experience and life in fact is just one big performance. Another way to look at a lived experience is this: maybe the freight train is in the way and we should be doing something more productive with our lives?!</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We were talking yesterday about your early photos and the Zen-like openness of shooting as a beginner. Now that you've been a photographer for a while, I'm wondering how your approach has changed. Or if it has? How are you shooting now that's different than, say, 2006?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It's convoluted as hell. It goes back to what I was saying about reputation or if someone already knows you or not. I'm better at "reading a room" now and knowing if photographing in that moment is appropriate or not, but sometimes no matter what I'll try to get a photo if I FEEL its important to me, or for posterity’s sake. I'm more honest with my intentions now too, I will directly tell people "hey I'm a photographer, is it ok if I photograph you?" I used to shy away from that, I was scared, embarrassed, and insecure about my obsessive strange hobby, didn't know how to approach people, especially grown men, they are the most stubborn.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMe6y-SMp-YlXt2z-UUOSiVeaksWuSLi2e-lDwauoys0M016CTVOY4foc8CZ0bGrW3a3WDsNn92Q0LWKxMUOk-p5sXJcfHQI0XwFCY9IPB-qPPejDI8_2BiQfRs1XP79G8GXyRcdKOcxg0dq_RI2PBoVFFkDVDvHZgW19qvp8qaNHXYwJ_fdfDwIplT-w/s5397/000038.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5397" data-original-width="3597" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMe6y-SMp-YlXt2z-UUOSiVeaksWuSLi2e-lDwauoys0M016CTVOY4foc8CZ0bGrW3a3WDsNn92Q0LWKxMUOk-p5sXJcfHQI0XwFCY9IPB-qPPejDI8_2BiQfRs1XP79G8GXyRcdKOcxg0dq_RI2PBoVFFkDVDvHZgW19qvp8qaNHXYwJ_fdfDwIplT-w/w426-h640/000038.JPG" width="426" /></a></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">My “obsessive strange hobby.” Well put!</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I mean, it’s true! Photographers are fuckin' weirdos.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You mentioned yesterday a fascination with darker elements. What do you think is driving that curiosity? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think it's just natural curiosity, no different than why someone would want to be an ER nurse or a surgeon or a mortician. When I was living in the Nevada desert my neighbor died. His name was Rick Garner. He drank himself to death (E&J Brandy). </span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Cb-24XlDjrDS6OK3w7KObuZRNb0gP98RVJX-o6wF75oBX5fPhtvjwyiCc6-aAhSPs-6qq5s8GsK4fdImJcoLTb6QksGNtHPK5-jcFWzGp81Ng9l3yoIHO_sUGpmwHR3IhyphenhyphenfbxFNSg9_kCGk2YfXVHcJncCygTgH4sDHymp6WWTqctmm1Fro2swxrHjI/s4486/RickGarner.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4486" data-original-width="3021" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Cb-24XlDjrDS6OK3w7KObuZRNb0gP98RVJX-o6wF75oBX5fPhtvjwyiCc6-aAhSPs-6qq5s8GsK4fdImJcoLTb6QksGNtHPK5-jcFWzGp81Ng9l3yoIHO_sUGpmwHR3IhyphenhyphenfbxFNSg9_kCGk2YfXVHcJncCygTgH4sDHymp6WWTqctmm1Fro2swxrHjI/w430-h640/RickGarner.jpeg" width="430" /></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCa0L6lQRwUazQLuIPHoY5kP9hBhL6Pfw-_wWPcqdOxjt75uXalCKxdXzN2wNjMJ6putj3JC9FLi3XD86doCCAxMzUG1GyqRCBDeQReedKG8ZHFUWeSmRrwhdsow3ZmSYplBLSFrLN4Gz9J0rL3gGOrurMl56DoYN_IxWGfTcrWzavugFq67Wa2XyGcrQ/s4516/RickGarner%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4516" data-original-width="2991" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCa0L6lQRwUazQLuIPHoY5kP9hBhL6Pfw-_wWPcqdOxjt75uXalCKxdXzN2wNjMJ6putj3JC9FLi3XD86doCCAxMzUG1GyqRCBDeQReedKG8ZHFUWeSmRrwhdsow3ZmSYplBLSFrLN4Gz9J0rL3gGOrurMl56DoYN_IxWGfTcrWzavugFq67Wa2XyGcrQ/w424-h640/RickGarner%201.jpeg" width="424" /></a></div></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span><p></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">After the coroner left I went into his trailer to look around. He died naked in his bathroom laying in shit, piss, hair, and blood. Nearby were his dentures which had fallen out of his mouth when he hit the ground. 10 ft away was a heaping mass of cat shit which had been accumulating under his bed for YEARS. It was putrid, vile, smelly, and disgusting, but tragically beautiful. I still remember the odor. When I left I had to throw away the clothes I was wearing. Even my camera SMELLED for weeks. With that said I think everyone is fascinated or at least intrigued by some aspects of sex and death, or one could say life and death? But I think my curiosity for its own sake, is headed into the light. Kind of gross, sorry.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Is that the photos you sent of the decrepit room, with the teeth in the corner?</span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwsRNZxaOfuhG5uZeWW8RtAZPdW-Gl7WZsaOPff9lGvxYbTtpadgwkKM_6KVziB0lyycUJAAYMviq5mMdoeHKnShsM6JBXw8lLPV7ZTXMtLFwrIVoU9SbMZScYvDb6H4DAp7434wVcL_R_K5sOmL-I5SfcDEUhygB8H4hg8WSmTb5aQNv-5Lb0WTUyp-0/s1090/15735.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="1090" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwsRNZxaOfuhG5uZeWW8RtAZPdW-Gl7WZsaOPff9lGvxYbTtpadgwkKM_6KVziB0lyycUJAAYMviq5mMdoeHKnShsM6JBXw8lLPV7ZTXMtLFwrIVoU9SbMZScYvDb6H4DAp7434wVcL_R_K5sOmL-I5SfcDEUhygB8H4hg8WSmTb5aQNv-5Lb0WTUyp-0/w640-h430/15735.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, there’s a bunch more from that time. Sadly I never got to actually photograph him when he was alive, but I found a nice portrait of him when he was a young man. I'll scan it for you.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sex and death. Doesn't get more basic than that.</span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">My girlfriend was just texting me about baby names. She's not even pregnant yet.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Wait, what? You said earlier she was pregnant. I'm mixed up.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mia got pregnant, but that is a longer conversation. It'll have to be Sunday though. I'm going to Atlanta with my brother tomorrow.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">——————(BREAK)——————</span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">How was Atlanta?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was good, just some quality time with my brother. We got a hotel at the Westin, 70th floor with a view.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nice. Living it up. Did you take many photos?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">No, I didn't even bring my camera.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A vacation from photos. Hmm,, I should try that.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It's unusual for me, I usually always have at least a disposable camera!</span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9H837ssu9FaVxEClsZkv3Y2h7nlTKY69GEUjoYUKaovvt0reme-O5zzokebtln8kBaMVQZjSK1wgrfVpCpRYopyuWyIwWQtaCgyElAbWPcqFb68yEr2Nlc9314hlYbFBymnvXnYW1guZw2-2De-z9Ws3dwzjYjwAafDmtxmfyTSMujZJI1NnIEVXD730/s2999/000037.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2999" data-original-width="1996" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9H837ssu9FaVxEClsZkv3Y2h7nlTKY69GEUjoYUKaovvt0reme-O5zzokebtln8kBaMVQZjSK1wgrfVpCpRYopyuWyIwWQtaCgyElAbWPcqFb68yEr2Nlc9314hlYbFBymnvXnYW1guZw2-2De-z9Ws3dwzjYjwAafDmtxmfyTSMujZJI1NnIEVXD730/w266-h400/000037.JPG" width="266" /></a></b></span></div><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Was it because you wanted time with your brother? And you thought the camera might get in the way? Or some other reason?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm not really sure, but I've had a wild past 3 years on the road and just haven't really felt like shooting photos lately.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the end of our last chat Mia was brainstorming baby names. And she was/wasn't pregnant? What are some of the names she came up with?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">What?! Really? When did we talk about baby names?</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“My girlfriend was just texting me about baby names, she's not even pregnant yet.”</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oh, I see what happened. Unfortunately Mia died March 20th of last year. I was referring to my current girlfriend. We’ve been chatting about potential baby names if we have children.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oh fuck, I'm so sorry.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It's ok. I thought you preemptively knew that. It was just her time to go, wish it wasn't so. Mia and I talked about naming the child Billy, after her dad. This time around we were thinking about Frankie, that’s my mom’s name. But who knows. It doesn't even exist yet, physically at least.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Can't go wrong honoring your elders. Or can you? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">HAHAHAHA. My mom has always hated her name, because on paper it looks like she’s a man. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Speaking of names I tried to scroll through ridindirtyface IG account but couldn't find it. Did you take that down? Or did I get the name wrong?</span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhizXMih8gMjkFikIJC3s73OPx92TGBXP4jmBVtollcrB8lY8sMxyIX3Y1P2tMTzMf3qTWT7-u4cU28QMKeMV1j86D6Q3occuumYMrEcEhrp-J1ehx47Z6NfJXzTvAQDBwGZqdCyipVEu5LYcuVEia9U5mcq5uowM4sBYOcSNlP4OCvarMU7JC3ZUYBZqc/s2515/slack_submit16.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2515" data-original-width="2073" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhizXMih8gMjkFikIJC3s73OPx92TGBXP4jmBVtollcrB8lY8sMxyIX3Y1P2tMTzMf3qTWT7-u4cU28QMKeMV1j86D6Q3occuumYMrEcEhrp-J1ehx47Z6NfJXzTvAQDBwGZqdCyipVEu5LYcuVEia9U5mcq5uowM4sBYOcSNlP4OCvarMU7JC3ZUYBZqc/w528-h640/slack_submit16.jpg" width="528" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>So I've had several Instagram accounts. Currently it's </b></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>@mikebrodie_thepolaroidkidd</b></span><b style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">. I just feel mentally done with shooting at the moment, and I'm getting into filmmaking, at least I like to tell myself that. I have enough photo work currently to publish 4 more books, so I’ve been spending a lot of time doing that and getting my name back out there. Would be nice to make some money off my photography again.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What kind of books do you have planned? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">So I just released a small boxset of Polaroid reproductions with Stanley/Barker called <i><a href="https://www.stanleybarker.co.uk/products/polaroid-kid">Polaroid Kid</a></i>. And we’re currently in the editing phase of my next photo book with <a href="https://twinpalms.com">Twin Palms,</a> really looking forward to that. And speaking of Mia! James Han is currently printing her black & white negatives, making some very limited handmade books of her work to share with a few people. Hopefully I will turn that into a formal publication at some point. I sent you some of those photos actually.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBEY1E-3E6QgSfPPtjbX52rgYx5XB4-fRx4UyXc9vDBbTNrDPXYJM_k3_fErUyR3HbVfF8FBakaERUv1HDOJiiFotA5uieylfSj1L-nPOm_6uDc8j0xqTJgYRwa4ucbr5swdtF3vBSP_2hgdFwvwGxL2vx0aBp0g9XKT1PqyR9baeA4vjJMPv-IJyJZK0/s4032/IMG_6947.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBEY1E-3E6QgSfPPtjbX52rgYx5XB4-fRx4UyXc9vDBbTNrDPXYJM_k3_fErUyR3HbVfF8FBakaERUv1HDOJiiFotA5uieylfSj1L-nPOm_6uDc8j0xqTJgYRwa4ucbr5swdtF3vBSP_2hgdFwvwGxL2vx0aBp0g9XKT1PqyR9baeA4vjJMPv-IJyJZK0/w640-h480/IMG_6947.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Selfie by Mia Justice Smith<br /><br /></i></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I know Jim from Portland. How did you connect with him? And how did you decide to have him print her negs?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I met him through Instagram. He was following an old IG account of mine, where I posted a lot of my life and travels. I think he vicariously really got to know Mia through that, she also had an account called @smack.action, and went by the name "Slack”. It was her road name. After she passed I think I mentioned to him I was in possession of all her Polaroids and negatives. He straight up just asked if he could print them and make some books, at no charge.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdE1rWdye6nWHEryfhCMIrASJN2uuoSFIl9aNdvir_A_zJg-ur2fL-o1rHL-vQqWqSYGLPV2J-TxZPw1k45CVdElZae_aav9ZN33VpY0SZoqxvFHNK_2WBzjPOE4QYm5KiqX2SCBa4NIhzFdZedOweeUk37C35CTwsWhkYSSBbu9OIFVmQ10vl6Hy07vU/s3030/29FC9E80-B476-4794-A85B-A1B6C2C3BF59.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3023" data-original-width="3030" height="638" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdE1rWdye6nWHEryfhCMIrASJN2uuoSFIl9aNdvir_A_zJg-ur2fL-o1rHL-vQqWqSYGLPV2J-TxZPw1k45CVdElZae_aav9ZN33VpY0SZoqxvFHNK_2WBzjPOE4QYm5KiqX2SCBa4NIhzFdZedOweeUk37C35CTwsWhkYSSBbu9OIFVmQ10vl6Hy07vU/w640-h638/29FC9E80-B476-4794-A85B-A1B6C2C3BF59.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Selfie by Mia Justice Smith</i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jim's rad. He has good energy. His photos remind me of the batch you sent me. A look behind the curtain into the underworld. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I've never met him but I'm looking forward to it. More like behind the curtain and into the underpants! Seems like we both have very different styles but I'd hope we’ve inspired each other a little bit. I like what he does.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'd agree you have different styles. But it seems you're attracted to similar subject matter? Do you think that's a fair statement?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well yeah, I think he asks first, haha. We actually both photographed the same girl. Her name’s Piff. He recognized her from my page and met her on the street. He made me some beautiful prints of her. I think by nature, good compelling photography of people’s lives is exploitative. This is something Mia and I talked about since most of the work we did together was very controversial. I think Jim photographs are more stark considering his printing process and they're b&w. He also photographs more drug addicts. I'm around that stuff a lot but usually don't photograph it, Mia was an exception, and was actually the first person I ever saw do drugs intravenously.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji3KpO7ffnM3FQkk-whTwwE8ap8LszMTZygkO206G5LGovC_lvhevj0caroYK_1vjWtfT38X1rzzhyGTjKM13kPI53mPHn21g0x4RiHlMqWUGtfj_ekFSLD_Kxrr2jpk-qmCf1ZefcZ16-n69SEnCEjtOJc4ff3dELLNAmMILJevVHLtkmsiu2oenfHFc/s4032/IMG_9041.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji3KpO7ffnM3FQkk-whTwwE8ap8LszMTZygkO206G5LGovC_lvhevj0caroYK_1vjWtfT38X1rzzhyGTjKM13kPI53mPHn21g0x4RiHlMqWUGtfj_ekFSLD_Kxrr2jpk-qmCf1ZefcZ16-n69SEnCEjtOJc4ff3dELLNAmMILJevVHLtkmsiu2oenfHFc/w480-h640/IMG_9041.jpeg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Selfie by Mia Justice Smith</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was controversial about your work with Mia?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">So my entire relationship with Mia was controversial. I picked her up hitchhiking at Love's truck stop. A lot people thought she was underage and I got her into drugs. But she was 23 and already a fentanyl addict when I met her. Not to mention she was a total sex addict and always half naked, and I was 36 just coming out of an 8 year marriage. You do the math.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have Jim’s book of Piff pictures called "Piff Plays With Her Pussy”. I like the book even if I don't fully understand it. About half the pictures show her fingerbanging herself. Maybe it's a conceptual thing? Same view, same pussy, same finger. You can build a billion dollar industry on that activity, but in terms of pure mechanics it seems monotonous. But I still cherish my copy. It's made from original darkroom prints. And it’s a very personal and rare book.</span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaunU6_BtPz76nh4pRAP5m7CBuplAS4tKhQUsSizEOQ1tsnDvEub8SiX6nTTgf0N4ISL0vyPD2XeQT4Y2qgbYKXJDAe91fNS2VxUagmFOEVsjndtfJQRqkkMINyPK_3d_G5QeskFz0GZpIPmLo5QAqD0c0yIT4XUzlf6JcYe5zp7hET4ucZNvRmZP0KNc/s1807/IMG_1238.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1355" data-original-width="1807" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaunU6_BtPz76nh4pRAP5m7CBuplAS4tKhQUsSizEOQ1tsnDvEub8SiX6nTTgf0N4ISL0vyPD2XeQT4Y2qgbYKXJDAe91fNS2VxUagmFOEVsjndtfJQRqkkMINyPK_3d_G5QeskFz0GZpIPmLo5QAqD0c0yIT4XUzlf6JcYe5zp7hET4ucZNvRmZP0KNc/w640-h480/IMG_1238.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Piff Plays With Her Pussy, book by Jim Han<br /></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'd like to see that book! I love Piff. We don't talk much anymore. But she will always have a special place in my heart. Your criticism is sound. I wonder if Jim had sex with her, she never told me...and I didn't ask. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm sure Jim would send you a copy if you asked. Not sure if they had sex or what his relationship was, or if it matters? The way he shoots there is a tenuous divide between observation and participation. It's what I mentioned the last chat, that as soon as you bring a camera to your eye you create a division, in a way. You set yourself apart from what or who you are with. I'm not sure how Jim negotiates that division but I think probably some lines are crossed. And recrossed. They are all imaginary lines anyway.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm just of the opinion if a man is photographing a women, it's a sexual relationship, either figuratively or literally. And often times one party ends up liking the other. That’s been my experience anyways.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A man cannot photograph a woman without a sexual component? Hmmmm. You said something earlier which might relate. You said that "good compelling photography of people’s lives is exploitative.” I agree that all photography has a power dynamic which is inescapable. When you photograph another person you exert power over that person. Always. But of course it can be handled in all sorts of ways. It's not always a one way relationship. Maybe it can be generalized into a broader take? All relationships between all humans have some sexual dynamic? Even if it's usually pretty well buried.</span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirTcOQ3xORCSvf__hRu7748CrvwUXqTl9QdulJZguNcI-trdYi64dWF5c_UBim53nvBTedQ0pR-FNcl-kJ8rcmS_CDy_UO8WpOWHnOOFn3daSgWvy9zt9d_JnQTKRfoCCmRuWfuWZVVbBAiV2ggMxhhAdRdSiwCnsDZrG8cvmEVPzEaDcHfWR3OCK9zWk/s2999/000034.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2999" data-original-width="1996" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirTcOQ3xORCSvf__hRu7748CrvwUXqTl9QdulJZguNcI-trdYi64dWF5c_UBim53nvBTedQ0pR-FNcl-kJ8rcmS_CDy_UO8WpOWHnOOFn3daSgWvy9zt9d_JnQTKRfoCCmRuWfuWZVVbBAiV2ggMxhhAdRdSiwCnsDZrG8cvmEVPzEaDcHfWR3OCK9zWk/w426-h640/000034.JPG" width="426" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes exactly. I'm no psychologist, I just believe everything in life driven by sex and sexuality.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Can't disagree. Life might be simpler if I just chop this thing off. I'd probably get more done.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">HAHAHA, there was a really good interview recently on Soft White Underbelly, with a divorce lawyer. That was his realization too, that men are forever just control by their dicks. Shit, I have to get off soon, no pun intended. I gotta drive to Mississippi tonight. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What's in Mississippi?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm moving in with my girlfriend. That's where she's from. She lives with her mom, and I'm moving in!#$% Meanwhile my ex-wife just listed our old house for sale....at $385k and she probably isn't giving me any of it. !#$%</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">——————(BREAK)——————</span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">How is Mississippi?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Good, just been "settling in". Just a temporary living situation until the next chapter of my life unfolds. I’m in Biloxi, Mississippi. Living with my girlfriend and her mom. We’re just sharing a small bedroom in the house.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">How do you get along with her mom?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well, her mom’s only 5 years older than me so we’re the same generation. She's cool and we get along, kind of a tweaker, or actually a tweaker? But definitely a hoarder, there’s shit everywhere, barely any room to walk. She reminds me of my dad’s side of the family in Arizona, so that’s comforting. I can just be myself around here. Regardless, I'm pretty agreeable and get along with most people.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWvMfH8fklKU5cjTACxEjklIvdqgEuaYflC76nvvLvrXCXVTUunPcuoBaZcz0yxtPM5rti2wv12Z9Gryuv36QKeBwJTVpeV4_PxptHM6gredUZNCq-EYHhA-uRLnnneyp8FmIdndCXvXG2KOY9W0cPe3njSc48jQ_V_uVZtOqSKL2T16pnHffIgvXzKKM/s1090/7859.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="1090" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWvMfH8fklKU5cjTACxEjklIvdqgEuaYflC76nvvLvrXCXVTUunPcuoBaZcz0yxtPM5rti2wv12Z9Gryuv36QKeBwJTVpeV4_PxptHM6gredUZNCq-EYHhA-uRLnnneyp8FmIdndCXvXG2KOY9W0cPe3njSc48jQ_V_uVZtOqSKL2T16pnHffIgvXzKKM/w640-h430/7859.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You said temporary living situation. What's next? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have no idea. Been applying for jobs in the area and trying to sell some of my work via Instagram. Me and my brother are saving to start a trucking business at some point. Did I tell you about my ex wife? I forgot.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You mentioned her selling your old house. And somehow Mimi Plumb photographed her? And you ran a trucking thing with her in Nevada?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oh ok, yeah. She helped a little when I started it but then asked for a divorce when I was on the road. Think that was 2020.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was her connection with Mimi Plumb?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">OH, I just remembered. I think she was at an event in Berkeley where a bunch of artists were painting a wall, and Mimi Plumb was there photographing people. That’s why if you look closely at the photo of her, there’s paint on her hand.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHlIcEh6x0Qadxcn2KNe7v8qkXJnFcQhhEFJNGjcBqttw-gfab9_H__Vu3XMoqS_hGYQz12bUAwpDq1j1hCjlzit0HUf14jwibMO42QTryl-efPTun5VY1yVKwZOI5ajY0ykvrfMkqhZ9vM_EX09ojxmtrYJlr3cGQ3I67MRtaIWXkWjooE4BtZz-mMQM/s763/ss.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="763" data-original-width="616" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHlIcEh6x0Qadxcn2KNe7v8qkXJnFcQhhEFJNGjcBqttw-gfab9_H__Vu3XMoqS_hGYQz12bUAwpDq1j1hCjlzit0HUf14jwibMO42QTryl-efPTun5VY1yVKwZOI5ajY0ykvrfMkqhZ9vM_EX09ojxmtrYJlr3cGQ3I67MRtaIWXkWjooE4BtZz-mMQM/w516-h640/ss.jpg" width="516" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Photo by Mimi Plumb</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Strange connection. I love Mimi Plumb's pictures. She's published with Stanley/Barker too. Maybe you know her through them? Or not, I don't know how that stuff works.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I know of her work through Paul Schiek, <a href="https://tbwbooks.com">TBW</a>. He did a book for her as well.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oh yeah,<i> Landfall</i>. Good book. I meant to ask about Paul Schiek. I know you are friends, and that he helped to acknowledge and spread the word about your photos. I'm curious why didn't publish them himself? Why did he send you to Twin Palms?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’m not exactly sure. Paul's a strange bird and I really never know what his motives are. I just trust him. I know he believed that work was extremely important, this was around 2009. And TBW didn't have the traction to promote and distribute it. Our first option was Steidl, but we didn't like their edit. He found Jack Woody and went with Twin Palms. It was truly a perfect union. I'm actually working on another book with them now.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What is the new book?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">The book is a continuation, but not a sequel to <i>A Period of Juvenile Prosperity</i>. All Kodak 35mm photos I've taken over the past 10 years, some of which I sent to you for this interview. God willing, I'm trying to get the edit done by January 2024, with a Spring book release.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4FPPyceoOcTQCeGzlNY7iohJ4hUNB2geksInRk0773XuU-JQFd-FXLlcpa_DIwJtJnzukhptIOmyS24UEigFAGYoyzDvuty0Jxbr9hbp58xdg6UQYrCWBNgy-ozqpypeAiQguUCFPoDZ1vPdBDXMFJtU_6zZMiFdtvIcmrtD1b5iabRv_8YvRFd3Uc7k/s1090/4335.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="1090" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4FPPyceoOcTQCeGzlNY7iohJ4hUNB2geksInRk0773XuU-JQFd-FXLlcpa_DIwJtJnzukhptIOmyS24UEigFAGYoyzDvuty0Jxbr9hbp58xdg6UQYrCWBNgy-ozqpypeAiQguUCFPoDZ1vPdBDXMFJtU_6zZMiFdtvIcmrtD1b5iabRv_8YvRFd3Uc7k/w640-h430/4335.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Can't wait to see it. You mentioned you didn't like Steidl's edit of <i>APOJP</i>. It makes me curious, what was different? What did they do wrong?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Steidl didn't seem to be interested in the train hopping component. I think culturally it was less relevant to them? <i>APOJP</i> was edited from around 8,000 photos so there were a lot of different directions we could have gone with the book. We just weren't feeling their edit, and they didn't seem to want to give us much creative control. We were told to "trust the eye of Steidl" which ended up being a funny inside joke for awhile. Besides, Jack Woody lived in Santa Fe and we were able to just drive down there and stay with him. He’s always been very hospitable.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Good decision. The book turned out great. Now I'm trying to imagine it without train hopping?! Like, that's the whole driving force of the photos. But I guess it shows there's a thousand ways to edit. It might be a German thing. Like maybe freight lines are less of a cultural touchstone there?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thank you! And yes, it’s been the driving force of my life for 20 years so it would really hard and strange to ignore it.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here’s Paul Schiek’s answer: "I recognized the importance of the photos and knew of the opportunity to establish you as one of the great American photographers of all time and in order to do that out of respect for the work I knew it should be published by one of the great American publishers of all time. Naturally Jack is that person and to take the work to him was the respectful and right thing to do. It honored a tradition and a person who laid the groundwork for what I do. In many ways it was like a scene from the godfather. You don’t jump the line. You pay your dues and wait your turn."</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That was probably true ten years ago. But TBW is at the front of the line now.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">He's paid his dues I guess.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Are you still train hopping? Has it changed much since you started? Are you still energized by it?</span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLmOr_sKkZo0WgO5obqBWe8sBAlzZZxt_iGLqtArMxlKv5FHPifPG5f3L9JKdEeKc1V2cxB5l5XwCqW_Eca9kZk0l27IBKv5wi9sxsBjRDE6RmZyCKlcPbA9kil76MbpULgRmdkQSTEYMUEFStuUvLiI5E4SBx3KDcurEdrREbGXVPb5A6M0URcYFZda4/s2515/slack_submit5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2515" data-original-width="2073" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLmOr_sKkZo0WgO5obqBWe8sBAlzZZxt_iGLqtArMxlKv5FHPifPG5f3L9JKdEeKc1V2cxB5l5XwCqW_Eca9kZk0l27IBKv5wi9sxsBjRDE6RmZyCKlcPbA9kil76MbpULgRmdkQSTEYMUEFStuUvLiI5E4SBx3KDcurEdrREbGXVPb5A6M0URcYFZda4/w528-h640/slack_submit5.jpg" width="528" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I've been riding pretty hard the last 3 years but I'm starting to hurt, physically and mentally. It’s just not a good way to live. Been doing it on and off for 20 years. Changed? Yes. Energized by it? No. We could have entirely different discussion on the matter at some point if you want, but not NOW.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What about the <i>Polaroid Kid</i> box you just published. How did that project happen? And how do you think it turned out?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Greg at Stanley/Barker emailed me and expressed interest in publishing something, so that’s what we came up with. At first I was skeptical at the Polaroid reproduction idea but they came out great! I think there's even talk of us doing a 2nd box set. I have so many more Polaroids. Those were just some very important ones from 2003-2004.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1WltFYmVoP9y4LWdUABLssfneSgljRCZg_CUiEPRZojs_eh9dRPp_9pP8Fh3XKScoHMDIQ9Q1b8NppeBEo77ss7ErEGfZ4repzibJz5uXg9bc4WYJn-uOIKYaX-bBNDodJiIGShXFA0XETMFqvO61Y81CmkKhddZlXdFeoPF4-d86yZhdcPVxZYtGPgM/s2515/slack_submit7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2515" data-original-width="2073" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1WltFYmVoP9y4LWdUABLssfneSgljRCZg_CUiEPRZojs_eh9dRPp_9pP8Fh3XKScoHMDIQ9Q1b8NppeBEo77ss7ErEGfZ4repzibJz5uXg9bc4WYJn-uOIKYaX-bBNDodJiIGShXFA0XETMFqvO61Y81CmkKhddZlXdFeoPF4-d86yZhdcPVxZYtGPgM/w528-h640/slack_submit7.jpg" width="528" /></a></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think the facsimiles are pretty amazing actually. They even have all the dust specks and smudges. And your handwriting. It's almost like the real thing. It questions the whole idea of Polaroids as unique objects. If they can be replicated so faithfully it makes you wonder.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I've been thinking about all that lately as I shuffle through my Polaroids and little boxes of my life. Sold a lot of my first Polaroids at a show in 2006 with M+B. Tragic really, they are so rare, never to be made again.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oh damn, you sold the Polaroids. Who bought them?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I didn't sell all of them, just periodically sold Polaroids over the years, and have done a poor job of keeping track of who the buyers were.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Your M & B show, was that the opening where you showed up greasy and smelly from riding trains. And they tried to make you shower and change? I can't remember where I read that but if it's true I LOVE it. Fucking prissy art snobs.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">HAHAHA yeah, it was all in good fun. Benjamin Trigano told me I should shower and clean up but I refused. That was my dirty kid era. I like to stay clean these days, even if I'm on the road.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiys8wbmwwz9bhd1_DUISlZnJlgev4bhyphenhyphenUPXJwFnmJCKX1auPYSLrM4UemmwJbgG2j8n8i1JXtypYexvkEsmCnSlZS75yHPfPlJSH9fnDTIDaKHOvV_PlReHvsUsenn2fPXAHXU7RRlfe1NSdzl2wCqm31rxg21zkpytvacauIt-Yhk975Alhf3sO5OMd4/s1476/298.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1476" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiys8wbmwwz9bhd1_DUISlZnJlgev4bhyphenhyphenUPXJwFnmJCKX1auPYSLrM4UemmwJbgG2j8n8i1JXtypYexvkEsmCnSlZS75yHPfPlJSH9fnDTIDaKHOvV_PlReHvsUsenn2fPXAHXU7RRlfe1NSdzl2wCqm31rxg21zkpytvacauIt-Yhk975Alhf3sO5OMd4/w640-h434/298.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></span></div><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So if you've sold some of your Polaroids, did that effect what you sent to Stanley Barker? Is that a selection of only what you now own, missing the sold pictures. Or was it two different sets of work?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">OH yes, two different sets of work. 2003-2004 I was shooting Polaroid 600 film, then in 2005 I switched to the SX-70 and shot Time-Zero film which is how I got more dramatic portraits and landscapes.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well I've only sold one Polaroid so far. I have an Instagram with less than 500 followers and nobody knows how to find me. The Polaroids can be published regardless of sales, as long as I have a good scan. With this boxset I decided it was a good idea to mail Greg all the originals so he could scan both sides and get a "feel" for them you know?</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You can't complain that nobody knows how to find you if you keep closing and switching accounts. Just saying.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">HAHA yeah I’ve had like 10 accounts!</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe you don't want to be found? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I did enjoy the married life and existing somewhat in obscurity. But now I'm torn, artist or trucker? Or both? </span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRPoUylZ-pho8ETRPFB7huGDq8uJVNywYpkTgLgYUY42uwf2ZAD-dHRaT9FxZtk2t2YAmBuRKQOLkugsiruSaHdMBODnlxmoDcUq9Ie0_NNmG2iMfKr0N9wmaKRPVeXjbStNJA-bhOdlpzBdvFn1qicOCFJTNAQItkuBF65BOrAal5JtlOLS6jFW1wXbU/s1090/14800.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1090" data-original-width="731" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRPoUylZ-pho8ETRPFB7huGDq8uJVNywYpkTgLgYUY42uwf2ZAD-dHRaT9FxZtk2t2YAmBuRKQOLkugsiruSaHdMBODnlxmoDcUq9Ie0_NNmG2iMfKr0N9wmaKRPVeXjbStNJA-bhOdlpzBdvFn1qicOCFJTNAQItkuBF65BOrAal5JtlOLS6jFW1wXbU/w430-h640/14800.jpg" width="430" /></a></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why do you need to choose one or the other? It's kind of funny that you equated married life with obscurity. I'm not sure one causes the other but they seem related somehow.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I can do both if I'm an Owner Operator. But I can't pursue my art if I'm employed by someone else, which is why I quit every job I've had within a year. I'll always keep my mechanic skills in my back pocket but I sold all my tools. I guess what’s really going on is I've always felt torn between two lives.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think we touched on that issue in the very first chat. Is it possible to get your Trucking thing up and running there in Mississippi. And then have the art thing on the side? I guess the other option is to go full steam into the art world. But it's soooo hard to make a living there. Maybe like 100 photographers in the world can really make that work financially, and keep full artistic control.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I made a lot of money with my photography in the past but I wasn't responsible with it. Now I'm starting over financially, especially after the divorce and Mia’s death. My dream is to make a feature film. But my dream is to also have a family and a successful trucking business. For creative control I feel like I'd have to fund the film myself. Could the trucking business generate enough income for that? Maybe, maybe not, only time will tell. These are the two lives I guess I'm talking about, I just feel fucking crazy sometimes. Maybe I just need to learn how to collaborate with other artists, who can help tell this story I want to tell.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well you've found collaboration with your publishers. That's a great foundation.</span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVePcJQ42a3gl7AqgB0EA7XC-cHgGVe9AGhfWq3DFk0YyseyTIS7ehAzcpe1EpwDdmN3fLvXfctsgUzOsB3qYtRrna5AQ-yCUI0eeZZU2sbgt16wdR87vnIKWFkNmWjDzumqbDeiMosxUBDGHuuIIXofvCPLOE2r2-V7fq0Q4xaPKyN_2EP_pQ1eUbTR4/s2999/000006.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2999" data-original-width="1996" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVePcJQ42a3gl7AqgB0EA7XC-cHgGVe9AGhfWq3DFk0YyseyTIS7ehAzcpe1EpwDdmN3fLvXfctsgUzOsB3qYtRrna5AQ-yCUI0eeZZU2sbgt16wdR87vnIKWFkNmWjDzumqbDeiMosxUBDGHuuIIXofvCPLOE2r2-V7fq0Q4xaPKyN_2EP_pQ1eUbTR4/w426-h640/000006.JPG" width="426" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: start;"><i>“Ethereal Wraith” by Mia Justice Smith</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Definitely! Filmmaking just feels like an entirely different universe.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What kind of films do you want to make?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well, I’m working on an experimental documentary right now with Cyrill Lachauer, mostly about my experiences on the road shooting photos, and we’re trying to incorporate this subtle narrative of Mia’s life in the background. But it's tough because Cyrill is in Germany. He's funding and shooting it all, mostly out of his own pocket, he's just a working class artist as well. As for a feature, I want to tell a story about a girl who loses herself while trying to find herself, a somewhat generic example would be, for example, a female version of Chris McCandless.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Both sound cool.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thanks man.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One thing I enjoy about photography is that it can be a solo activity. I can shoot photos, print, edit, distribute all on my own according to my schedule. I don't know much about film making, but it seems to always require other people. But I’m drawn to solo things. Maybe I'm just a loner, or a control freak. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, I love the simplicity of the craft.</span></b></span></p><div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><i>(All photographs above by Mike Brodie unless otherwise noted.)</i></span></div></div>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-74401636383375328382023-09-07T10:35:00.007-07:002023-09-09T10:38:22.564-07:00Q & A with Kathryn McCool<p><i style="font-family: georgia;"></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1aFRUH2XkXTve8JcSz82t5_QfP6bBUj7PQ5B7Ls9j9ruEY49vtlfS7RoNWJo9LU3qM2tUJyqSTSkMeqztfhzIqKmKCKZNMwHiHAO6U4S4j7VB6dnS7uUh3COO6NXJJ61JQdDRjvmB7sBcBrOsKEoOUK6tvAu2Vuxi6W5TzbUlnRoukiKxoLLIIcP-4LI/s3153/KathrynMcCool.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2728" data-original-width="3153" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1aFRUH2XkXTve8JcSz82t5_QfP6bBUj7PQ5B7Ls9j9ruEY49vtlfS7RoNWJo9LU3qM2tUJyqSTSkMeqztfhzIqKmKCKZNMwHiHAO6U4S4j7VB6dnS7uUh3COO6NXJJ61JQdDRjvmB7sBcBrOsKEoOUK6tvAu2Vuxi6W5TzbUlnRoukiKxoLLIIcP-4LI/s320/KathrynMcCool.jpg" width="320" /></a></i></div><i style="font-family: georgia;">Kathryn McCool is a photographer based in Castlemaine, Australia, and the author of the recent photobook <b>P.North</b>.</i><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic;">•</span></p><p><span><span style="font-family: georgia;">BA: </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Congrats on </span><i>P.North</i><span>. </span><a href="https://blog.photoeye.com/2023/07/book-of-week-selected-by-blake-andrews.html">I love the photos</a><span> but the book didn't tell me much about you. Can you please give me a brief bio? Where did you grow up? How did you get into photography? Etc.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">KM: Thank you Blake. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I grew up on a farm close to a small town named Bunnythorpe which came up around a power substation and the Glaxo factory. It was made up of a core population and then very much a shifting one too. Kids would turn up at the school for a term or two, it seems, and then they’d be gone. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think it was here that I really started looking at people around me. But of course we didn’t live in the town itself and so the mythologizing that went on in my head around the various townsfolk, grew pretty unchecked.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>When I was in my late teens, my dad went to an auction and got a box lot of stuff and handed me a camera, a Ricoh, and I don’t think it even had a lens cap and he gave it to me to take on a bus trip to Wellington city. I walked around and took photos of people on the street because the only things I knew about photography is that you took photos of people on the street or at weddings or in school photos.</b> </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">How did your Wellington photos turn out? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">The photos were ok I think, in color, but not ok enough to recall any in particular apart from possibly one of a Rastafarian leaning against a wall.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why did your dad give you a camera? Was he a photographer? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">No, he wasn’t a photographer. It is still a mystery to me that he gave me the camera –he used to walk into our rooms and hand out sweets. On this day it was a camera. I’m glad of it though. I don’t know what else I could have done.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You said "the only thing I knew about photos is that you took photos of people on the street". Where did you come across that idea? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></b></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK0n-vVLBWoLEsgC01DW4iNGRgLSxmXWQC80ZG7WnL28l4WtMf8INd68tlmJz9jTii2MeOKH3Bil7EP5KyDxhkFsVGJNXVxpfYH81BQx2GYdpLOjWRKiyVnVDrZdDjSH5mJtUnlq3UwxXZb2TfZVA6XtStIf7btwh-mtqNdiaDNPeXBORBDv0SlZDJ4nw/s899/henri_carter_bresson_rue+mouffetardparis_+1954_weston_gallery.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK0n-vVLBWoLEsgC01DW4iNGRgLSxmXWQC80ZG7WnL28l4WtMf8INd68tlmJz9jTii2MeOKH3Bil7EP5KyDxhkFsVGJNXVxpfYH81BQx2GYdpLOjWRKiyVnVDrZdDjSH5mJtUnlq3UwxXZb2TfZVA6XtStIf7btwh-mtqNdiaDNPeXBORBDv0SlZDJ4nw/w268-h400/henri_carter_bresson_rue+mouffetardparis_+1954_weston_gallery.jpg" width="268" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;">HCB, Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1954</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> </span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />An exaggeration possibly, but it was a Time-Life book my mother had in the cupboard. I’d often look at this when I was pretty young. On the cover was the famous photo of the boy with the bottle of wine—the Cartier-Bresson one. I used to stare at that boy and wonder: who was he and where was he going and what was he going to do with that bottle of wine and where were his parents.</span></b><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I love that photo. It's amazing that a mute image can travel around the world and inspire such questions. Where did your photo path lead next? Did you continue to use the Ricoh? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well, this is embarrassing. I kept the Ricoh in a paper bag and I left it behind on a beach one day and it turned out the best thing. I wasn't a very technically driven person and so to cover this shortcoming I realized I needed to have a better camera so that is when I saved up and bought the Rolleiflex. I was going to the library a lot then to look at photo books then and knew that Dorothea Lange used one and Arbus and Ans Westra too.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When was that? What age? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was 19-20 years old. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did you have any training at that time? Any friends or family into photography? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I had no training. In 1987 I met Michael Stevenson and he was then a painter straight out of Elam School of Fine Art. Michael and I went on a trip photographing in the South Island and sometimes went driving just looking for stuff. We were very much into a very particular aesthetic, which he refers to as the Charismatic Pentecostal Aesthetic and we were quite dedicated to finding and describing it. Our quest was ‘completely intuitive, completely experiential, and came with no external view.’ (Michael’s words).</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What photos were you looking at then, or influenced by? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I would say my main influences at this stage weren’t so much photographic but came from hanging out with M.Stevenson, music, literature, the Bible for instance, and paintings. I hadn’t really discovered William Eggleston then, for example. I got a few images together and applied to study photography at Elam.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Was this period the start of <i>P.North</i>? Did any of that work make it into the book? </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSAoPQNWdnCNrQZjhH0UKr5IsICurxOWl2s4d2Nl3GRMhlFNOkndZcNZSuEB7mTL0gyLzTZbYrCc6Y-nQIZgRJylyllW0rkUdE0a_aALh9XSQ2AA84N6rnfUzCzrJ9zCjqSEoJXedZS9jWq2OtH8P4kIvuFyX5jFk3ewDD-sbOCCnIvhBmSPsq8kqoCCQ/s7078/8%20P.northjpg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6740" data-original-width="7078" height="610" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSAoPQNWdnCNrQZjhH0UKr5IsICurxOWl2s4d2Nl3GRMhlFNOkndZcNZSuEB7mTL0gyLzTZbYrCc6Y-nQIZgRJylyllW0rkUdE0a_aALh9XSQ2AA84N6rnfUzCzrJ9zCjqSEoJXedZS9jWq2OtH8P4kIvuFyX5jFk3ewDD-sbOCCnIvhBmSPsq8kqoCCQ/w640-h610/8%20P.northjpg.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>P.North</i> started before this but work from this time also made it into the book. Then there are a couple of images that were shot in 2017 that are in <i>P.North</i> too. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">How did you find people and approach them? You said earlier "I think it was there that I really started looking at people around me." So you were a good observer. But it's not always easy translating that skill into photos. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sometimes the people I photographed were from nearby. The kids were neighbours or kids I babysat or the adults who were my landlords or the lady who did the hem of my school ball dress, etc. But also they were strangers as well. Strangers that I saw around the place often.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihiNpw6OBCSczm7xK5eyhuseZJNKM7w-mzd4805ETyMP2DOjilGxv5tNo-5501BdK2dp0OEa-tdSlm1OMsGKLIdyE0bL89NtRnsajCTKwNxERUE1UbqqftDJq7UwxysUTJ1LWeeJZSs_p3E27pddqhgYTbZQKe-yj0YYlt8WFodW8aeDMZ03FMG_2uGGU/s1000/IMG_7202_1200x1200.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihiNpw6OBCSczm7xK5eyhuseZJNKM7w-mzd4805ETyMP2DOjilGxv5tNo-5501BdK2dp0OEa-tdSlm1OMsGKLIdyE0bL89NtRnsajCTKwNxERUE1UbqqftDJq7UwxysUTJ1LWeeJZSs_p3E27pddqhgYTbZQKe-yj0YYlt8WFodW8aeDMZ03FMG_2uGGU/w200-h150/IMG_7202_1200x1200.png" width="200" /></a></span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />I would also spend a lot of time driving around looking. Sometimes it was hard to approach people and usually I’d have to think quickly about composition etc, as usually I only liked to use a few frames. Mostly, I knew immediately if it was working or not. </span></b><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is interesting to see that many of the photos I deemed initially as failures, are now in <i>P.North</i>. </span></b><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why did you call them failures? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">By failures I meant how it felt to me at the time of photographing them as I mostly didn't even attempt to make a proof sheet to see what they looked like. So I was writing them off before I even saw them. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t been so narrow in my approach. They seemed like they weren’t working as I didn't feel this certain thing when I was taking the photo. Then there were the photos that I made some mistake with either in shooting or developing: light leak, film incorrectly loaded, film not wound on – you name it. Or that they were trying to be artful. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did your assessment of those frames change over time? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, my opinion of them changed over time. I have, as a consequence, realized that I need to have something like a cooling off period of at least a year or two before I can look at the photo –to really see it and give it a chance. I am also ok with the mistakes- with the detritus that seems to populate my images.</span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-2MAa6Z1JnINh1vsrydKKx0NrHbfTDrZeQIQmYGdlTBWmugt1zGd1eFDZA4UP0l8D0w2UliVOoQX__jwPqEXhA2XCKAhA-FqVQRPLZO6EaGIQSBvomPny2Ll7Z683PhDuzNWOcXuwQDvqozgiyRJlwOMzA8czwGsLbXfyZ2Rt4Qc9uB8wCvnQRwjk_U8/s7042/13%20P.North.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6676" data-original-width="7042" height="606" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-2MAa6Z1JnINh1vsrydKKx0NrHbfTDrZeQIQmYGdlTBWmugt1zGd1eFDZA4UP0l8D0w2UliVOoQX__jwPqEXhA2XCKAhA-FqVQRPLZO6EaGIQSBvomPny2Ll7Z683PhDuzNWOcXuwQDvqozgiyRJlwOMzA8czwGsLbXfyZ2Rt4Qc9uB8wCvnQRwjk_U8/w640-h606/13%20P.North.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What do you mean “trying to be artful”? One of my main attractions to the book is that the photos don't feel arty. They just seem like you pulled up, asked someone to stand there, shot the pic, done. Your visual approach seems natural and unaffected to me. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, they were mostly done how you describe but by artful I mean perhaps I was trying to compose too tightly or force something; maybe I could see myself trying to imitate something/someone. Hmm, don’t know really. Some of the artful ones didn’t make it into <i>P.North</i> besides.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Were they were shot around Bunnythorpe? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">They were shot around a number of places in NZ; Bunnythorpe and Palmerston North mostly and about four in Deniliquin in NSW and two in Queensland. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did you find photos generally by driving? I have a hard time seeing photo ops from a car. Far better luck walking, for me. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have flat feet! </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You have trouble walking? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I like to drive. I see things, make a note and return to photograph them. I also go to events like rodeos, fairs and gatherings where it makes sense to people that I am photographing. Like I could be taking pics for the local paper although my camera is a giveaway that I’m not.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What kind of photos are you making now? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I am still photographing people. Of course things have changed in the 35 or so years since <i>P.North</i>. It is harder to photograph. I am more indecisive. I overthink. I find it harder to approach people. But the work still has the similar sense of dislocation and vague time frame aspect to it. </span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBxhk7yjU22sdIOXrHCNK8whsl5Bnkoo72TiV5SI0hUpiTyZXVDbVaX6zIITwJwbWsCuMO9D-Il8brH_NOq9faL8GsYt9YwRUOmhqi27NMPIMlIW7zXengcEjCNe_Ookow7ZRrFSiJL1mmyxxV_RCIYXlQaHq52_mv9fyuiunikp9wAk0tL8D5Vx6a3mo/s7000/15%20P.North.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6688" data-original-width="7000" height="612" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBxhk7yjU22sdIOXrHCNK8whsl5Bnkoo72TiV5SI0hUpiTyZXVDbVaX6zIITwJwbWsCuMO9D-Il8brH_NOq9faL8GsYt9YwRUOmhqi27NMPIMlIW7zXengcEjCNe_Ookow7ZRrFSiJL1mmyxxV_RCIYXlQaHq52_mv9fyuiunikp9wAk0tL8D5Vx6a3mo/w640-h612/15%20P.North.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have been looking at Mark Steinmetz's photographs and I have read a little about how he works and this has changed the way I see the potential of a sunny day, for example. I used to avoid putting too much emotion into my photographs by avoiding a type of light that could take over and become the central character of the photo. I saw it as disruptive and seductive. But now I see the potential of using light in a different way. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I also have tried digital.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I love Mark Steinmetz.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Isn't he incredible? His photos are miraculous. I want to go to one his photo workshops. Too scared to.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You should do it.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I might lose my way if I did. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What do you mean?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Risk someone calling my bluff I guess. I still see my work as a series of flukes or that my last good photo is exactly that. I think in a photo workshop you are expected to wander out, take photos and come back and show them. I go months between taking photos sometimes. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don't know what Steinmetz's workshop is like but somehow I imagine he could adapt to flukes. I mean all of the best photos are somewhat dependent on chance. And I think he probably realizes that. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Also the workshop will need to be in a place that resonates with me. The latest is in Paris and all I can think of is that self portrait of Eggleston flaked out in his Parisian hotel room after days of taking no photos because he couldn't see past all the geraniums in pots on the windowsill kinda thing.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You've mentioned Eggleston a few times. Is he a major influence? What do you think of his pictures? </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnXsbjzaHKneLR1Ud_CaZchEipaUFYKXahzig3JxLnsgmQozhBaqOrpy-tVdvLgliQ78-qQgfhmzrVLxWcZCYAguDWiCXAD7T1SjiWpDioWKL3Y36iTu_hO0ZmHoJV1x3I6ijLyquzrcaYKM6HMPWSAzJI41IXR0dBrmjcplg5y2nE75XCbCEfZUvLDwQ/s12456/Untitled%20%201989%20(Diana%20Camera).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6947" data-original-width="12456" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnXsbjzaHKneLR1Ud_CaZchEipaUFYKXahzig3JxLnsgmQozhBaqOrpy-tVdvLgliQ78-qQgfhmzrVLxWcZCYAguDWiCXAD7T1SjiWpDioWKL3Y36iTu_hO0ZmHoJV1x3I6ijLyquzrcaYKM6HMPWSAzJI41IXR0dBrmjcplg5y2nE75XCbCEfZUvLDwQ/w640-h356/Untitled%20%201989%20(Diana%20Camera).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I can’t say that he is an influence because I have no idea how he sees what he does. He has been a distraction. I’ve taken my share of Eggleston influenced photos and to this day I am not sure about them. I’ve seen <i>In the Real World</i> a few times and have decided to leave him alone. Like I don’t even try to wonder. He is a genius.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Once I went to Memphis and was walking around and some women became very suspicious of me and stopped me to ask what I was up to. I had no idea it was his neighbourhood. They thought I was casing the place but as soon as I mentioned his name they were like 'Oh Bill, yeah we know him. He lives over there. Want to come meet him, although he did go out last night…’ I declined. What could I ever think of to say to WE.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I had a chance to meet him last fall at a show in New York. But the book signing line was really long, so I said fuck it and spent the morning shooting photos instead. Story of my life, oh well. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I reckon Eggleston would have approved of that response somehow! </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">How did your book come about? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">My son Travis MacDonald is a painter and he urged me to think about making a book. I got the old negatives scanned and entered them into the Perimeter Small Book Competition. I was shortlisted and later approached to make a not so small book.. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You share work with Travis. Does he get your photos? I'm asking as a fellow photographer who realizes the target audience is always tenuous. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, Travis gets them. And my son Jackson. They are my biggest editors and the conversation around each of our practices is an ongoing thing. I understand the tenuous thing too. BTW your review has changed some people’s (like family) opinions on my work too. So funny —they needed to be told how to view it. It’s beautifully written too.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Do you take photos of your kids? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, a few photos of the boys but as they got older they resisted. Lots of photos of them with hands in front of their faces. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It's great that your kids can offer feedback. Do you give feedback on Travis’s paintings too? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I am learning to wait to be asked.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What about the photo subjects in your book? Have you shown them the photos? Do you have a sense of how they respond to the images? </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLjOh9kqJl4DqVmAM_pOBfdtRBV9Aodpc6ZFBmKqxapNQhStYuAeOv6-U7F0jb5soPXuhiL2Krnnu_X7_WSHP9M7WVPvKtbA8tuWPq1zrfl6YYGre4Ma6x4IZqGzYw6B5gw3Ev064s7ok5A7WoOK77_p7Bpi0oUEMyqYOc-7C6L6k-5p7tky4f1Kow_iA/s7147/2%20P.North.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="7147" data-original-width="7111" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLjOh9kqJl4DqVmAM_pOBfdtRBV9Aodpc6ZFBmKqxapNQhStYuAeOv6-U7F0jb5soPXuhiL2Krnnu_X7_WSHP9M7WVPvKtbA8tuWPq1zrfl6YYGre4Ma6x4IZqGzYw6B5gw3Ev064s7ok5A7WoOK77_p7Bpi0oUEMyqYOc-7C6L6k-5p7tky4f1Kow_iA/w636-h640/2%20P.North.jpg" width="636" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">The bulk of the subjects in my book I have no idea how to contact. Don’t have full name or some have deceased or moved —it has been 35 years. The ones who've seen the photos kind of don’t care.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The audience can be tenuous. Can we go back in time for a moment? What happened after Elam?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>In 1989 I got into Elam in NZ and finished the year married, expecting a child and back living near Bunnythorpe - later moving back to Australia. So things took a dramatic turn and so did my sense of who I was and what I was doing, as you might imagine. </b><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Was that Travis MacDonald?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, Travis, the best, followed by Jackson, the best. 1989 was an interesting year as it was also a year in a city and it became apparent that I wasn't good at living in cities. I had to go back down country in order to take the photos. We were required to make a hand-sewn book each term and so this is where the idea of a photobook and how it might look, first started for me. Travis has the books now —a bit wrecked but intact mostly.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Do they look anything like <i>P.North</i>?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">They share some similarities. Small photos in a squarish book. Some text every now and then.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why and when did you move to Australia? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It wouldn't stop raining in the Manawatu in 1988 and it was not long after I had been completely dazzled by <i>Paris, Texas</i> so I sold my car and went to the nearest warm and blue place: Australia. I had a spell on a sheep station and then moved to a small town named Deniliquin and got this job. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was the job?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was bringing the sheep over from the saleyards and feeding out in the lots so I saw things I’d rather not have seen and it took me a little while to forget them. If at all. What was also difficult for me was the utter isolation socially. It was a hard place.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You said you weren't good at living in cities. And maybe you found the country life wrong too? Where are you most comfortable?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">In my car.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That's a very American answer, lol. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmpFO7YyQD52GBUlYdwk2hrWA_jVBQui3x27Y5gQpRR5D-kxie7HeMFnMcFEEmR80J-kk7_XXoORM7NJobB-qYw3MIzZzJdW42hrN7enho_hx3MLqcgWnwv2X9oBXX24-P7oOVHxng3leqJiaJhOAG4KJMIdYX5OzSUQ44MPxDdbOM7udPm-0vU6yabek/s7249/4%20P.North.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6760" data-original-width="7249" height="596" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmpFO7YyQD52GBUlYdwk2hrWA_jVBQui3x27Y5gQpRR5D-kxie7HeMFnMcFEEmR80J-kk7_XXoORM7NJobB-qYw3MIzZzJdW42hrN7enho_hx3MLqcgWnwv2X9oBXX24-P7oOVHxng3leqJiaJhOAG4KJMIdYX5OzSUQ44MPxDdbOM7udPm-0vU6yabek/w640-h596/4%20P.North.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes! Coming from a biggish family, my car was my room almost — the place you didn't have to share. But I have been thinking about walking during this conversation. Steinmetz describes photography as an athletic thing to do.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I grew up in a very rural setting like you, then moved to a city around age 18. I did that until my late 30s. Now I live near a small city, but in a country setting. Maybe it’s the best of both worlds? But personally I've usually found it harder to see photos in rural settings. Photographically I'm geared for urban material, or at least busy material</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I can see that in your work for sure. Did you grow up in Oregon?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I grew up in Northern California. You mentioned my work but I have almost no photos online. Which work do you mean?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well, I have seen some photos with your name on it —like the one of the car door walking down the street. Is that yours?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It’s possible but I’d have to see the photo to know. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">If I Google you, some photos come up that are very Bressonish decisive moment.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I can't complain about the comparison. I love HCB.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I am the biggest fan of BVM.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bertien Van Manen?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">She's awesome! I love her sense of color.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i></i></span></b></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSVc2aDFGyzTmL--lXI9jKIIzSiLA2EwXsq5R7fYUjz1HYWVvqyTuPsMjtT0LjSEmW9mP6AXh9WjBrBcWgjLLw5fHWT3BL3ofzpH0zmu1vMpaWDocJhsGT6uQPhiwLGb7u7-LHk5S32AHCqgK1DRh493cSeU1HMKLsV4VwCLhciJB5KDK0MNP7bLSLthA/s972/cover95_2100x.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="833" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSVc2aDFGyzTmL--lXI9jKIIzSiLA2EwXsq5R7fYUjz1HYWVvqyTuPsMjtT0LjSEmW9mP6AXh9WjBrBcWgjLLw5fHWT3BL3ofzpH0zmu1vMpaWDocJhsGT6uQPhiwLGb7u7-LHk5S32AHCqgK1DRh493cSeU1HMKLsV4VwCLhciJB5KDK0MNP7bLSLthA/w343-h400/cover95_2100x.jpg" width="343" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Bertien Van Manen, <i>Moonshine</i>, Mack, 2014</span></td></tr></tbody></table><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Moonshine</i> is my favourite. (I sometimes wonder what my work might be like if I had been aware of BVM when I started shooting.)</span></b><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Great book, and it feeds into the urban/rural discussion. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Moonshine</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> was shot in a mostly rural setting. And she was a complete stranger there, at least at first. So it might have been a tough place to find photos. At least it would be for me in that circumstance. But she really made something of it.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>In Moonshine it looks like she likes to or at least knows how to, well, hang out. (Like Susan Lipper in Grapevine maybe.) That can be a helpful thing in some settings. You get a sense that she is very likeable.</b><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>I have taken photos in that kind of place but in Alabama.</b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What were you doing in Alabama?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I shot a short doco on Sand Mountain in north Alabama. While I was filming I didn't make the transition to stills very easily so the photo record is a bit patchy. The doco is about an old musician named Cast King who was one of the last to record at the Sun Studios before it folded. It really was the vehicle by which I could see a part of the US that I had a longstanding curiosity about. So it is like a personal essay. Hand held and a bit rough.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'll have to track that down. I know you've been involved in cinema as well as photography. And you mentioned <i>Paris, Texas</i> earlier. Was that film influential for you? Were you already making films when you saw it?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">No, I wasn't making films. I was having enough trouble with just 1/125th of a sec, let alone anything longer. <i>Paris, Texas</i> was way too big to be an influence; it was something else. </span></b><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I got a video camera and more or less read the instructions on how to use it on the plane going over. My biggest lesson was watching <i>Stranger Than Paradise</i> by Jarmusch. He keeps it really simple in that film; camera on tripod, fixed focus, the slow pans. I looked at that film and thought ok I think I can do it. </span></b><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Of course the reason I thought I could make a film is because I had no idea what it took. Now that I know, I wouldn't ever make another.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1693895/">Sand Mountain</a></i> is it? Done?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well, now I really have to see it.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hmmm.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was your impression of the U.S.? Was it what you expected? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">My first impression of the US? I could say a lot about this. If you spent any time parked in front of the TV as a youngster, and I did, you already had a very involved impression of the place. I have to say I was smitten. And for so many reasons. But I found myself responding to this low hum of danger, not for myself, but for the people I encountered. Their lives were so difficult. So it was a complex contradiction of feelings. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">The U.S. for me is so infinitely photogenic and often I would be thinking, 'well right now it is like I am in a Stephen Shore or Joel Sternfeld or or or…’. The fingerprints of the greats were everywhere but the minute I put the camera up to my eye, what I thought was there disappeared. It was exhilarating and depressing. Photography is hard work. I learned not to keep driving but to stay still and look deeper. I am hoping for an opportunity to go back to the U.S. again but with my Rollei and see what I can find.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Going back a few questions, when did you settle in Australia for good?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1994 with my family for what was thought to be a working holiday. Still here in a small town named Castlemaine. </span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9x7fCQz2e_CrJBSwpDW7vme0iSh6RLVSVB-pJ2KVx7SgaeJobxDaWmFM19pJpFCJAh9TIrxfRxZtVMEVQdkVVbsOcHh_1P4vwg53n93yKXDY5m04mUsrH6ELLbcPncz5rAc-O1x6C3HukZ1OsuxgG1s4dDk9zTV8p-2pHUVukwX4B9PxYLGC014n84xQ/s7018/10%20P.%20North.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6608" data-original-width="7018" height="602" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9x7fCQz2e_CrJBSwpDW7vme0iSh6RLVSVB-pJ2KVx7SgaeJobxDaWmFM19pJpFCJAh9TIrxfRxZtVMEVQdkVVbsOcHh_1P4vwg53n93yKXDY5m04mUsrH6ELLbcPncz5rAc-O1x6C3HukZ1OsuxgG1s4dDk9zTV8p-2pHUVukwX4B9PxYLGC014n84xQ/w640-h602/10%20P.%20North.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Is there a photo community there?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, it’s called Instagram.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You also said you share work with your kids. Is that your main audience for feedback?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes. They are super sharp at discussing motives and nuance in my work and can weed out the weaker stuff and put words to an inarticulate feeling I might have about a photo. They were a major pre-edit voice in <i>P.North</i>.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You also referred to "family opinions" of your work. Not sure who that is or what they may have seen. But I thought it was kind of funny that a review could sway them so easily.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was kind of a complicated thing. Photography in their mind was reserved for magazines, family, famous faces, and then of course weddings, etc. So when I showed up with the photos of the people down the road, they were confused. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Do you think your book fundamentally changed how they think of photography?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don't think they'd think about it much.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You also made a comment about how your subjects reacted to the book. "The ones who've seen the photos kind of don’t care."</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I thought they somehow expected that they were going to look better than what the photo showed. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well that's just it. They DO look better than what the photo showed.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hmmm. I mean what looks are ‘better’ than others? A certain look/expression in a given moment that might be more appropriate than others but does that mean that it is a truer look? I did (and still do) shy away from showing people my photos. But mostly I’d say people were pleased to just be considered; to be looked at and photographed; to have been selected. And that is where the curiosity stopped really. Some even just waved the offer of the photo away.</span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidTeIonJcisRpC6CZ3xmCR4QkV-veOxG3CsyBz7nz5z-G2mtoJ03GNdOGAb5OEd5jvr2I3SVMOoKQbJAWPaMpNXs-mpWYfXWv0ZkGh6ttWcCq4r0XKspXLRAO6hWltn7ADw0fymi8uM12ffFgs1ZSsuH6FlnZPaT67xoUzPnd8pak_5H3bV0KLHeRlpt4/s7077/1%20P.North.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6936" data-original-width="7077" height="628" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidTeIonJcisRpC6CZ3xmCR4QkV-veOxG3CsyBz7nz5z-G2mtoJ03GNdOGAb5OEd5jvr2I3SVMOoKQbJAWPaMpNXs-mpWYfXWv0ZkGh6ttWcCq4r0XKspXLRAO6hWltn7ADw0fymi8uM12ffFgs1ZSsuH6FlnZPaT67xoUzPnd8pak_5H3bV0KLHeRlpt4/w640-h628/1%20P.North.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Photography can be a very solitary pursuit sometimes.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, it can and so makes conversations between photographers such an oasis. I actually think these photos are closer to self-portraits than anything else.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Can you elaborate on that?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think I was not having a good run at being an adult at the time. Add to this the backwards gaze, of not wanting things to change. Add to this an eschatological angst. So I was drawn to the people and places that I thought were representative of those very strong feelings.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If <i>P.North</i> is a self portrait of you at 19ish, what about the more recent photos in the book? Does self-portraiture still apply?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, it still applies. I now also see it as a far off country that is nowhere in particular. One person who bought the book said the photos made her homesick for a place she'd never been. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The imaginary country of "P.North".</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes. My time machine.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You briefly mentioned a fling with digital photography. And now you have swung back around to the Rollei again. What was your experience with digital?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I got a digital camera before my first US trip and I feel I was coerced into it by the whole, 'Well you have to get on-board as film to going to cease to exist'. I set off to the U.S. with an entry level camera and shot a lot, but at all low res. Mostly unusable really. I think my older way of shooting worked because it gave you fewer choices. And it also meant you weren’t holding something up to your face while trying to connect with someone. I mean it is interesting that the Rollei is held at gut level and that is the thing that works best in me. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Rollei worked for you. Why change?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah. Mugged by digital, as a friend likes to say.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I've been shooting with roughly the same system since 1993. I'm a dinosaur. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">And what is that?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Small hand held cameras, 35 mm film, contacts, darkroom, work prints > show prints, etc. Everyone else made the switch the digital at some point. But I never did. Analog works for me.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Smart.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The jury is still out on that.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">And you have exhibitions? You said there is not much online if at all.</span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYPBkK_M3lBJjwXkUAUc5t9YLW6s_qON-1okufm7792qt84ZCUW_XUFn1884Xwi3kCgtwqZ5TGRVwibpDVOAQVBqe1sHnrnzRbxzZ43QmSS0ZtkrYTqItDMdW28Byuo1uq9WPVbN3BWvmyD7iVQzhSy1Rgi0Nw86r9_8sdAlT2pAqZITVSgSNN7r6_fWg/s12701/Untitled%201989%20(Diana%20Camera)%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6962" data-original-width="12701" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYPBkK_M3lBJjwXkUAUc5t9YLW6s_qON-1okufm7792qt84ZCUW_XUFn1884Xwi3kCgtwqZ5TGRVwibpDVOAQVBqe1sHnrnzRbxzZ43QmSS0ZtkrYTqItDMdW28Byuo1uq9WPVbN3BWvmyD7iVQzhSy1Rgi0Nw86r9_8sdAlT2pAqZITVSgSNN7r6_fWg/w640-h350/Untitled%201989%20(Diana%20Camera)%202.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I've had exhibitions but not much since pandemic. I'll send you a photo album if you want.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Really? That would be wonderful! Thank you.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One stray comment from our last chat left me curious. You mentioned the Bible as an influence. It made me wonder, are you religious?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes sir.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Do you think that comes through in your photos?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Do you?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I can put it this way. If you hadn't mentioned the Bible before I'd have no idea it was important to you.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well, it is there. I was very much hooked into the elevation of the humble. It is in 1 Corinthians. Knowing this, does it change anything for you?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The photos, not so much. But there is that initial text in the book which I didn't really understand before. But now it has more context. And there is something from Ecclesiastes in the colophon which makes more sense now.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">The editor really wanted to put that piece of text in. It is kind of like a word photo, that sounds obtuse but…</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why did you choose that particular quote? Was that important to you in some way? Does it describe the photos? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think it describes my understanding of faith. That we are known but also that the mystery of this is way bigger than what we can ever know. It to me, implies that we think God is like us. I think if he is like us, he wouldn't be much of a God.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think there is a connection to <i>Moonshine</i> too. There’s a religious vibe in that book.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">For sure. There is an urgency to people's lives in that part of the world. For example, there is a reason why some people took up snakes in churches there, even though they're more or less outlawed now.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One dimension where the Bible comes through <i>P.North</i> is in the focus on kids. Many of the photos show children. Which I'd dismissed before as maybe easy targets or friends or whatever. But they do convey a tone of pre-fall innocence. I don't know the Bible well but I think there are several references to youth, children, renewal, rebirth, etc. Like, make way for the next wave of salvation or whatever. As for us grownups, we’re a lost cause, haha.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitsg2-twabdDvz9tNFy2OCOABBQBKWs4MWVp2KUslVPTVVVts-u33HXp7rRZeciGr5qURf6Pca9ovDvE6XreBJuME0NLKlwgwaTbQD5X6ayoVhWBh_R0jvLTjt7H15osolsaNwl8QSipcPvTdpWRz9QATp6EuxUjNY0NljLLQiCQy3d_OAECBPeVxZpxA/s7032/11%20P.North.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6672" data-original-width="7032" height="608" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitsg2-twabdDvz9tNFy2OCOABBQBKWs4MWVp2KUslVPTVVVts-u33HXp7rRZeciGr5qURf6Pca9ovDvE6XreBJuME0NLKlwgwaTbQD5X6ayoVhWBh_R0jvLTjt7H15osolsaNwl8QSipcPvTdpWRz9QATp6EuxUjNY0NljLLQiCQy3d_OAECBPeVxZpxA/w640-h608/11%20P.North.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, they do represent those things. And they are the portent of what is to happen, powerful teachers and also capable of malice. In my work they are the ones who pierce you with their gaze.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The mystery of this is way bigger than what we can ever know. It to me implies that we think God is like us. I think if he is like us, he wouldn't be much of a God." I think that comment relates to photography. There's a common mistake of conflating what's in a photo with the photo itself. But they are two separate things. If the photo just repeated the thing in the photo, it wouldn't be much of a photo.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">YES!</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe Walker Evans would disagree.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">OOh I think he might. It is like that whole thing of the map being not the territory.</span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic;">•</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>All photos above by Kathryn McCool unless otherwise noted.</i></span></p>
</div>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-63766391195024039772023-02-10T12:40:00.003-08:002023-02-11T13:00:05.124-08:00Q & A with Carl Martin<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i></i></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Heq_-tDKNY8T15Di1PiQUTihXXwVNMkfl48VMYcAwcaJRv2Iiix3TfxhO-JWk0A0izXRn5l66ruWXi9kz_q2ifUGPo-wNCUc-XkE8dzvv0xJb8hHae4gTbWX5quZtq7ys8rMzehZqJ_pshzFdYoMpSbYNumq6nonaXyo__QH8WgYdtdv6JG35PZn/s1280/CAROL_JOHN_02-07_23__picofcarlmartinIMG_5435.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Heq_-tDKNY8T15Di1PiQUTihXXwVNMkfl48VMYcAwcaJRv2Iiix3TfxhO-JWk0A0izXRn5l66ruWXi9kz_q2ifUGPo-wNCUc-XkE8dzvv0xJb8hHae4gTbWX5quZtq7ys8rMzehZqJ_pshzFdYoMpSbYNumq6nonaXyo__QH8WgYdtdv6JG35PZn/w320-h320/CAROL_JOHN_02-07_23__picofcarlmartinIMG_5435.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Carl Martin (photo by Carol John)</i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><a href="http://carlmartin.org">Carl Martin</a> is a photographer based in Athens, Georgia.</i></span><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: xx-large; font-style: italic;">•</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">BA: What was your childhood like? Were you artsy as a kid?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">CM: Ah, Athens, Alabama. Mostly played in the dirt, built dams. We had a good neighborhood, could just run or bike off in any direction and find what to do. I used to fiddle with mini-bikes. Freedom!</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This was the sixties?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, early sixties. Actually the whole decade.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just to avoid confusion, Athens, AL is not where you live now, correct? Athens, GA is a separate place?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, odd but good non-intended duplication.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why so many Athens in that region?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think they are in many states, NY, Ohio, etc that aspired to the Greek ideals. The popularity of Greek Revival architecture is another alliance of that sentiment?</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think the sense of freedom you mention is a natural doorway to photography. I mean, riding dirt bikes is almost the same mental activity as hunting photos. Or at least for me it's similar. So your mind was being prepped whether you knew it or not, haha. Were you active photographically in a more overt way back then?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ok, funny enough, it was through dirt bikes that I fell in love with images. This is not how you may expect it to happen. I was transporting a mini bike in an enclosed U-Haul trailer. I was about 9 or 10, and all the pinholes in the side of the box I was in projected moving landscapes from outside as we drove. (I was in the back holding the bike because we didn’t have a way to tie it down.) Anyway, riding in a camera obscura, my mind was blown.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sounds like fate. Did that incident steer you toward photographic activities?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">And then <i>Life</i> magazine came also, very interesting image making time for our culture.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Do you remember specific photos from<i> Life</i> that sparked a response in you at the time?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, I got a super crappy plastic camera shortly thereafter, and made some images that were kinda just blurry messes. I cannot know if I remember seeing images from then or if I know them because of their iconic status, but it seems like I remember seeing them then. I used to study the magazine.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did the sixties/seventies youth culture movement affect you? Drugs/music/sex, all that stuff?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Of course, drugs and music were easy: sex much less so, we were so young.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Who is "we"? Did you have brothers/sisters/friends/community?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, two older brothers, and different sets of friends. There were friends from home and friends at school. I went away to a boarding high school.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Where was boarding school? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Chattanooga, TN.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Was that your choice?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, I was dying to leave home. I went for 9th grade through graduation. The scene at home with the parents had kinda disintegrated, not a great space. I also wanted to leave Athens, AL. It was a tiny seemingly cloistered place.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It's funny you mention boarding school. I'm reading a <a href="https://softskull.com/dd-product/the-end-of-boys/">book now</a> about a guy who was expelled from like 4 different boarding schools. A coming of age story. He eventually figured it out, but his description of boarding school is pretty harsh. How was your experience? Were you active in photography/art?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, they had a darkroom. No instruction but I could spend time there feeling my way along. I really didn’t know anything about the mechanics of photography until the late '70s.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why would they have a darkroom and no classes?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe I wasn’t in the right club? Not sure, but I could use the place, develop film, and print RCs. I of course did not fit in the school itself. Very competitive place, which I wanted nothing to do with. You can always find your people though and I had a few really good friends.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You weren't competitive? Is that still how you are?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, don’t we all want to find our own way?</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What kinds of photos were you making at the time?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trite cliches.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gotta start somewhere, right?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I am happy to have started.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You must've developed some photo skills in high school to go from there to SVA?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I went to the Maine Photo workshops 78-79. They had two or three really good instructors there, Carson Graves and Craig Stevens were two. They had just gotten their MFAs from Ohio University. They were well grounded in the zone system and great photography, which was the basis of their instructions. I loved it and spent a year there prior to SVA.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sounds great. Kind of a post-grad high school experience? When you mention zones I think of landscape photos and f/64 which doesn't match your work as I know it. Were you shooting more of that style back in the late '70s?</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBDmrPe0cvECp3UMNnrutb9OS9eLPJvTfMUy33DAjM-d-exNHAF9s2LzGIZM5h0DeNplOCy2lFqdyldxM_iTxHZj881WG3l46mjweCPH87Hph1sR8-wY7WKqw3wSbr5hDwceoGIi6zQ4qq_TWMSeQV7oEKpjV1L_ectNPVX5Z8p1VuW8vAUgIa3rNO/s1500/elevator-5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1498" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBDmrPe0cvECp3UMNnrutb9OS9eLPJvTfMUy33DAjM-d-exNHAF9s2LzGIZM5h0DeNplOCy2lFqdyldxM_iTxHZj881WG3l46mjweCPH87Hph1sR8-wY7WKqw3wSbr5hDwceoGIi6zQ4qq_TWMSeQV7oEKpjV1L_ectNPVX5Z8p1VuW8vAUgIa3rNO/w640-h640/elevator-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>from Systems Of Organization</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Not really. I love a good snapshot! But that doesn’t mean it cannot be considered and well exposed.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I just went to your site to see what you were shooting then, but the photos only start in the '90s. How would you describe your style and interests in that time period? Is “snapshot” a good word? Or was it something else?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I did spend a lot of energy rebelling against craft alone as quality of picture. I hated that that was a standard, which still applies today to some extent, by which to judge a good picture.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well photography can be judged in a lot of ways. I tend to have a knee-jerk reaction against that word too: "Craft". But only because it often attaches to a style of photography which is staid and ponderous and boring. But it doesn't have to be that way. I think there's something to be said for photos as objects. Nice prints to view in person. That is a phenomenon that is fading IMHO.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Agree with the above statement, but I’ve realized it’s also not an either/or discussion. A well crafted high quality image does not mean it is either a successful or unsuccessful image. I love Lartigue, for instance. The work is alive with discovery.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lartigue was a stud. Are you still rebelling against craft?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I now embrace, after a long hard senseless battle, quality of image!!! I am of the opinion that a great strength of the medium is its ability to elucidate, as opposed to obfuscate</b>. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm not against a bit of obfuscation at times. I mean, Friedlander is probably my favorite photographer. You sound like more of an Evans guy?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">However, the reverse is also true. Recently saw the <a href="https://ogdenmuseum.org/exhibition/ralph-eugene-meatyard/">Ralph Meatyard show at the Ogden</a> in New Orleans, curated by a friend Richard McCabe, that was inspiring and super magic. He fostered his own unique visual dialogue that blew the difference of craft vs vision out of the picture. His work is so beyond the simplicity of that.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Wish I could've seen that. Sounds great. You wrote earlier, "don’t we all want to find our own way?" I think Meatyard certainly answers that question YES. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Friedlander I love, Evans I am struck by his presence and sculpture-ness. Both contributed to our understanding of what is possible in the medium.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Can we jump back in the timeline for a moment. How was your experience at SVA? What sort of photos were you making then?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Of course school tears you apart and then you pick up the pieces to make something new. I enjoyed it. I studied with an artist <a href="https://www.moma.org/artists/6488">Tad Yamashiro</a>. He had been a commercial photographer in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Knew Diane Arbus and had worked with all the people we know of from the time. He had rejected commercialism by then and taught a path to find “artist self”. We spent two years talking / smoking in class. Looked at pictures occasionally. He was more of a linguist truthfully, and would toy and play with the hidden meanings of words and labels. I thought it was great, and did projects that were disconnected from marketplace…..</span></b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlxwf7FYu1AW0ZP-h0KKYqT_MgcKWZ40x670A0PtaXK-klStBOin7KqEb8eEd5ZkpUlfTpLrsNlirep6Yqh6-yqgN36cJ-4hcaDUxDMJlJzY2NHXQoUGiAP0JaCfiFV8XiI1om4JXMbV10uzxA6mPTKQPmb0JUMAwZs0yOMvoRg0mH0xbiudS2H6qh/s1280/CARL_MARTIN_WORLD_TRADE_CENTER_SERIES_1979_IMG_5436.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlxwf7FYu1AW0ZP-h0KKYqT_MgcKWZ40x670A0PtaXK-klStBOin7KqEb8eEd5ZkpUlfTpLrsNlirep6Yqh6-yqgN36cJ-4hcaDUxDMJlJzY2NHXQoUGiAP0JaCfiFV8XiI1om4JXMbV10uzxA6mPTKQPmb0JUMAwZs0yOMvoRg0mH0xbiudS2H6qh/w640-h640/CARL_MARTIN_WORLD_TRADE_CENTER_SERIES_1979_IMG_5436.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">There was big difference from “photography” and “pictures.” Photography was in the service of something, the subject, the client, etc, and “pictures” were what we were trying to learn to make. I was using a number of different cameras I would find at thrift stores and flea markets. I wanted to say photography doesn’t have to be an exclusive rich person’s medium. Those cameras changed over the years, sometimes film was no longer made, etc. I was making photographs with buildings, then bridges, not so much people. I did shoot a lot of our friends / snapshots / plates of Indian food, which became the lasting body of work form my time in New York.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Reading between the lines, you seem resistant to the moneyed culture of high art and the associated world of commercial/pro photography. Your teacher "rejected commercialism". Projects "disconnected from the marketplace." "Rich person's medium". Am I reading your sentiments correctly? Do you still have the same feelings, a longing for shall way say "pure" photography separate from the marketplace? And maybe the more interesting question: is a complete separation even possible? Was your fascination with flea market cameras a partial response? Against $? High Art? The hollow world of commodified collecting?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I would love for the marketplace to embrace my work, then and now, but I don’t want to waste the time I have left making anything that I think would be for a market. I would get it wrong anyhow. More specifically, I don’t think a separation is important anymore. That was a popular demarcation of authenticity in my early years, but I think the air is out of the ballon on that one, and rightfully so in today’s context. It’s much more of a plastic time now. I also think you (one) need (s) to follow the path you’re on. Right or wrong, it’s good.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Can you elaborate. What do you mean "the air is out of the balloon"?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sorry, yes, discussion no longer needed. We all know the answer.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I realize the line between commerce and art can be blurry. But I do NOT trust the marketplace as a reliable arbiter of quality. It's proven incapable so many times.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Agreed, but I don’t have the bandwidth to even take it up as a fight. Or rather I want to spend my energy on my own progress, not railing against a meaningless cultural battle. Those marketers, shall we say, are just doing their own thing too. More power to them.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did you stay in NY after SVA? Or did you move to Georgia right away?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have a partner that I met in NY, right after SVA, and we stayed for about 10 years total. Had a baby about two years prior to leaving. We had super cheap rent in the village but it was kinda a trap, dark and small!! We visited friends who had gone to graduate school in Athens, GA on the most beautiful spring day ever. We were smitten, thought we would be here for 5 years max.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So it was at least partly a lifestyle decision? Starting a family, more space needed, etc. I see kids in some of your photographs. Is that your family?</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi48JAQQizLsMri1tMd4ANVN3wVmMVwsKUxlVgWlr2gDUmNf_tCjpIPcWXnJE4hf9XxsqZ0l3jhXLcdcbc08lZcPkgAaaX6y1T-a4AdmikBLWxCS9UgxpiUorEgxaudE9Z8THEk47WrDHy8lKR0DPpvme1y7OXTJjav3NRdhsCtHxKdo2Jgi9KWX_Nz/s1500/towards-salvage-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1472" data-original-width="1500" height="628" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi48JAQQizLsMri1tMd4ANVN3wVmMVwsKUxlVgWlr2gDUmNf_tCjpIPcWXnJE4hf9XxsqZ0l3jhXLcdcbc08lZcPkgAaaX6y1T-a4AdmikBLWxCS9UgxpiUorEgxaudE9Z8THEk47WrDHy8lKR0DPpvme1y7OXTJjav3NRdhsCtHxKdo2Jgi9KWX_Nz/w640-h628/towards-salvage-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>from Towards Salvage</i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes. Most likely.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Or they could just be random kids who snuck into the house.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>You have three? You are a pioneer!</b>!</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Not so much a pioneer. I mean, it's been done before I think? How many do you have?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Two men actually now, one grandson!! GP’ing pretty great, he’s hitting terrible twos just now. Glad to visit!</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Wow congrats. And like you I shot many photos of mine in childhood. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Could be new book for you!</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I had an <a href="https://www.blueskygallery.org/exhibitions/archives/2016/blake-andrews">exhibition of that work in 2016</a>, and made a <a href="https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1116794">Magcloud zine</a>. The project feels sort of closed, even though I still make new photos of them when I can. But two kids are out of the house now, so it’s different.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sweet, how’s having all that space again? What are their ages?</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I feel a chronic lack of space even with them gone. Photography can be a volume-intensive practice. I have SO many negatives, prints, books. My house is crowded, at least until my kids find permanent homes and we can convert their rooms. They’re 17, 20, and 22. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You mentioned a whole ago some tension with your parents when you went off to boarding school. I'm assuming they eventually reconciled with your career path. Did it cause any arguments. Like, you're going to become a WHAT?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">No, I never got any push back. I never did photography as a job. My dad was a general contractor. I grew up around and working job sites when I was older in the summers. My mom was an interior decorator. I always have done carpentry and construction work to make a living, and still do. Since we moved to Athens, we did a lot of architectural design / build. Some now too but for only a few clients. So my parents never were worried. And to be clear, I never had a real problem with either of them. They had problems between themselves.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Now I understand your photos of buildings in a slightly different light. I like them quite a bit, the way you fold structures visually to fit the frame.</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__Pq5um4Wx6aL8eCDswOOrYeel-8yp6zEFqcW8f1tC6h5674h8IWmm8xjYriE2_wGC_JGJDTY2EqH-rXb0iZyAAkRzgdtF4qlkLSsE-_KKVKeWiytFwJHU5Om6ZVECbyzVCYab_e79twZuMbvbwwd77F7fUE9Fh1SFWloCfAi-pLWq800m9zCxf1L/s1008/CARL_MARTIN_DSCF9477+copy+copy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="1008" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__Pq5um4Wx6aL8eCDswOOrYeel-8yp6zEFqcW8f1tC6h5674h8IWmm8xjYriE2_wGC_JGJDTY2EqH-rXb0iZyAAkRzgdtF4qlkLSsE-_KKVKeWiytFwJHU5Om6ZVECbyzVCYab_e79twZuMbvbwwd77F7fUE9Fh1SFWloCfAi-pLWq800m9zCxf1L/w640-h480/CARL_MARTIN_DSCF9477+copy+copy.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thank you! I decided about 10 years ago that the photography practice and the architecture practice was the same dialogue. And I relaxed about the fight between work and art. With the onset of the pandemic, photographing people didn’t feel right, nor particularly with the (lately) cultural awareness of inappropriate cultural appropriation. I turned my attention to more innate material, something within which I could find a process of discovery. A platform for discovery. Photographing people bears so much responsibility, I needed a material that had greater plasticity. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I worked construction for a year out of college. Great job. I was just a gofer but I learned a ton!</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Can be a good job, have to kinda enjoy the misery sometimes.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well I was 23, young and energetic. Just point me toward a big pile of wood to stack or whatever and I was happy. No task is too miserable at that age, at least that was my experience.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I didn’t mind the work, and enjoyed the camaraderie. The crew always seemed to hold an alternative cultural option, which was refreshing.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You say "was". But you're still active in construction. You just did a concrete pour today, yes?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, but I don’t have a day to day crew to hang with. We hire subs for specific things, and jobs don’t last forever. Some of the people we work with we have been working with for 30 years, and some are past employees, which we don’t have anymore. My daily dialogue is more of design and client collaboration, less communing with the crews, although that happens periodically.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Is working with concrete like photography at all? There's a patience factor while you wait for it to set up. And a perfection factor, and design, craft, etc. And once you shoot the photo you can't go back and alter it, same as a concrete pour. Sorry, I always bring everything back to photography</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">That’s funny! I will have to give it some thought. I am sure there are analogies. It is very satisfying as a job, when it's over.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What do you mean by “alternative culture option"?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Alternative as in counter-culture. Maybe not rebels per se, but people generally looking to find a path forward. Like myself, didn’t quite fit in to the ready answers re career options, who don’t always have the standard skillsets to follow a predetermined path, for whatever reasons. I am looking for a different dialogue these days, not so much unfocused counter-culture, fun as it was though.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It's funny you mention counter-culture as an alternative. I was raised in an environment where counter-culture was basically the dominant paradigm. There was no typical aspiration to lawyer/doctor/college/success, which (I think?) hangs over so much of today’s younger set looking forward. All ambitions were subverted. If you wore a tie you were suspect. Cops were suspect. New cars were suspect. Very few typical norms applied. It was great! When I wound up on a path with almost zero societal validation, I was well prepared, haha.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">That’s fantastic! My upbringing was semi-counter-culture….I had no input from my folks about my plan forward. None- zero. My father-in-law however!</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was his input?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">He was very supportive, but did question my aspirations of art as a career. It was not his bag. He was a corporate guy, and I completely understand his perspective. We didn’t have any problems about our diversions. He was cool in the end.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">My folks were pretty similar. Not much direct guidance as far as college/career/life, etc. They put a lot of options in front of me, but never with any directives like "Do this". I think they had both experienced a more hands-on childhood, which kind of backfired. They both left the East Coast as soon as possible.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the past our crews became families. In Brooklyn I worked with a crew for about 6 years, 5 days a week. That’s a hang!</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Do you have something similar with photography, either in NY or in Athens now? Some community of likeminded souls you can meet and chat with, bounce ideas off?</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYd50jyHDP6LQ07Kwhq6CoSA2qIV11qd2c4GW7wBG_C8B-nUbb4luS0ve4BuaQMjAT7X7hZOjNDuWN89xcp1oWdQFhd74B8bgnFjDThAK8gXb9pXZnU2qzfnk3hAZeTb-hL9sztViEWydG6lNOtKTxCrVg7NxHcw6jTAQngaZj3Tfa5Fo_7-eZjos8/s2500/CarlMartinBook-FallLinePress.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2500" data-original-width="2500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYd50jyHDP6LQ07Kwhq6CoSA2qIV11qd2c4GW7wBG_C8B-nUbb4luS0ve4BuaQMjAT7X7hZOjNDuWN89xcp1oWdQFhd74B8bgnFjDThAK8gXb9pXZnU2qzfnk3hAZeTb-hL9sztViEWydG6lNOtKTxCrVg7NxHcw6jTAQngaZj3Tfa5Fo_7-eZjos8/w640-h640/CarlMartinBook-FallLinePress.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Carl Martin (Fall Line Press, 2018)</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">My publisher at <a href="https://falllinepress.com">Fall Line Press</a> and good friend Bill Boling and I have a good photo dialogue relationship. He has a great love of photo books and is an interesting photographer and artist in his own right. There is a nice little photo crowd in town here and Atlanta, but we don’t have big sit downs and discuss. <a href="https://www.thehumid.com">The Humid here in Athens</a>, Mark Steinmetz and Irina Rozovsky run it graciously, have fantastic guest lectures, organize group shows and events often. It’s sweet.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Do you ever shoot with other people?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">No. I took a walk with Jason Fulford a couple of years ago, he took a few.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oh yeah he lives in Atlanta or something? I don't really understand his photos. It might be informative to watch him shoot, to see what makes him stop, and how he approaches things. I think that gets at the nature of photography. It is a filtered process by nature, and the audience sees just the end result. And often the best photos work through ambiguity, by hiding information. So an experience like shooting together is a like an info immersion, where you can fill in some backstory. Maybe most photographers wouldn't welcome that? Who knows.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">You may be right, I like your thinking. I may try to do that with a buddy. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What do you think of Jason Fulford’s photos?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think he's just going for the goofy, the unexpected object in the wrong place.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">His pictures are goofy, yes. But I think that humor hides a more substantial subtext. That's the part that's mysterious to me. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">And I think he can intellectualize the result. There is a context within the books that can be bent around expectations also.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Speaking of goofy, tell me a little bit about <a href="http://carlmartin.org/public-gesture">Public Gesture</a>.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Public Gesture has potential. I don’t think I got there with the body of work as a whole. A couple of images have a presence that is related to the power of the individual, that I still feel. I would find an interesting architectural site and wait for someone to step into it. I was going for a really abstract moment of site and person through an un-prescribed gesture. I wanted viewers to question the action and their momentary relation to the site. I was interested in getting people involved in the process, to create the moment. Some did a great enthusiastic job! I am not sure the results are wholly comprehensive, but there are a few good pictures.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzsUWFpj5SVKxNC70cvj8t7LFwqGi6ko0UHvm403aGGZ6VPLnjhMeO7vD7BmYYXr5kZHCClTcJKtzBbH7p0wXgvxL7TjVgMbdCsfchc334eSH6Z88KejyTBCFPkX1Z0krEBy_n5lx26O5XZM38g7r4-xXGWchU6Qvl2_LbHv9x7k7i37N_yoKSgdlS/s1500/public-gesture-19.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1125" data-original-width="1500" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzsUWFpj5SVKxNC70cvj8t7LFwqGi6ko0UHvm403aGGZ6VPLnjhMeO7vD7BmYYXr5kZHCClTcJKtzBbH7p0wXgvxL7TjVgMbdCsfchc334eSH6Z88KejyTBCFPkX1Z0krEBy_n5lx26O5XZM38g7r4-xXGWchU6Qvl2_LbHv9x7k7i37N_yoKSgdlS/w640-h480/public-gesture-19.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>from Public Gesture</i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was your interaction?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I asked if they would create a movement or form that had no cultural reference. Like a recognizable wave or blowing a kiss, salute, etc.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">No cultural reference? Dang, that's tough.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe impossible, and there is the small but powerful black hole in the conceptual approach in this body of work! I did enjoy working with random people and I was always amazed that most said yes. Only a few turn downs.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This goes back to photos being a filtered view. They usually work best by excising information. I think the Public Gestures pictures change once you know what the directive was, and what they are trying to do. What about the other color portraits on your site, some of which are in your book. Did you give those subjects any directives?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Not really, I may have suggested to shift a bit, to find a slightly better context, angle or light. The earlier work was found, Public Gesture was created. Always the architecture plays a significant role. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">How so?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Architecture plays the role of scale and context. People can look large and looming, seemingly out of scale with the context. Rarely do they look more diminutive. The message is looming large in a small world. Athens and the surrounding communities are tiny places. I like the grass sidewalks, and the telephone poles erupting in the right of way.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well you're encouraging that view by using a wide angle lens from close range, and centering.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, the centering of subjects was an early camera limitation. It only focused in the center of the image and at a distance that includes most of the body. I do love wide angle!! When I got the better camera, a 6x6 that could actually focus, I outgrew the habit of centering.</span></b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4M1JrCVeqEnQV-dyAPe2NmVdKbLJZjmak4Fb7P7F-I47cJCp4vGYWL9D3wBO6h7EpWRq7uF4Fyi77dHiHaWT2s2EdAYRWfL3merAMoR1ZXPAX4y3xM3PWkXNQLDz-CQBPdW3j_f8Pv6vapB0M67JP9ogdyNasENRRN_NSMKP0nodUDp26E6Dj007x/s1500/menofgeorgia-8.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4M1JrCVeqEnQV-dyAPe2NmVdKbLJZjmak4Fb7P7F-I47cJCp4vGYWL9D3wBO6h7EpWRq7uF4Fyi77dHiHaWT2s2EdAYRWfL3merAMoR1ZXPAX4y3xM3PWkXNQLDz-CQBPdW3j_f8Pv6vapB0M67JP9ogdyNasENRRN_NSMKP0nodUDp26E6Dj007x/w640-h640/menofgeorgia-8.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>from Men Of Georgia</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did you ever think of making the whole book portraits? Or was it always a plan to mix the subject matter?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I didn’t have a plan. I needed help! I was stuck, weighed down by the complexity and immensity of the edit, and the responsibility toward the people. There are very specific bodies of work that were all reordered and amalgamated for the book. When we were editing and working on the book we did consider three smaller books of specific groups. That seemed possibly cleaner but a longer shot to all of us. So we opted for the mix.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You'd already done 4 smaller books with Fall Line by this point I think?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Free Fall. Those were fun. One came out every quarter year, so work had to be made on time. I was making new work for each issue. I love a deadline. Free Fall was soft magazine format, not fine printing.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When you mentioned people looking large and looming out of scale a moment ago, I immediately thought of Arbus' Jewish Giant. I'm assuming you know the photo? What do you think of it?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fantastic! Her giant was really a giant. And her midgets were really small people. My subjects were not odd sized.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Arbus is on my mind because I was trying to write about <i><a href="https://www.davidzwirnerbooks.com/product/diane-arbus-untitled">Untitled</a></i> recently. What do you think of that book? I can't quite decide what I think. I probably just need to let go and not worry about all the cultural baggage. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Untitled</i> is a pinnacle of subject matter for Diane. She sought oddity as a subject, always the humanity within that subject and how close we are all alike. The subjects of <i>Untitled</i> are the extreme. I speculate and read the bodies of her work that in the end it may have been too much for her. I think it was her last significant group of photos, is that correct ?</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, it was unfinished when she died.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think it was finished! Acknowledged or not, that’s what we get. Like Turner’s later paintings, nothing but air and light. The prevailing thought is that they were unfinished, but I think they were!! He may not have known it.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well you never know when the end will come. But Diane Arbus might be an exception.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, she decided when it would end. I cannot help but link her last body of work with her death, but that may just be a convenient romantic notion to grab.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The way you described <i>Untitled</i> seems exploitative. She chose those people because they were "oddities"? That doesn't sound very caring. But perhaps it's ok if we accept that all portraiture involves a similar power dynamic?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Perhaps she was being exploitive in today’s grasp of it. I don’t think she thought she was at the time. I felt, and still feel, that the work is very empathetic and humane, and also very graphically revealing the subjects in all their humanness. She was a remarkable artist whose contributions shattered a lot of barriers. Photography as art, women artist, etc</b>.</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXfnKOnsqaGd7FL-xj6CD4fFxh2_2vN49aq2IqbQPT_T3k2ZiwmCyggvt0YhnHE9FEdfcALP_G9BJ6fp0N_SSh18hxib2C7oKYfWnkDi68jN1GB3-Fnx_9fzc8swrPuqbYpFzHSNdUllG3AmCde0Pn5qkTk0cS3k4SkueKTDwl-7LicCJzPA1ms2ad/s1024/16arbus2-jumbo-v2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1016" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXfnKOnsqaGd7FL-xj6CD4fFxh2_2vN49aq2IqbQPT_T3k2ZiwmCyggvt0YhnHE9FEdfcALP_G9BJ6fp0N_SSh18hxib2C7oKYfWnkDi68jN1GB3-Fnx_9fzc8swrPuqbYpFzHSNdUllG3AmCde0Pn5qkTk0cS3k4SkueKTDwl-7LicCJzPA1ms2ad/w636-h640/16arbus2-jumbo-v2.jpg" width="636" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Diane Arbus, from Untitled</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You've shot a lot of portraits. Do you think there's always an inherent power imbalance? The old myth about photographers stealing souls, or something similar? I mean Arbus might be the extreme example. She was ALWAYS in complete control of her subjects. But I think it might apply more broadly to all portraiture? Just a pet theory from someone who doesn't shoot many portraits. Although I have shot a lot of street photos of strangers in passing, and I think the same dynamic applies.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I don’t really think of making pictures of people as a power dynamic relationship. We, photographer and person being photographed, both contribute to the something being made. If anything I generally feel in service to the people I have found interesting and am working with. That may be why I have shifted to architecture as a working material. I can use it more freely. It’s not important how it is represented. I don’t think I am taking something from anyone. I think a street picture of people who are unaware of their picture being taken is another thing. But I also feel that the artist’s intent is the driver of “taking” or “making” Your work seems to me to be about “making”. It reminded me today of William Klein’s work, the book that <a href="https://davidcampany.com/william-klein-yes-photographs-paintings-films-1948-2013/">David Campany just did of his retrospective at ICP</a> had a similar conversation that your work has</b>.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thanks, I'm happy to be compared to Klein, haha. The whole taking vs making thing just feels like semantic games to me. It's just words.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">No, it’s everything I think.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">OK, can you explain?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Good question!! I think it’s as simple as it sounds. What’s your attitude about making work? What are you after? What’s important about an image?</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Taking, making, meh, whatever. For me photographs are about translating the visual world into a 2D frame which holds interest. I guess that's taking?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why?</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why translate the world? Why make photos? Those are hard questions.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">What are you trying to do with your photos? Or rather what are you trying to do in them?</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Basic curiosity. I hate to revert to cliches but I think Winogrand said it best, "I take photographs to see what the world looks like photographed." </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ok, cool. You are not interested in exploiting people within your frame. They are simply figures in a picture. It’s not about them, it’s about the picture. You are “making” work of the world. You are not taking the world.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Or you could look at it the opposite way. I'm using humans as passive elements for my own devious means. It’s taking. I try not to "take" photos which cast unwitting people in a deliberately unflattering way. But yes, what you said above is correct. I'm primarily interested in the photo, not the person in the photo. I think that might be true of most photographers? Open question.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why devious? You are an artist that is making work, it’s not about them. I am making pictures that can redefine what photography is. Laughable but true!</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was just being cute. I should use another word besides devious. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Words are dangerous, choose them well!</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Secretive? Conniving? Manipulative?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">No, none of those. You are not that. You are interested in making good pictures.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What do you mean your photos will "redefine what photography is"? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don’t know that I know. I think there is an extraordinary untapped potential within the photographic tool and material. I am looking. All photographers are different, all bring different ideologies and agendas to their work. Some photographers are manipulative, some are not. All the gamuts, all the kinds are out there.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">True. I tend to push my own ideas onto the world, so when I think about other photographers I tend to assume they care most about images, and that the world comes second, and that they will frame or use or position that world in whatever way best suits their needs. That’s the inherent power dynamic I hinted at above. Photography objectifies by nature. Maybe you could call that taking? Or making? I don't know. Mine is admittedly a male view and a white privileged view. So there’s that too.</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4IvVcONi2WUEG3yW4K_9iFu5OLi5Tb-gW9mqO6U_ri8sS_i-HInOmNqEYx6MYoo06aOjh0d_J5tjBveBdLLFl_w9ZHo70C8rg_w6Z2NBT4gC7ltz3c6m5TT5dTB3QlTbb6ll5LGQzDPbEiXlOzTD40iYn7r7rRql7PV5K8YSrbh4xADhJihlqvruT/s1500/elevator-7.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1497" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4IvVcONi2WUEG3yW4K_9iFu5OLi5Tb-gW9mqO6U_ri8sS_i-HInOmNqEYx6MYoo06aOjh0d_J5tjBveBdLLFl_w9ZHo70C8rg_w6Z2NBT4gC7ltz3c6m5TT5dTB3QlTbb6ll5LGQzDPbEiXlOzTD40iYn7r7rRql7PV5K8YSrbh4xADhJihlqvruT/w638-h640/elevator-7.jpg" width="638" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>from Systems Of Organization</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, I see that as a right as an artist to make of your material as you need it to be. Not an inherent power grab. I cannot help that I am also a white male artist, but that doesn’t define what I am interested in doing, what gets me going in the morning. I have work to do. I don’t let my cultural identity keep me from my work. I don’t have the time. As an older artist, time is short.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Do you feel the clock ticking? Is that a presence in your artistic consciousness? I think Arbus felt it too maybe?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Not driving the process yet, but I can see it coming. I hopefully have another 20 years of productive time? My partner <a href="https://caroljohn.art">Carol John</a>, a fantastic painter, is organizing her archive. Hers is extensive and the kids will not do it, or rather we don’t want to leave it to them to do. So we are both very conscious of what needs to happen as we wind down. She is acting on it.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oh shit, painters have it rough. Everything takes up so much spaaaaace. Does she paint big or small? A photographer’s entire archive can fit on a thumb drive. NOT true for painters. But you know what the hardest art form to archive is? Concrete foundations, haha.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Concrete foundation forms are self archiving, yeah it’s all readable. Like a Rachel Whiteread, I love her work!! All the info is there.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You can get a lot done in 20 years. What’s next?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I hope so! I am still interested in a few more architecture pictures, I need to head down to Montgomery. It’s the beginning of a fall line that runs through Columbus, Macon, & Augusta. I find some great material along that regional line.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What's a fall line? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">A fall line is where the rivers from the mountains to the sea become unnavigable. There are elevation changes that signify the shift from coastal plain to the Piedmont.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That's my new fact of the day.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">People coming up river would have to take the boats out of the water and traverse the land around the shoals or falls. It became a point of natural commercial activity. Goods were brought down from upland to be boated or barged downstream to market. The river is meaningless commercially now, but the towns had some heft, and still do in whatever ways they have reinvented themselves. The eastern fall line runs from Montgomery all the way to Maine.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So the towns shift in character as you move past the fall line?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">The purpose of the town shifts because of its function. And the density of the town shifts. Fall line towns are still some of the biggest in the state.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Where is Athens in relation to the fall line?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">We are in the upland a bit, in the Piedmont. The closest fall line is in Milledgeville.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Interesting. Yeah, that could make for a cool photo project. Just following that line, tracing human relics along the way.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don’t know that I want that to be an academic approach to the work; but it’s tempting just because it’s also fascinating. Great stories sell books!</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We skipped over Carol. What's her plan for all of her paintings?</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBXfjMk8pC8EUWvBhum57y76NvWtmxiLx0koe2uDCR2z2xurEsD4IHxcXY6js92A_c8SKUhJQu-mqV7PzXfUNoWBAqG-JzTbYv1glKCuvcXGFDo-1x_ji-EY9wlB_V5JiOMmRNzrtNgQC9zS_R4zpH-DWnnzFLOkuWy_q_hSjzga_a3A-kP4kIL2Ip/s1648/CAROL_JOHN_COLOR_SHOW_2016_DSC00102.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1373" data-original-width="1648" height="534" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBXfjMk8pC8EUWvBhum57y76NvWtmxiLx0koe2uDCR2z2xurEsD4IHxcXY6js92A_c8SKUhJQu-mqV7PzXfUNoWBAqG-JzTbYv1glKCuvcXGFDo-1x_ji-EY9wlB_V5JiOMmRNzrtNgQC9zS_R4zpH-DWnnzFLOkuWy_q_hSjzga_a3A-kP4kIL2Ip/w640-h534/CAROL_JOHN_COLOR_SHOW_2016_DSC00102.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>painting by Carol John</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">She knows that if she doesn’t organize her work, it may disappear when she does. We both want it to be easy for someone to pick up a couple of folders and a hard drive to get a clear picture. If it still disappears it won’t be because we didn’t do our job. She just got included in New American Paintings, which is great! I’ll email you some for her work, her IG is @caroljohnstudio. She paints every day.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But that's just the thing. A couple of folders and a hard drive can't really capture physical paintings. I just looked up her website. Her photos kinda make my eyes hurt, in a good way like an optical illusion. Maybe it's my brain that hurts?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Some do, she wants to animate the canvas! She been on a really productive fun tear lately, making new dialogues and pushing it. I am very proud of her.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Does she want to make paintings or take them? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">She can only make. Tell me about your work since leaving Portland?</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Work? More like play. Not much to it. I’ve been shooting/thinking/writing photos constantly for 25 years, before during after Portland. We touched earlier on art/commerce, etc. I’m in the far non-commerce camp. My photos are completely unmarketable and that’s fine. I've never shot any picture for money. No art school. I’m skeptical of that world. I do it just because it’s in me. I’m completely obsessed, photography photography photography.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Do you know Thomas Tullis in Atlanta? He has some similar strategies. He is </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><b>always</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> making photographs. </b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'll look him up.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I enjoyed your work in the <a href="https://www.tourdogs.com/store/portland-elegy">Portland Elegy</a>, Blake. Very free and constructed at the same time. Very well seen. Is that a 6/7?</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The camera? No it's small format. Probably shot with a Konica or Nikon. I had a few cameras back then. I like the photos in <i>Portland Elegy</i> but the printing wasn't so good. I am partial to darkroom prints. It's hard to find a reproduction that can match it. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Very hard to get good quality press printing, I need to know more. I would love to intern at a press to learn the language.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You mentioned "inappropriate cultural appropriation" a while back? Is that how you'd describe your portraiture?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hopefully not a description of my portraiture! I mean that users will use if you let them, and the cultural shift that radiated out from the me-too movement brought an awareness of some other cultural abuses. Hopefully in my portraits from the 1990s my intent is readable. I was interested in representing a largely ignored, at least in media at the time, part of our culture and community. I wanted these people to be seen.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The interpretation of your portraits probably depends on who's looking and when. I guess my question was a response to your description, which made it sound like you were backing off because of some perceived appropriation dynamic? I don't know. I'm bad at reading those cues and sometimes the political angles surprises me. But I think it's fair to say that photos of buildings are less charged with identity politics than portraiture. </span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpryvVShtoaUJz7M62W_ESxgHmPaCT50SO3F2qNp-mlRvAibTi3DTa2x17crE5AGFsCTZyHQoEjmMBea5VBHqOroRTZDahIHLj0a__reZme3b--KlIQ9exycV0eNeA2_GCC24N7PEjZj823nEhq1H2MfYJShvMGvUBtBQEfNNG1nac10Ip2y59Rb4y/s1500/towards-salvage-17.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1499" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpryvVShtoaUJz7M62W_ESxgHmPaCT50SO3F2qNp-mlRvAibTi3DTa2x17crE5AGFsCTZyHQoEjmMBea5VBHqOroRTZDahIHLj0a__reZme3b--KlIQ9exycV0eNeA2_GCC24N7PEjZj823nEhq1H2MfYJShvMGvUBtBQEfNNG1nac10Ip2y59Rb4y/w640-h640/towards-salvage-17.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>from Towards Salvage</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I do think there are a lot of artist whose work is identity politics, and some are very good at it, RaMell Ross & Deana Lawson to name two. I don’t feel as if the need to represent the Black cultural here in Athens, GA, or the white, Latino Asian etc is as pressing as it once was either. I feel good about moving on, and I also feel good about taking up portraits again in the future too. I look forward to the right perspective to bring something back to the dialogue. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I shoot a lot of buildings, and they are not always as innocent as you might think. There's often a creepiness/spying factor—maybe it’s maybe just in my head?—of me wandering around strange neighborhoods shooting yards and cars and possessions. I think some might view that activity with suspicion, understandably. I've been called out on occasion. I can defuse most situations. But sometimes it makes me wonder, why <i>am</i> I shooting this person's house?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">You’ll note I work with a lot of small vacant commercial structures. No one is around. I don’t work with many houses, but some, and yes, it can feel bad, and sometimes dangerous.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Commercial properties are maybe easier. Less privatized? Shooting someone's home feels more like digging through their sock drawer or something.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, encroachment, weird vibes. I feel the same way though photographing commercial structures. Has to be vacant, or at least after hours.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Can you switch back to portraiture pretty seamlessly? Or is it a more fundamental shift? Do you need to be in a certain mood to approach people vs buildings? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I find myself within specific bodies of work, and haven’t been able to jump around. I am going to finish this and then I’ll figure out the next one. The funny thing I have found is that changing cameras or material or subject is just a mind trick. All the work is really the same thing. We are the same artist before and after, and are probably trying to do the same thing as before. </span></b></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="color: #1b1b1b;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="color: #1b1b1b;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As a photograph, these may not be the right words to describe what I am after, but if I am lucky, there is possibly a perspective where the structure looks maybe pulled apart and re-assembled. A conversation occurs between the building, the camera, the perspective and the print, it seems whole but the picture has a new odd sculptural presence and dynamic that I find really interesting. It takes a little time to find that conversation. As a clue, I am a big fan of both Noguchi and Rachel Whiteread, for similar yet different reasons. Noguchi sculpted conversations: his work was about the proportional dialogues between surfaces, man-made and natural, rough / smooth & the intersections of mass and compressed space. Rachel's work is about compressed space, but reversed from Noguchi in that she turned negative space into an illogical massive positive sculpture. Both create pieces which have a presence that can be, for me, incredibly claustrophobic, full of tension and balance, at peace yet challenging all of our assumptions. I am physically affected by their work; I get the queasy gotta look / can't look sensation. That's a little nutty. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Do you ever shoot the buildings that you design/build? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">No! Not interesting enough. I wish I could design as freely as I find. I want to build a little building shed / small shop and keep thinking I can have my way with it. Hopefully I can push it.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The easy solution to all of this would be to just gain permission first. Ask to shoot someone's house, or to enter it. Or ask for a portrait or whatever. But for me there is some element in non-asking which is fundamental to my process. It's the risk of being questioned, or confrontation maybe which adds just the right degree of uncertainty. If everything is too nailed down and planned, it's hard for me to make a good photo. Maybe that’s not true for everyone, but for my process it is. I require an element of chance.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Run with it!</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Or, depending on who's asking and with what weapon, run away. The most important photo equipment is a good comfortable pair of running shoes.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">That’s funny! I have been enjoying the tripod work / process I have been doing, really trying to see how to bring these images to life. I have never done much of that prior, more always on the go. This work I am doing now, I’ll go back and retake when I can see if I have a problem, a dead image. I can give it another go. Maybe an asset of my age.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Which work is shot with a tripod?</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUuQ8S_-fPFyLvrrP7QOFCiuSUnbzS6vC7_b30ydm_oSM8SWfunQmr_RZZVtaRU6KRylVfo5zYmUDiKiyu8ebdtXcrJSFjvmw0Ytz2IyD6-MIXUvklVuq21C2L75h_Z_gOZGAT38D7kH1L1NUNXsLEYGOQhJ2X5-uu5CJzWGL4p_d9oK9PrakSq01b/s1280/CARL_MARTIN_FAMILY_WORK_1986_IMG_5416.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUuQ8S_-fPFyLvrrP7QOFCiuSUnbzS6vC7_b30ydm_oSM8SWfunQmr_RZZVtaRU6KRylVfo5zYmUDiKiyu8ebdtXcrJSFjvmw0Ytz2IyD6-MIXUvklVuq21C2L75h_Z_gOZGAT38D7kH1L1NUNXsLEYGOQhJ2X5-uu5CJzWGL4p_d9oK9PrakSq01b/w640-h640/CARL_MARTIN_FAMILY_WORK_1986_IMG_5416.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>framed print by Carl Martin</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">All the buildings. I have printed it 36” x 47”, fantastic scale and detail.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hmm interesting. The portraits, no tripod?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Never a tripod with portraits.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Can you find the tripod spot quickly? Or do you find yourself moving here and there testing locations first?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1b1b1b; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Takes time, I have a digital camera, so I take many many pictures of the situation. Only one wins. Kinda cheating. And a ladder. I use a ladder. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1b1b1b; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-26494020445963102062022-09-11T11:16:00.004-07:002022-09-11T16:50:16.662-07:00Q & A with Jim Han<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i></i></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="font-family: georgia;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZVMccx3ZAhkdJ7wi40ZaGH05sVm5sLI0H9aHmbi0hRnbp3a4zoY0C5Ni_olHDCMCYuUN0iR8exNOdeL5ro9MknjtXqbXuQPdJpKXZng_l71c1NxiSZ4vxYOvL2opng7bd_AF1bwYMyizCKO2XcS6I2FEy1w8whuEtwyuYxx6hhhoOu019MXUSH1DR/s1000/jim.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="708" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZVMccx3ZAhkdJ7wi40ZaGH05sVm5sLI0H9aHmbi0hRnbp3a4zoY0C5Ni_olHDCMCYuUN0iR8exNOdeL5ro9MknjtXqbXuQPdJpKXZng_l71c1NxiSZ4vxYOvL2opng7bd_AF1bwYMyizCKO2XcS6I2FEy1w8whuEtwyuYxx6hhhoOu019MXUSH1DR/w227-h320/jim.jpg" title="Jim Han" width="227" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Jim Han by Blake Andrews</i></td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://www.instagram.com/all_gods_creatures_have_knives/?hl=en">Jim Han</a> is a photographer based in Portland.</i></div><div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic;">•</span></span></span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">BA</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">: </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">What have you been up to lately?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">JH: I ended up going out to Delta Park yesterday and spent the day there. Someone suggested going out there. Lots of activity there.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oh yeah, <a href="http://www.bobbyabrahamson.com">Bobby</a>'s been shooting out there lately too. He told me a bit about it last night. Sounds kinda cool. Very eclectic mix of ages/ethnicity/social, apparently.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah. Someone suggested going to the back of a convenience store where many people congregate and use fentanyl and meth.</span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You've got a nose for the drug scene. We'll get to that...But first, can we start where most of my chats do? Where/how did you grow up? And what was your path from there into photography?</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I grew up in Spokane, Washington. My mother used to make my sister and I pose for photos and I remember as a kid spending a lot of time looking through all the family photo albums many times over. My father used to take a lot of photos. I used to have a point and shoot camera and would take pictures of people who were in my life and I in theirs. Somewhere along the way I stopped and it wasn’t until 2016 when I picked up photography again.</span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR6lhg_CdK7G2RtfRoNBBeVjA4WUD05SLuFHBMFZTjLCMl1qwf3PqjSUEav2ZjLIpQBxMY7SxHM7dg37Wl3G8YAdpAI6lqx9tirKaLTPsvR3F93QajaV3PmdFHYxPzrcmg1x86-647JgWUKWVN9XE3zl899an2Yd0o-knYbJOsDqoeTELsA9UiT4WF/s1470/HAN_JAMES_017.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1071" data-original-width="1470" height="466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR6lhg_CdK7G2RtfRoNBBeVjA4WUD05SLuFHBMFZTjLCMl1qwf3PqjSUEav2ZjLIpQBxMY7SxHM7dg37Wl3G8YAdpAI6lqx9tirKaLTPsvR3F93QajaV3PmdFHYxPzrcmg1x86-647JgWUKWVN9XE3zl899an2Yd0o-knYbJOsDqoeTELsA9UiT4WF/w640-h466/HAN_JAMES_017.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Was there some event in 2016 that got you back into it, or what inspired you? How old were you in 2016?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah. A voice showed up and it was insistent that I buy a camera. I ignored it but it kept on. Eventually I picked up a film camera off of Craigslist and haven’t stopped since.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What do you mean? What voice?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>In 2016 I was 45, I think. Around that time I was experimenting with psychedelics and a form of meditation and a voice started to appear and guide me to do certain tasks or occasionally tell me what was going to happen. It is not around as much now</b>.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Were any of the predictions accurate? That's kinda weird and scary. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">One time I was living with a roommate and I remember her standing over me yelling and pissed. I used to be angry all the time and would act irrational and I remember thinking as I was watching her — if that is what I look like when I am angry, then I look insane. Anyway, I was reading a book and my vision became blurry and the same voice said “she is going to move out” and I came out of it and thought must be wishful thinking and then a couple minutes pass and she comes storming downstairs and tells me she is moving out and wants half the rent back. Haha!</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You mentioned that voice recently on IG. You said that a voice told you to make the Pussy book and gave you the title, or something like that? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah. I was on LSD and the sequence of the book came in a flash.</span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid0otcQA3EaaGIdKtoqt2gn0iAsaVGSAdYsYTxFQ60rVPndRsUEuXyjFzPGUbRAJLlmY_FHwekPTF1kh6KcZ0PYWi3s6OMbAh59IBMr_dQ0aOyyFsk_gPGllROdFLsobPT6BXf1Ps1xB7OgmQ3UGtv9_-twNaoWpTXGgmzpXAor1G0bbA5RrxzUlej/s2016/IMG_4561.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid0otcQA3EaaGIdKtoqt2gn0iAsaVGSAdYsYTxFQ60rVPndRsUEuXyjFzPGUbRAJLlmY_FHwekPTF1kh6KcZ0PYWi3s6OMbAh59IBMr_dQ0aOyyFsk_gPGllROdFLsobPT6BXf1Ps1xB7OgmQ3UGtv9_-twNaoWpTXGgmzpXAor1G0bbA5RrxzUlej/w640-h480/IMG_4561.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Interpretations of the LSD experience are variable. For you maybe it was a channel to some "voice" which tapped into a hidden truth? Who knows. If there was some way to utilize that info that and predict the future it could be quite a tool! But I'm not sure "the voice" always responds to logic.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Haha! Probably not. Anyway, it’s just an occurrence and nothing to be attached to or identify with. The voice hardly comes around anymore.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Weird. Did the voice come around before 2016? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah. I had a fiancé and she moved out because of a disagreement about the future and I used to drink heavily and be depressed and angry and bitter and resentful and had a shit ton of self pity. I had a house full of junk and I was looking around while on LSD and depressed and the first time the voice showed up it said, just get rid of it all. And I did. I sold what I could sell, gave away what I could give away and threw the rest away. The place was empty. I remember sitting in the living room on the only chair in the place and for the first time I could see the sunlight reflect off the hardwood floors and it was the most beautiful thing I had seen in a long time.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This was in 2016?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">2014 maybe.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But it was fairly abrupt? Like you switched mental gears quickly…and then found photography soon after?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah. It just showed up and what a gift to be blessed with, the ability to practice photography.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I gotta say you don't seem very angry now. So just hearing you say that is creating some cognitive dissonance for me, trying to imagine you in that state.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nah. Brain change. It’s an amazing thing</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But it was almost like a born-again situation. Like you did a 180, and photography led you to an entire new worldview. Or maybe I'm romanticizing.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah. A whole life will change simply by taking responsibility.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Was the person standing over you yelling at you your fiance? Or was it two different people?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nah. A different person. Ex-fiancé was a sweetheart. In fact one day she was driving and was getting angry behind the wheel and her friend asks her what is going on. Turns out she adopted that behavior from me haha!</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So what kind of photos were you making back in 2016? Was the voice guiding you at all?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mostly making photos of graffiti art around town and would find abandoned buildings with art inside to photograph. No voice guiding me.</span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFGKwK0T1hk3zIn0L-jwDtw7hYqbx6SodlSjV7lYBztng_7DVxqHEX7abs-6lDaL62msJ1Ar9rmaaYSXbJ48VUw6nM0nNv0r0trz_IAAbbL92qGPHJ_0kG49GCb7oUDmWQg2r6Fn5CrFlP-rj60l1zz8RhGC3imMdhQg_Zqenz30c6ACc6NITWVa5F/s1969/HAN_JAMES_015.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1969" data-original-width="1413" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFGKwK0T1hk3zIn0L-jwDtw7hYqbx6SodlSjV7lYBztng_7DVxqHEX7abs-6lDaL62msJ1Ar9rmaaYSXbJ48VUw6nM0nNv0r0trz_IAAbbL92qGPHJ_0kG49GCb7oUDmWQg2r6Fn5CrFlP-rj60l1zz8RhGC3imMdhQg_Zqenz30c6ACc6NITWVa5F/w460-h640/HAN_JAMES_015.jpg" width="460" /></a></b></div><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm curious to see those. They seem tangentially related to what you're doing now. But of course much less personal. What was the progression from graffiti art to the more humanist (embedded?) work you're doing now?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">End of 2016 or the beginning of 2017 I took a darkroom class at Newspace and was beginning to discover Winogrand, Friedlander, etc and I felt a pull to photograph people. The graffiti really wasn’t doing it for me, but I didn’t know what else to photograph. No voices. It put the camera in my hand and took off.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Which class? Who taught it?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lauren from <a href="https://www.theportlanddarkroom.org">PDR</a> was one of the teachers. </span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cool, I haven't seen her in forever. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Man, she was so kind and encouraging. It was an evening class so I could go after work and she taught us how to process film, make contact sheets, and make enlargements in the darkroom.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was the pull to photograph people? Can you describe what motivated you? I mean, I feel it too but I'm not sure I fully understand it. So I'm just trying to get your take.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don’t know. When I was a kid I would collect school photos from my classmates. Even if I didn’t know them I would want one. I would flip through yearbooks and just stare at people’s faces. I don’t know why. It was just enjoyable. When I took up painting years ago I would make Polaroids of people’s face and bring them home and paint portraits. When I saw Bruce Gilden’s digital portraits I was floored and that’s when I started asking folks for portraits more often. I didn’t want to do what he was doing but I wanted to make portraits.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So your paintings had some similarity to your photos.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes. I don’t know what it is but I enjoy looking at people’s faces.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don't shoot many portraits any more but as I understand it they rely on a basic connection with others. I mean, maybe the pictures are just the secondary residue, and the really vital essence is the actual human connection. I'm not sure any flat 2d illustration can really capture what it’s like to be in the presence of another person, but some photos come close. But mostly what portraits do, yours and Gilden's, is make me wonder about the behind-the-scenes interaction. Like what is the connection? What was happening? What did you talk about? What was the process that led to that frame? That's what I wonder about a lot when I look at your photos.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah. Before photography came along I did my best not to interact with people. Now, with a camera and a desire to work, I will jump into just about any situation if it seems like a photo might be in there. It is quite the rush to learn how to navigate social interactions which is something I avoided all together. Photography has brought me out of my shell and has shown me a bigger world of even worlds within worlds.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Camera as passport.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7P0c4B70Hh6A0cawt-hkmXhM4aSoHtDqVTpHnEEzU6YvcdSNw7KLQFTMMv7GCL2721FcVVC31moEQkSwvHOIKe8GO-ZBvR7kP2R5r-gOJmBVh65yJILo-nzqBwVv8mPGIRPLYqMK9Q68vGKfhrhbR1nWx-s-D8VngeSblgkCWUUjXYyT_GhheZihj/s1495/HAN_JAMES_020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1495" data-original-width="1108" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7P0c4B70Hh6A0cawt-hkmXhM4aSoHtDqVTpHnEEzU6YvcdSNw7KLQFTMMv7GCL2721FcVVC31moEQkSwvHOIKe8GO-ZBvR7kP2R5r-gOJmBVh65yJILo-nzqBwVv8mPGIRPLYqMK9Q68vGKfhrhbR1nWx-s-D8VngeSblgkCWUUjXYyT_GhheZihj/w474-h640/HAN_JAMES_020.jpg" width="474" /></a></div><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is. A ticket to adventure. What a rush. What a ride. Why don’t you shoot many portraits anymore?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don't really use my camera as a passport. I shoot pictures of people once I get to know them. But I don't often approach strangers for portraits. It's just a different approach I guess. It takes a while for me to become comfortable with strangers, to the point where I can shoot them. I may be missing out on some photos, who knows.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I remember when we were in LA and you had approached a stranger before breakfast.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don't remember that particular photo, and I haven't gotten to that film yet. So I might trigger a memory when I print it. Maybe that person just struck me a certain way? I can't recall.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">What did you shoot when you first started out with photography?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was very formal, shooting patterns and shadows and stuff like that. Which I still do sometimes. I went through a big Friedlander phase early on lining up buildings, etc. That is still a tool in the toolbox, but my kit has expanded. I find that most of those early formalist photos don't really have much lasting impact. They don't really show what the world is like. Which is really the main strength of photography, I think.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah. The only way to really know what the world is like is to be a part of it and live it. It seems anyway. I seem to look at photos and feel a feeling more than I expect it to show me what the world is like. Some photos have so much feeling and some others of course fall short. And what it is capable of showing is beauty. Or show a moment of poetry that would otherwise be lost in the moment as it moves away into another moment.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Which ones have so much feeling? Does it correspond to the feeling you had when you were with the person? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Not so much my own work but when I look at the work of others. I try to find that same feeling or something similar when going through my own work. Though in my own work that feeling is far and few between. The feeling is not personal. It’s like a game of hide and seek.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm not sure I understand. When you're hanging out with people and shooting them, you don't feel a strong personal connection?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes. I feel connection. But when evaluating the work it’s something else and sometimes the strong personal connection gets in the way of seeing the work.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Can you site examples? </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUGap2TVlamEKIBG4MMOG9zAATZwxedH5913Z8Dv4sObfdKAL4_kYU_YgC0fQmzI3nPjnMuh7OXP8uyoYvAKvDmbM_ufgUPZiOIbJOjC2pjdyh2yvjD_nrE_NNo04pw1HYxV9-vOdNNtlBGLU5q8gXCnic6mBa12hVrGun29M-XRx859G-A9Jvm3N8/s1500/P4220072-G12.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1500" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUGap2TVlamEKIBG4MMOG9zAATZwxedH5913Z8Dv4sObfdKAL4_kYU_YgC0fQmzI3nPjnMuh7OXP8uyoYvAKvDmbM_ufgUPZiOIbJOjC2pjdyh2yvjD_nrE_NNo04pw1HYxV9-vOdNNtlBGLU5q8gXCnic6mBa12hVrGun29M-XRx859G-A9Jvm3N8/w640-h444/P4220072-G12.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Spread from Larry Towell's The Mennonites</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have been looking through Larry Towell’s <i>The Mennonites</i> and the photo that first stopped me in my tracks is the photo of the two, maybe three boys driving a car and feeling and vibe of the photo, the feeling of rebellion, of doing something that their community says they are not allowed to do and the feeling of motion with the ground flying by and the dark clouds behind them all combine to give me a feeling that is enjoyable to feel and makes me wish I could be in the back seat feeling it even more so.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I can't make out the Towell photo very well. Is the car moving? It looks like motion blur. But if so, where is he positioned?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes. Pretty quickly. Larry must be sitting or kneeling on the hood of the car. Daredevil.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">WTF?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah. Fucking wild. I’m sure there were no safety measures taken.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I can relate to Larry Towell as a force of nature. He has shot all this bad ass shit in distant places, but his life and community are pretty local. If you passed him on the sidewalk he'd be just another bearded freak in a small town. Probably drives a dented up Ford 150. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Haha! Sign me up. F150 is a big truck. I do not know much about Larry. <i>The Mennonites</i> is my first experience with his photography. I will now need to search out others.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’ve got <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Larry-Towell-World-Front-Porch/dp/190571209X">this one</a>. I don't know much about Towell either but I think he lives a kind of double life which I admire. World famous art star...and humble backyard farmer guy. Somehow he makes it work. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Wow. Do you have that book, <i>The World From My Front Porch</i>? </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah, I posted on IG about it a while back.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I bet you have a wonderful collection of photo books. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah, more of a "raw shit load" than collection. More turn up each week. I'd like to build the best private photobook library in Oregon. I feel petty sure I can do it, but it will take a few more decades. (Chris Rauschenberg has the best currently). </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sounds like you’ve had a chance to hang out in Chris’ library.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Back when I lived in Portland I invited myself over there a few times.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Haha!</b> <b>How did he react?</b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He's a friendly person generally open to sharing. And he has an <i>amazing</i> book collection. I learned a lot poking through his shelves. For many of the rare OOP titles, that was my first experience seeing them in real life.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Are any of your boys interested in photography? I would love to sit and look through all your family albums.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">My boys don’t really care for photobooks. And that's fine, why should they? It's inside baseball. No one gives a shit about photobooks except other photographers! But I think my kids will hang on to the family albums. Speaking of photobooks, how was that event up in Seattle?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was a blast. So many people showed up to the event. There was a sense of excitement in the air. They will probably do it again next year.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe some post-pandemic electricity?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Could be.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did you get any good response or critique on your book? Or (gulp) sales?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah. All but one book sold. I was surprised. What was a real trip, was the sense that a couple of people came to the event to specifically meet me. It was a trip and a strange sensation. There was good response. Some people, once they saw the covers, passed right by haha! One lady, older lady, came back later and bought one of the books. Someone who witnessed this said to me later that he was surprised that she seemed to “get” the work. No one spoke negatively to me about the work and I was half expecting someone to.</span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuDW_ExWyivJae_ZP1vBXVgdN-h1e3fxODjDkiHX93QGGPtfhVUZn-p_DSY9GcjJMwZI8z3G47qkt-2X5C3y721hjtXHnDLR5Gt_yVEH3TGm8M0h6JJc4RNnEE0vP8RMvoFxFG2MEsWs-k2Pds_NbeHdOcZCat64fmpXJr9cbCE7VAsp0ZHvzzzdaq/s1473/HAN_JAMES_023.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1061" data-original-width="1473" height="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuDW_ExWyivJae_ZP1vBXVgdN-h1e3fxODjDkiHX93QGGPtfhVUZn-p_DSY9GcjJMwZI8z3G47qkt-2X5C3y721hjtXHnDLR5Gt_yVEH3TGm8M0h6JJc4RNnEE0vP8RMvoFxFG2MEsWs-k2Pds_NbeHdOcZCat64fmpXJr9cbCE7VAsp0ZHvzzzdaq/w640-h460/HAN_JAMES_023.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nice!! </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ha! I was looking for you. I thought maybe you’d be there.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I thought about going. But then I had a book nerd moment where I asked myself, you're really gonna drive 5 hours to see a book fair? And then drive right back? I guess my true colors showed through. Maybe I’m not enough of a book nerd after all. But if they do it next year, who knows, maybe I"ll make a photo junket out of it. I think you have the makings for a pretty solid monograph. But the logistics? Kind of a minefield.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thanks, Blake for the encouraging words. When will you put out a monograph?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Like I said, it's a minefield. Too many choices. I'll just crawl back in my hole, thanks.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I went through your blog, went through all your photos from beginning to end in one sitting and I swear something in my brain shifted and changed due to that experience.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm curious about Portland's tent culture. What attracts you photographically to that scene? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don’t know. Again, there was a pull to go into a particular area of downtown and I obeyed the pull. I would walk into the area as part of a larger walk. Then the pandemic happened and it was the only area of downtown that was populated with people. I kept showing up and eventually people got to know me. The sweeps weren’t happening and so there was a community of people growing and folks settled in. I would go on the weekends then I would go on the weekends and after work. I brought bound books of the work and once people could see what the work looked like they allowed me more access. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What do you want to express about that scene with your photos?</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje9-x8gxTUSqn-tZFtOx_49xiIH3l-M43c3JbsGb1vjaOmQRDgXMhQt2ytz0gioP2tVOkytCcermS_GkVNYwaFyQ304cGR5-IkT1zTzj9xDVNWIU7DeAqFDeXPUhxaNHobPKZhREwG6QkWAUWO1sJEZZoY1LqStAsHEM4gzQ19e-qqmkEKY2cw53Cv/s1494/HAN_JAMES_016.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1494" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje9-x8gxTUSqn-tZFtOx_49xiIH3l-M43c3JbsGb1vjaOmQRDgXMhQt2ytz0gioP2tVOkytCcermS_GkVNYwaFyQ304cGR5-IkT1zTzj9xDVNWIU7DeAqFDeXPUhxaNHobPKZhREwG6QkWAUWO1sJEZZoY1LqStAsHEM4gzQ19e-qqmkEKY2cw53Cv/w640-h456/HAN_JAMES_016.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I am not working towards an expression, I just want to work. I love working on photography. I imagine the expression will show itself to me, if it hasn’t already. It’s a game of discovery.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Have you ever checked out Hastings Street in Vancouver?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">If it is the street I am thinking of, no. I have watched a couple of documentaries filmed there.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I've never seen a sorrier, denser skid row. And this was about 10 years ago. I'm guessing it's more concentrated now. It comes to mind thinking of your photos and the communities that you've photographed. I stayed near there with George. We kind of avoided Hastings. It was pretty intense.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It seems so. I would like to see the area for myself. The only place outside of Oregon that I have been to with heavy drug use was Skid Row in LA. Even then it seems I was pretty fortunate because a resident there who has been there for many many years took a liking to me and followed me around then morphed into being a guide.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah, it seems like you found your way into that scene pretty easily. How did that go? How did you approach people there initially, and what was it like hanging out there for extended periods? Maybe the same question applies to Portland skid row. What's the social dynamic like?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was interesting. I would approach people the same way I would approach people here in Portland. But their response to me was definitely different. Harder outer shell to crack. It was interesting to find out that the community had certain people you could go to for certain services. Some people finding a way to fill a need within the community.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What sort of skid row conversations have you had? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Not sure how to answer the question about conversations. So many and it seems to me at this time to try and put it all to words. Most of the time people are telling me their stories. Most are heartbreaking. I oftentimes consider taking a digital recorder with me to record our conversations but in the end i always choose to concentrate on the photography portion of our interaction.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I guess it depends what you're after. Actually I think for documenting reality photography is a pretty blunt tool. A recorder would do a much better job. Or videography.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUDaMJE_RLiU0ctKpK1Tz3eLmJdJU1uehJxydtE0aJPx0NUCwEm8T8AsEUPASwNqjvqSmdOGQHMGqhBAzVI3koyZIjNvMueCGo1-I3QejVRm5evKgCTRHRUL7YDOKtXBOAGgBLyKAzq5xThr-g5NxKKGb8VgyvUy_gLb2kciwjBNl5akVEcHiRfXzj/s1488/HAN_JAMES_024.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1488" data-original-width="1107" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUDaMJE_RLiU0ctKpK1Tz3eLmJdJU1uehJxydtE0aJPx0NUCwEm8T8AsEUPASwNqjvqSmdOGQHMGqhBAzVI3koyZIjNvMueCGo1-I3QejVRm5evKgCTRHRUL7YDOKtXBOAGgBLyKAzq5xThr-g5NxKKGb8VgyvUy_gLb2kciwjBNl5akVEcHiRfXzj/w476-h640/HAN_JAMES_024.jpg" width="476" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes. I have to agree on both counts.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With your photos you seem to focus on the moment of getting high, or shortly afterward. Am I imagining that?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes. I do.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So your photos are kind of about drug use, and documenting that activity. But to me they seem to be about something beyond that. A dream state. They tap some other world. Which photography can do better than most other recording devices I think. We leave videographers in the dust there, haha.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes. Also experimenting and experiencing a series of photos in a particular sequence brings about a feeling, for me, that film or listening to a person speak about their experience cannot. This feeling cannot be put into words, but it seems to activate a different part of my consciousness that is more satisfying. Haha! Also, the experience of tripping the shutter manually with intention and also to get to the point of tripping it without thought is quite the experience for me. One gentleman put it best: that photography is my drug. And I am out with them getting my fix.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Is that a common experience for you, tripping the shutter without thought? It's not very common for me. I wish it were.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes. Once I stopped getting hung up on getting a great shot then more and more and much more quickly I am able to enter into a state of no thought and just go. Even framing is done without thought or consideration.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I could ask a bunch of shit here about flow states and yada yada yada but you and I and everyone reading this have already contemplated that stuff to death so NO.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes. I can see that in your work. Your work seems to be based on a lot of observation on your part.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well yeah. If I'm out shooting for a few hours, it takes a lot of concentration. It's work (pleasurable but still work), and my brain is usually fried after, like after a long chess match or something. I should add that I’m a pretty brain-forward photographer. Heart and soul take a back seat. Your method sounds more fun.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don’t know. Your method seems fun to me. I imagine if I was walking with you I wouldn’t see a quarter of what you see. A lot of the photos that come out of your camera make me laugh. Sharp witted, clever, and intelligent but not trying to be. The photos just seem to be an extension of your personality.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The grass is always greener (especialy in Oregon).</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Haha!</span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO0IBQ3hZ7X_Z2_oRPZNgS1a5Ia6VBzSU2LlwkM9Dd0_uk4Ph5I7qq-L9y1XZw6D6AeuXCCkNCC2bx2YJAFrxqd2pCXN6urI9xknbJDA8VEETL1JfwXRsaU4USJL39HiUlfWalWnlYS0M2G5mrDKTEzrAnthXc7M8hlY-9IMkpy6L6tI3fcf9yCe3m/s1455/HAN_JAMES_021.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1455" data-original-width="1049" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO0IBQ3hZ7X_Z2_oRPZNgS1a5Ia6VBzSU2LlwkM9Dd0_uk4Ph5I7qq-L9y1XZw6D6AeuXCCkNCC2bx2YJAFrxqd2pCXN6urI9xknbJDA8VEETL1JfwXRsaU4USJL39HiUlfWalWnlYS0M2G5mrDKTEzrAnthXc7M8hlY-9IMkpy6L6tI3fcf9yCe3m/w462-h640/HAN_JAMES_021.jpg" width="462" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Have you tried fentanyl?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hell no. Been offered it plenty of times. Opiates scare the hell out of me. I like altering consciousness but addiction scares the hell out of me. And fentanyl addiction is a monster. Watching people and seeing what it does to them and hearing the stories. It’s horrible.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Never tried heroin or morphine?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I had an oxy addiction for a minute. Years ago. You?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">No. At one point in my youth I was more open to new experiences and might have tried them. Now I'm too old for new tricks. Maybe I'm an idealist but I don't view any drug as "evil" or through some bad/good lens. Even fentanyl has a productive application in theory. Morphine is a medical marvel, and I know opiates have helped to create many amazing art works over the years, even if they've led some astray in the process. There are thousands of functional users out there as I write this. I’m not trying to glamorize hard drugs. They have huge risks. Just want to view them objectively. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">It’s true.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What about the sexual angle to your photos? Which seems to go with the drugs in terms of pushing against cultural norms. What's going on there? You named one of your books <i>Your pussy better be gold baby</i> and it shows a pussy on the cover. What's up with that?</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2raQXZYpNa_vL6KCZbwEEOLaqocWsAZ1C1xaAlF3k8fcKOH8jCMKTrrxSr2OIvHP-lvisBYWHX6MiEKhld95SYyT2bCyHmCXUAm1FexWsueWt7d6y3kEarnRDMjUYxqj0vGBTDTTjOI7DJYG9udqkMr2cbHmEI0Mu6CPgK4a7P1XCs8KYiWLuRVF5/s1723/IMG_4559.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1293" data-original-width="1723" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2raQXZYpNa_vL6KCZbwEEOLaqocWsAZ1C1xaAlF3k8fcKOH8jCMKTrrxSr2OIvHP-lvisBYWHX6MiEKhld95SYyT2bCyHmCXUAm1FexWsueWt7d6y3kEarnRDMjUYxqj0vGBTDTTjOI7DJYG9udqkMr2cbHmEI0Mu6CPgK4a7P1XCs8KYiWLuRVF5/w640-h480/IMG_4559.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have always been fascinated with sex workers. I used to work at the Lusty Lady in Seattle years ago. I worked the graveyard shift. I started shooting more on 82nd Ave hoping to meet sex workers and photograph them. Again, just feel a pull towards that area. One day after work I spontaneously got off the Max at the 82nd Ave stop and started exploring. It was meant to be silly more so than sexual. In the book is a photo of a cellphone that shows a text conversation between someone I knew who is a sex worker and opiate addict and a john. In it he was telling her her pussy better be gold and she responded it is. Haha!</span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguXg6iUHCXnjrb6kC2tBMlereuEFahwT4azlvEdY31cauf9Coet0qACGCBHHuaPPBKfuT1lT_TBmGOyzK7gxjm90m24dfKL69FxEbv4HGe3dkyNsxepP_X5CBvaEtQu_D87xLBmvpK8a6Rpv6Vy5ZjN2OTY7t-W_8GIQoPnQMdovKe37nA7zMF8CHC/s2016/IMG_4562.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguXg6iUHCXnjrb6kC2tBMlereuEFahwT4azlvEdY31cauf9Coet0qACGCBHHuaPPBKfuT1lT_TBmGOyzK7gxjm90m24dfKL69FxEbv4HGe3dkyNsxepP_X5CBvaEtQu_D87xLBmvpK8a6Rpv6Vy5ZjN2OTY7t-W_8GIQoPnQMdovKe37nA7zMF8CHC/w640-h480/IMG_4562.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jeff Mermelstein eat your heart out, haha. I'm guessing you've seen the recent Cammie Touloui book? She worked at the original Lusty Lady down in SF back in the 1990s. And I heard she recently moved to Portland. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’ve seen bits and pieces on the internet. I would like to pick up a copy. Do you have it? What do you think of it?</span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfWpUnzhOxz-siPSRk8hy7lG2LvyXubwKvyzBOx8FzxV_-WHNhdvciO9_GP-lNuIsrLgDW4WaH5L14DS6Nc1pYh2vCKcMoz6CNCxEW_ksN1E0SwJSXHXIboGypdV_MGFITBiM9Nb48FsPtEcnm29DVx1KIfZ47lMZealTC5Bxnq7wr5MjQumIVB0tl/s1883/IMG_4563.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1412" data-original-width="1883" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfWpUnzhOxz-siPSRk8hy7lG2LvyXubwKvyzBOx8FzxV_-WHNhdvciO9_GP-lNuIsrLgDW4WaH5L14DS6Nc1pYh2vCKcMoz6CNCxEW_ksN1E0SwJSXHXIboGypdV_MGFITBiM9Nb48FsPtEcnm29DVx1KIfZ47lMZealTC5Bxnq7wr5MjQumIVB0tl/w640-h480/IMG_4563.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://collectordaily.com/cammie-toloui-5-dollars-for-3-minutes/">Here's my review</a>.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Perfect. I love reading your book reviews. I’ve picked up so many books after reading about them on your Instagram page or your website review. They never disappoint</b>. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What job were you doing at Lusty Lady?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Janitor some nights and cashier other nights. Blood, piss, shit, cum. Haha! And lots of used tissues.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So you worked at Lusty Lady. And you mentioned painting. And you were in a band, and almost married? And you're a mortician? All of this was before you picked up the thread of photography in 2016 at age 45. I know it's a lot but can you sketch a rough timeline? What happened before 2016? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes. After my fiancé left I started going to open mics and sharing these songs that I had been working on. At some point I met a person who introduced me to a person who sold psychedelics. Then through that person I met other who were practicing Magik and alternative healing methods. Through that group I was lead to Dr Christopher Hyatt’s book, <i>Undoing Yourself</i>, and Robert Anton Wilson’s book, <i>Prometheus Rising</i>. Eventually I met another person who could coach me through the energized meditation exercises in Christopher Hyatt’s book. This released a lot of unconscious tension and PTSD and also alleviated some of the fear that had been built up to that point. I was then offered a chance to make a record, with Larry Crane at Jackpot Studios with a band put together by John Vecchiarrlli, who hosted the open mic at the White Eagle. Then the voice told me to contact Calvin Johnson at Dub Narcotic Studio and off I went. All these experiences became manageable and enjoyable with less tension and fear in my body. Then one day it all stopped. <a href="http://Cottonottocotton.bandcamp.com">The Music</a>. And it was quite easy to shed that identity and move the creative energy into photography.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What happened to the record?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hahaha! No one wanted them so I threw the physical copies away but they are steaming online.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The history of art, reduced to one example. But wait, the voice directed you? I thought that wasn’t until later.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Haha! But those experiences are the meat of it all. Yeah. Nah. The same voice that told me to get rid of all my possessions up to that point was the same voice that told me to reach out to Calvin and ask if I could make a record with him at his studio.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What did the voice sound like? Was it someone else's voice? Or did it come to you in your own internal voice? Can you describe it tangibly?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just an internal voice that is as clear as the clearest day. It has a different quality then the gibberish nonsense that has plagued my life more so then than now. It has weight and presence.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Are you still doing LSD much? And if so, is the voice still there?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nah. Mushrooms every once in a while if there’s a calling to do so. One time I had a dream and a gift of a sword was bestowed upon me and I pulled the blade out and the end said mushrooms. I woke up and ate some. It was a nightmare, a beast that tore me up emotionally. But it was a gift as well. Still processing out a lot of old emotions. Hardly any voices anymore.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Are psychedelics much of a presence in Portland's tent cities? It seems like they might have therapeutic applications. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nah. No psychedelics. Nowadays it’s just fentanyl or meth. Heroin has all but disappeared. No one shoots up heroin anymore. We’re you ever much into psychedelics?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes of course. They were common in my friend-group around late adolescence. I feel so fortunate to have enjoyed that experience. If it were a different time or place it might have been fentanyl or heroin, who knows. But for whatever reason those drugs were not very common (Fentanyl not even invented?) and I just did whatever was around.. Marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, shrooms, acid. Just the boring drugs I guess.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did you have a cosmic experience that stands out for you now? Maybe even still having an influence now?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Cosmic" is a hard word for me. But those experiences have definitely helped form me and my worldview. The thing with LSD is that it was a very consuming experience. I can have a few beers or a joint and wake up next day fine. But acid? That took weeks for me to resurface completely. I was never one of those people who could just do it regularly and float in that weird meta state. I’m too much of a control freak.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Really. Wow. That must have been a weird sensation. How would you cope? Care to share one experience?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Once I was with my buddy G. We drove out to the ocean one day and dropped acid. We parked the car and started hiking, and pretty soon the trail got all strange and I couldn't remember which way we'd come in from. So we just picked a direction anyway and came to this fantastic meadow above the ocean. Even decades later this place remains the single most beautiful vista that I've visited. It was a gorgeous fall day, sunny and breezy. And I photographed my sneakers in the meadow with an old point-n-shoot. I felt an urgency to shoot them. I can't remember why but I <i>had</i> to take a photo. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I still have that pic in an old album. It’s a terrible photo, looks like shit just like any snapshot of old sneakers should. But at the time it seemed like they were glowing.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I guess that's photography in a nutshell. It never looks like what you experienced. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh8t4v-17y0B16jH8jNMWl3fryws4jh3wLWxoBYkcKZuZUAzigC3xQLmNtjbKqI5H4sQuCbwCT82p-pXKQ4fplGvWsfYQth7nIOjYOgjD6jZcPQxaNypeAW9LhnbTC-MMQq5J9_pj_RL7RRfptCYHbbiLMJ8MYyZZcdzi163OwxsxqizpsaoC9akSu/s1677/IMG_4564.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1258" data-original-width="1677" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh8t4v-17y0B16jH8jNMWl3fryws4jh3wLWxoBYkcKZuZUAzigC3xQLmNtjbKqI5H4sQuCbwCT82p-pXKQ4fplGvWsfYQth7nIOjYOgjD6jZcPQxaNypeAW9LhnbTC-MMQq5J9_pj_RL7RRfptCYHbbiLMJ8MYyZZcdzi163OwxsxqizpsaoC9akSu/w640-h480/IMG_4564.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Shoes in a meadow circa 1986, Blake Andrews</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then we hiked down to the beach and all the little pebbles turned into Steal-Your-Face skull shapes, and I finally understood what all the Grateful Dead iconography was about, because I'd been going to a lot of Dead shows around that time, but not fully grasping it. Or so it seemed. And I remember feeling completely non-hungry, non-sexual, and non-musical. It was as if all my primal drives were switched to "Off”. That was peculiar. The most beautiful beach on earth and we had it all to ourselves. We didn’t see another soul the whole day. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sounds fun. You ever experience a bad trip?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah, I had a bad trip my first one. Some dude gifted me some tabs over the summer so I dropped one about 11 pm one night thinking it might be a fun nightcap. That right there should tell you how little I knew about acid. I was pretty ignorant and also solo. I wound up roving for hours on the beach which was normally my comfort zone. But the moon and kelp turned into sea monsters, and I was all alone and pretty freaked. So that night sucked, and it went on forever. It was an In-Your-Face introduction to Acid. I get it now, but of course at the time it was a jolt, and I just had to get through the trip. I didn’t sleep a wink until dawn, then crashed on the drive home the next day. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Haha! You ever experience overwhelming fear.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well yeah, I probably did that first time. As much as anyone 17 can fear anything. I mean, I had zero fear of anything at that age. Probably some white male privilege in there mixed with small-town bravado. Anyway, I think that was the first time I realized I didn’t know everything. So that insight was kind of frightening.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Do you remember what brought the feeling on?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was watching the Tonight Show as the acid hit. I'll never forget. I have a lasting image of Jay Leno' s tie doing sidewinders and I'm thinking WTF, something's not right. And then I was off...</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Haha! Sounds like a cartoon.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was filled with, I guess, existential dread. Very creepy and dark and scary. You know, the whole off-kilter mechanics your brain goes through on acid. Sometimes it sucks. Fear, yes. But nothing physically threatening. A week later I was fine. It was all in my head.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yup. It usually is. You go out traveling a lot specifically to go there and shoot? Other cities and states? You seem to travel a lot and I am just curious if it is usually photography specific trips or family trips.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I try to work photo ops into my life whenever I can. Basically every waking moment is a potential photo op, so if those moments happen to be on trips that material can provide some fresh juice. But I don't schedule many photo trips just for that purpose, especially since the pandemic. Probably the last one was with you in LA. That said, I try to get around. I was with my kid at an Ultimate tournament in Minnesota a few weeks ago. And I'm heading to Canada soon for a family camping trip. So I'll have my camera and shoot whatever is handy. But that's just tagging onto pre-existing trips. I'm not picky. I can find photos pretty much any place any time. It's more of a challenge for me to turn the photo spigot off on occasion. So I've been working more on <i>not </i>seeing photos lately. It's hard.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjByjHwY-0HMybOfsgG4F-CPuOHtghTd3-O7RmbZYHdYh_riEKnufj2ZG9Qc5LO-bH5_ZQEY3DNPhWM-Ke2-J32Upd6XSv4_zFqHzJ0ocOhoeVVK0TTpTk08UDB3GAtg49PpluPjCUlx_Y4qypIkpjTI6a_wMSP8QwnyLnOuHnunq6fbBSAeAXdHacm/s1440/HAN_JAMES_018.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1008" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjByjHwY-0HMybOfsgG4F-CPuOHtghTd3-O7RmbZYHdYh_riEKnufj2ZG9Qc5LO-bH5_ZQEY3DNPhWM-Ke2-J32Upd6XSv4_zFqHzJ0ocOhoeVVK0TTpTk08UDB3GAtg49PpluPjCUlx_Y4qypIkpjTI6a_wMSP8QwnyLnOuHnunq6fbBSAeAXdHacm/w448-h640/HAN_JAMES_018.jpg" width="448" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yeah. Perfect. Yes, every waking moment is a photo op. It’s true. Yeah, I’ve met some people who need to travel in order to shoot. Photos are everywhere.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">They can be.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">How far back does your unprocessed rolls go?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I process everything pretty close to when I shoot it. But printing takes longer, because that is basically my base edit, Yes/No. So it requires time and attention. I’m backlogged to about 2/20 right now. I'm just digging into pictures from our LA trip. And it's also just before the pandemic. So that period has some serious baggage.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">What is an Ultimate tournament?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That was the<a href="https://play.usaultimate.org/events/2022-US-Open-Club-Championships/"> US Open in Blaine, Minnesota.</a> I haven't looked closely at my film yet but I don't think I got much. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Does your kid play or just a fan?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">My youngest son was on the Oregon U-20 team. They did OK, 7th place.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Was becoming a father an easy transition for you?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This is like a reverse interview.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Haha!</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Easy transition? No. But worthwhile. I evolved and at this point I can hardly remember a time before kids. So it's tough for me to look back and pick out transition points. You know, life goes on, and before you know it you're someone else.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">How many reels does your development tank hold? </span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Four, so I do four rolls at a time, usually a few times a week or whenever they add up. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was imagining a giant tank holding 20 at your place. And when you mention serious baggage, please elaborate.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The baggage of pre-pandemic life. It's been fun the past few months printing all these old rolls, right up to the edge of the virus. I'm at about February 2020 now printing. I know what's coming, but the person shooting them didn't. What strikes me now viewing them is the degree of freedom and socialization then. All these pictures of outings and events and people doing this and that. I was constantly attending events and gatherings. It's kinda weird to view now, from a future perspective. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">It still hasn't resumed. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm not sure we'll ever get back to "normal”.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don’t think it will ever get back. Have you had COVID?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, and honestly Covid is mostly a non-factor for me. I kinda ignore it. Maybe that’s not so safe but whatever. I have no fear of it (my inner 17 year old speaking?) or much patience for it. I should probably be more wary. Maybe myself in 20 years looking back will have a better perspective. It usually does.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>All photos by Jim Han unless otherwise noted.</i></span></p></div>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-4629529676021094132021-11-12T14:47:00.015-08:002021-11-16T11:51:59.256-08:00Q & A with Simon Kossoff<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yr5ufYS3S4s/YY63PphEG5I/AAAAAAAAYDg/KGizskp4z8wU0ragERs3bY60oT6F0773wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2020/254809273_5035103333175733_5024322636058901597_n.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="2020" data-original-width="2005" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yr5ufYS3S4s/YY63PphEG5I/AAAAAAAAYDg/KGizskp4z8wU0ragERs3bY60oT6F0773wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/254809273_5035103333175733_5024322636058901597_n.jpg" width="318" /></i></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://www.instagram.com/spkossoff/">Simon Kossoff is a photographer</a> and <a href="http://simonkossoff.blogspot.com">writer</a> based in Arkansas.</i></span><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic;">•</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px;">BA: Where did you grow up?</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px;">How and when did you get into photography?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>SK: I was born in Middlesbrough in the north of England, but raised in the south in Hampshire and Dorset. It's hard to pin down my first connection to photography. I remembered recently when I was perhaps 8 or 9 years old and my mother sitting next to me and she was very excited to show the new in utero photographs in one of the Sunday supplements. I remember being absolutely terrified and amazed by them and fearful of every turn of the page.</b></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">That's pretty heavy to lay on an eight year old.</p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>I think that too now. She kept saying how beautiful they were.</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">How would you describe your mom? What kind of person was she?</p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Down to earth, creative and visceral in her descriptions of things. She’s a northerner.</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I'm a dumb American. What does northerner mean in UK? Is that the industrial part?</p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>From Yorkshire and yes.</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Maybe like Pittsburg is to the US?</p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>That is exactly how I have described it in the past! Yes.</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Whoa, cosmic. We're like twin brained.</p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Hahaha.</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What's the UK version of Arkansas?</p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Dorset, for sure. That's the UK's south. Going back to how I got into photography, I remember using the family camera. I don't know what it was but it was square format. I used to set up scenes with my Star Wars figures, getting down really low to the ground, like I was part of the stilted action. I was maybe 11 then. I'd use up the whole film, get into trouble, but hurry to get them into the mail to be processed. TruePrint, with a free film. When the pictures came back I'd draw on all the laser fire and explosions. Later at about 14 I got a Polaroid camera for Christmas with a couple of film packs. I loved Polaroid. A friend of mine at school was a gifted shoplifter and she’d steal film for me in exchange for my lunch tickets.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><br /></b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nTGH__z_0pk/YY7uF9I-gBI/AAAAAAAAYE0/1NBC9bn8Am4M9PbLaMPe-IbL0nvk-uWXwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/249248739_10226372554282572_6398403808326148886_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nTGH__z_0pk/YY7uF9I-gBI/AAAAAAAAYE0/1NBC9bn8Am4M9PbLaMPe-IbL0nvk-uWXwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/249248739_10226372554282572_6398403808326148886_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Did you save any of those photos with the laser fire drawn on top?</p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>My Mum might have them still, I don't know. I showed my art teacher what I had done with the Polaroids and he mounted and framed them as a set and it was hung up outside the library at our school. I thought they looked cool, and got me thinking differently about things, like this totally creative personal thing can be now up on the wall. I felt quite exposed. </b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When you say "family camera" that implies that your parents (or siblings, or someone?) were amateur photographers too. Did you have anyone else in the family or nearby friends to learn from or share ideas with?</p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>My Uncle was a cameraman for the BBC and he was a keen photographer too, still is. He bought me a new Pentax for my 18th birthday. That's when I started to get really excited about photography.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><br /></b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WWDOz2LkluA/YY_gD-UoByI/AAAAAAAAYFE/mnnwXUZc1foDG0eeZJQV4kBEZMI-3sVFQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1395/256711328_282417933769348_7734109003110289787_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1395" data-original-width="1395" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WWDOz2LkluA/YY_gD-UoByI/AAAAAAAAYFE/mnnwXUZc1foDG0eeZJQV4kBEZMI-3sVFQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/256711328_282417933769348_7734109003110289787_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What kind of photos were you making then?</span><div><br />
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>At around that time Hockney was making his joiners and I could not resist making them myself too, they caused mind bending kaleidoscopic thinking in me, the changing perspective, each photo of the same scene a different exposure, focus and view point, and the assembling of them too. Over the years I realize how important and creative that assembling part of the process is. I am in an assembling phase now.</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">These were Polaroids you were joining? Or photos made with the Pentax?</p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>With the Pentax. I experimented wildly with Polaroids and loved making those Ralph Steadman-like Paranoids too</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Was this around the time you made scrapbooks too? I've seen some of those shared on FB recently.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EYlfOg0zrMU/YY7fpPB0QLI/AAAAAAAAYDw/ZAtRww_ByWA9xWFljSUh68PXMJI9MnBnACLcBGAsYHQ/s960/255333820_684834752436839_6189727853024530210_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="960" height="456" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EYlfOg0zrMU/YY7fpPB0QLI/AAAAAAAAYDw/ZAtRww_ByWA9xWFljSUh68PXMJI9MnBnACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h456/255333820_684834752436839_6189727853024530210_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>I have always made scrapbooks and filled up notebooks. The pages you saw were from my 20s.</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It sounds like you were interested from the very beginning in pictures as elements in larger art pieces. Not necessarily prizing them as single frames, but also for their wider application in collage or grid or scrap, etc. </p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>It was the photographs first, that was what it was about. I was always ripping out pages from magazines with a photo on it that I thought was cool in some way. Then I’d cut it out carefully and stick it into my scrapbook so I had it safe to revisit and ponder. Once the photo was glued into the scrapbook the pictures would over time collect other photos around them on the pages, then writings, poems, notes, lists, thoughts and compulsive doodling became a part of that too. I carried a notebook and pen around with me, like I later would carry a camera. It was the photos first though. </b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>I still do this collecting, but digitally, and have tons of saved nameless images in folders. I trust it is all for something later, but I have not connected the dots yet and realized what for yet, but that’s ok. An example of this is with the ‘pink suitcase’ pics. I read an article about a girl being found dead in a suitcase about a mile from where I used to live and this set off a fantasy whodunit going in my mind and I have an idea to return and make my own photographic investigation into the murder, but esoterically, gathering whatever I believe is evidence and photographing it. Anyway I had several crime scene photos saved and several old photos of the area too and I just started putting them together, assembling them into episodes. It’s going somewhere, slowly.</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s a very different approach than "street photography”, a category which for better or worse, you've been lumped into.</p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>I have and that is alright with me. I only have about 20 of what I would consider true street photos in my archive. I think this connection originally came from my Flickr group Altered States of Agoraphobia. At that time—maybe 2010-13?—I did source and invite several photos posted in the Hard Core Street Photography (HCSP) Flickr group to be part of my own. My group had a tight submission brief and I was super specific in my curating of it and I think at the time street photographers were looking for a home for their work too, to be separated from the crowd, to rest and be. It was from there I felt love from the street community, I think. That was a long time ago though. I do love street photography, it just floats out there unattached to any idea other than itself, which is beautiful and pure thing, but it is lost in the crowd of a million others doing the same. The good stuff does rise though, which is amazing.</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Tell me a bit more about your <a href="http://simonkossoff.blogspot.com">Altered States of Agoraphobia</a>.</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>It started back in, 2010, maybe before. It was during my immigration process and I was not yet legal to work so I had time to really explore my corner of Flickr. I was following some wonderful photographers and felt I wanted to do something collectively with them, but didn’t know what. I had been in the US maybe 3 years and done some traveling and was beginning to get a feel for the mind-boggling size and geographic diversity of this country and was curious about the locations of the American photographers I was following and what their world was like. I set the group up as a kind of extension of my own explorations and invited images from a handful of photographers to submit and they did. These initial submissions acted as a baseline for me and gave an idea of what I was looking for from potential future members. The introduction of the group stated:</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><i></i></b></span></p><blockquote><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><b><i>“The Altered States of Agoraphobia is a psychological, geographical and cultural investigation into the United States of America today by what I call its ‘Resident Aliens’. It is a contemporary photographic exploration into both the psyche of the artist and also a document of the world in which he or she inhabits and the forces acting on both.”</i></b></span></blockquote><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>It took off pretty quickly too. I had ideas for a publication, but I didn’t have the know-how to do it by myself. A show too. Then Brian Formhals, who was editor of La Pura Vida, approached me and invited me to contribute a regular Altered States feature for it. I did the first couple and then turned it over to any interested member to make their own, using a text from American literature coupled with a selection of photographs from the group pool. It was great too while it lasted, but times changed. La Pura Vida folded, I got my Green Card, and the real world took over and it, like many other things around that time, began to get neglected and that was that. 2013 I think. I haven’t visited the group since and long ago forgot my login details. Photographer and nice chap, Matt Gomes contacted me about 4 years ago asking if he could take it over, and I said yes, but not sure what became of it. Now that I am settled again these days it has crossed my mind to reboot it somehow and I have some ideas. I am in a better position now if I wanted to run with it too. The title is still cool and has a new edge to it after recent global events. Looking back, the original project was, for me, an exercise in curation and it was a joy all the way.</b></span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>I was quite a chronic Dyslexic so in my early years I loved comic books, illustrations, photographs.</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Does Dyslexia manifest in your photography in some way, in how you see visually?</p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Probably and that is a really interesting thought. I recently became aware that all these initial visual influences on me in early life are beginning to surface again, or I seem to be noticing this looking at my archive. It may inform my use of flash and how I seem to compose. I like to flatten everything out in a photograph, like on an even plane like a comic graphic in that way. I am embracing it and it knows what it wants to do and I trust it. I have found myself sequencing pictures this way too.</b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><br /></b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l1yEtraHLI8/YY7gThoSSEI/AAAAAAAAYD4/a1Ah6aeX0kYFWz6aetl2hYJjq_lyYy2HQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/242577350_10226174774178193_1609700631159608620_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="640" height="494" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l1yEtraHLI8/YY7gThoSSEI/AAAAAAAAYD4/a1Ah6aeX0kYFWz6aetl2hYJjq_lyYy2HQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h494/242577350_10226174774178193_1609700631159608620_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In other words, working with the natural dynamics of photography. Photos convert to 2D, but many photographers try to fight that basic fact. </p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>They do?</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Maybe I overstated that. Photographers don't always fight against 2D. But a lot try to ignore it. It's the lazy school of thought that associates the meaning of a photograph merely with what's in the photo. Have you seen Tim Davis’ latest book? He talks about that a bit, how photography can only ever describe the surface of things. It describe the outer visual layer only. And then you take that information and flatten it into its own 2D form. It's quite something.</p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Wow. It's funny because I read your review of that book the other day and also watched Alec Soth's new YouTube video, talking about that too. I love Tim Davis and this new book looks wonderful.</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I need to watch the Soth video. Is it good?</p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Those videos are like watching Bob Ross. I would love to hear Alec read those essays in full just to listen to that restful voice he has.</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Haha. “Here I am about to photograph some happy little trees…”</p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Yes!</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You mentioned flash a minute ago, and the way it flattens space. When did you first start using flash?</p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Good question. When I came to the US, I think.. I wanted to light up every corner of every photograph and see what was in there. If something stirred me to raise my camera I didn't want to miss anything at all in its recording. There are profound signs and symbols in the shadows sometimes, secret things you saw but didn't see. My teachers and peers mostly all used flash at University and I got an education watching them. I was into constructing sets and making my own deck of tarot cards then. Yes, the first time I used flash was when I came to the US, 15 years after graduation.</b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Did you focus on photography at university? If so, how was that experience?</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Yes, I studied at Brighton Univ, Editorial photography. It was a fabulous course and looking back I am reminded of how lucky I was to have attended at that time. Paul Reas and Mark Power were amongst my teachers as was Jim Cooke and history of photography was taught by Gerry Badger. Our visiting teachers were also always a treat and included Martin Parr, Harvey Benge, so many more. Paul, as I remember, was tough in his approach. He had us make slides of our contact sheets for class crit sessions, which was rough on us all. </b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">I heard a podcast last week with <a href="https://bensmithphoto.com/asmallvoice/paul-reas">Paul Reas (Ben Smith's Small Voice)</a>. He sounds like a very thoughtful guy. Probably a good teacher.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Yes, I listened to Paul's podcast too, just yesterday I think. It was good and it was nice to hear his voice again. I had no idea about his own dyslexia too and it moved me to drop him a line and say hi.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Mark’s <i>Shipping Forecast</i> was published during this time and he was working on the Dome project and he’d pin up prints from it now and again, amazing work and a privilege to see in progress. I learnt a lot there about exploring ideas. Mark’s grid assignment was one I always remember and has never left me really. He had cut up a map of Brighton into its squares and put them into a hat and we had to each pick one out then go there and make pictures.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">That sounds a lot like <a href="https://portlandgridproject.com">Portland Grid Project</a> which I was involved with many years ago. We cut up a map and picked squares at random. But we shot the entire city over 9 years, not just one part. It was very enjoyable, I started one in Eugene when I moved here.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I got a lot out of that project and I am sure you did too. What happened to the Portland one, was there a show?</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">We did have a few shows while I was part of it. And I think there have been some shows since I left (it's now about to start round 4). But we didn't really focus on that. It was always more of a personal project, at least for me. If I ever was in need of some place to shoot, and feeling a bit adrift the grid was always a source I could depend on. It always promised a new place to explore. Which for my way of shooting is everything I need.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dn_oaYNNm-M/YY7syNAzpyI/AAAAAAAAYEM/SXCQodEDxPQEKuKH1zGTVa3Am-UPsizpwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/242858379_10226207799283800_1342678325469047381_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dn_oaYNNm-M/YY7syNAzpyI/AAAAAAAAYEM/SXCQodEDxPQEKuKH1zGTVa3Am-UPsizpwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/242858379_10226207799283800_1342678325469047381_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I am very much the same way. Drawing a circle around a location on a map and exploring the interior.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Were you always that way? Even back in school and before?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>That is a start for me, often. The world is too big otherwise. Photos have to have a location, no matter how arbitrary. If it is not stated or apparent, then the location can become a psychic one, which means for me, some aspect of my unconscious will connect to it instead and make itself known. There is something about knowing this that gives me a footing somehow in making sense of my own life. Sounds heavy, but I am not a commercial photographer. Photography is part of my everyday life and that is what I photograph. I have chosen it as a tool and an aid and have a private complex relationship with it. It is essential to my general good health. I am sure you are the same way, otherwise why are we still doing it?</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">I have asked myself that question quite often. Never with a good answer. I think it is something like you describe, an every day tool inseparable from life.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Between you and I here, I have never gone "on record" that I was a heroin addict for several years after my girlfriend of 7 years died suddenly in 2003. That was a black hole for me for a solid 3 years afterwards. I eventually cleaned up after going to Thailand and living on a monastery and taking their vomit cure. </b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Tell me more about the monastery.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>After several failed attempts to get clean I decided to go to Thamkrabok Monastery, in Thailand. A lot of people on the UK ‘streets’ had heard of this place and I had too, it was like junkie folklore in a way and seen as the last resort at the end of the line. There the monks have developed a special herbal medicine which has been used with some success to treat addiction. Twice a day myself and a group of other addicts, mostly Thai, gathered to drink a shot glass of thick back bitter tasting liquid, like ground up cockroaches. Then drink as much water as we could. There is a reaction that then causes intense and projectile vomiting. Drums are going at this time and monks are chanting, monkeys are howling, the jungle is right there and I am on my knees puking into a gutter. If you didn’t manage to vomit the liquid up it would sit there inside you sloshing about and sending you into a kind of delirium of nausea and the only relief was to puke. I stayed clean for 9 years after that.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Do you know what was in the medicine? It almost sounds worse than quitting cold turkey and puking without medicine.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5EwcROwVh7o/YY7ghpFC0SI/AAAAAAAAYD8/H41AnW8WVH4LJnd3vUreXpAJlrg7RAUFQCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/254818695_367332865142086_3618967114855108599_n.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="698" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5EwcROwVh7o/YY7ghpFC0SI/AAAAAAAAYD8/H41AnW8WVH4LJnd3vUreXpAJlrg7RAUFQCLcBGAsYHQ/w291-h400/254818695_367332865142086_3618967114855108599_n.jpg" width="291" /></a></div><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I don't know what the medicine was and have tried to find out in the past and drawn a blank. I was already starting to go through withdrawals when I got on the plane. We didn't get anything but the beetle juice.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>After I got back I went to live in Madrid, Spain where I worked and lived for 2 years as an English teacher. It was there I met my future ex-wife. She is an American and when she got another job offer back home and we did not want to be apart, so I went with her. We were married for 7 years. </b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I try to keep the heroin out of my "story" because there is a huge stigma to that particular drug and I do not want my pictures to be viewed only through the prism of addiction and recovery either, if that makes sense, bc it's not the whole story. Addiction is the manifestation of deeper ‘ill humors’ and its those which I am interested in exploring more, not just its surface behaviors - the drug taking (though I do have those photos too). Maybe I should just go on record, as it were..</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Personally I attach zero stigma to heroin, or any other drug. They are personal choices, some of which—e.g. heroin— pose health risks. But the criminal side is irrelevant to me. All the drug laws are fucked and should be disregarded. Oregon has done away with most such laws, thankfully. Anyway, if you feel it's important to your life story and your photographic development, I'm all ears.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Yes, we can talk about that. Let’s see where it goes. Addictions are present in my pictures, in the pixels, the craving, lust, anxiety and dread, haha. </b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I try to be aware of how I am feeling when I am taking pictures and sometimes drugs are in there and part of that and sometimes they are not. I hope for transmission or connection. Music is the most transmissive of the arts, I think. A sad song is a sad song to most who hear it. Some of Robert Frank’s photos in particular are not only transmitting but transporting too, for me. I personally do not go for a record of a time, but a feeling for it more and this is where drugs can be found in the work.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">You said “addictions” (plural). There are others?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I am an addict and can get addicted to anything now. I have to watch my step, be mindful and pay attention. I was never much of a drinker though. I gave up smoking this year for the first proper attempt to quit. I’d smoked about a pack a day since I was 20. That’s been a big deal for me. 8 months. They say cigarettes are the first drug people pick up and the last they put down.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I got fully clean and stable and ready to get my life back after I returned from Thailand and my life since then, though there have been some major ups and downs, they have been preferable to where I was before. I have relapsed here and there briefly over the years on either heroin or meth, which I did for the first time about 4 years ago. It was a fucked up time and I am glad it is in the past. Meth is such a terrifying drug. I am not designed for it at all. The horror. My other Instagram account covers some of the ground material from that time.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I got out of that situation with nothing but the pictures I took then and at some point I am going to face them and assemble them into a narrative that makes sense to me. Making sense of a time when I really was not a reliable witness to my own experiences. That lovely Mum of mine is going to now read this. Lets make it part of the healing. </b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Do you think there addictive aspects to photography? You said you were taking photos high on meth, without much sense of what they'd be. I think some part of you felt that recording impulse no matter how stoned. Perhaps it is a type of compulsion?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Yes, I've heard a lot of people say they are addicted to photography, but addiction to anything is no fun and people are just trying to sound cool when they say that. The compulsion to take a photo though is something else. I have been carrying a camera around for a long time. I have wondered if I carry a camera as a disability aid, like I need this with me at all time just in case, because I am not able to process my reality in retrospect. But that recording impulse is a real thing. I trust it right through and don't get in its way. I will find out what it all means later. I could probably write something about the effects of different drugs on photography.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Weird. As soon as I wrote that last comment, VU’s “Waiting For The Man” came on the radio. Maybe someone should write a photographic version, "Waiting for my B & H package."</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Hahahaha. Let's do this.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Why is meth terrifying in comparison to heroin? And when will you look through those meth photos? </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Well, when a heroin user has some heroin they just want to relax and be left alone for the most part, but meth people get high and instantly want to go looking for trouble, first on their phones then out and about in the area. Then if you include a whole community doing this too there can be a lot of aggro, drama and weirdness. I can't go into my experience too deeply because there was a bunch of stuff I was not sure was real or not in the end and it is such a crazy fucked up world under the surface of things sometimes, that I just don't know..</b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YGpHTZIoMdI/YY7gy3CTbnI/AAAAAAAAYEE/KLAaq4Vg574pDtqQnYokgzjucol0iCBPQCLcBGAsYHQ/s848/255564575_2938802296374527_5231075903924621101_n.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YGpHTZIoMdI/YY7gy3CTbnI/AAAAAAAAYEE/KLAaq4Vg574pDtqQnYokgzjucol0iCBPQCLcBGAsYHQ/w303-h400/255564575_2938802296374527_5231075903924621101_n.jpg" width="303" /></a></span></div><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Maybe when I get into really start looking at all that stuff I shot on meth with my iPod, I will get it figured out and turn it into something cool. That's how I will balance the books on that experience. Turn my karma around and shake the curse. </b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">You say you weren't sure what was real or not. It seems like the photos might weigh in here. </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>The photos are like uncovered arrow heads, fragile and curious findings that open up an hour of time surrounding the making of the picture for example. It's not easy to explain.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">You shot photos with an iPod? What was that about? Why not a camera?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I got a job working as a security guard for a meat processing plant in SW Missouri. It was a tough place. Photography was strictly forbidden too. I had been using a Nikon up until then, but felt it was suddenly intrusive and people seemed be self conscious when they saw it. Not sure why this come about, probably because most people there had warrants and stuff. Switching to my iPod was natural and no one cares if you are holding one. I liked using it a lot and I like the low image quality too, gritty, noisy and saturated in colour. I liked the tiny pin head flash too, that lighted things up like a candle flame and had to get really close too. I shot with this for a year. This was during my meth time too. I’d met a cute Cherokee girl who was on probation and working in the plant kitchen, and to Hell we went.. This was about 4 years ago.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">What was it like working at a meat plant? </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>It’s a death factory. 1/4 million chickens killed every day. There was not much poetry there. It was located in a small town and all the employees from the area. It was incredibility multi-cultural too. Refugees from Somalia, from US territories in Micronesia, first nations, immigrants from south of the border and of course a rich and wonderful variety of local rednecks.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">What kind of photos were you looking for? What would have happened if you were caught?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I was taking pictures of my life, the place, the people and my job. The plant of course is terrified of PETA infiltrations and I was told a photographer could be charged with corporate espionage. Heavy stuff.</b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nDD2gwwtXtg/YY63r1ZdOtI/AAAAAAAAYDo/J5f8xhCbh6s05IaXSZNR6_iK3PQ5w_U2wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/253767421_414866096843712_6628111884186926868_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nDD2gwwtXtg/YY63r1ZdOtI/AAAAAAAAYDo/J5f8xhCbh6s05IaXSZNR6_iK3PQ5w_U2wCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/253767421_414866096843712_6628111884186926868_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I just tagged you in a pic on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/spkossoff/?hl=en">Instagram</a> to show you. I am pretty sure I could get into big trouble for this pic, if it was found. I will maintain it is nothing but a scale model like my star wars figure set up’s.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">It's a strong photo. But at the same time I don't think it's incriminating for the factory. I mean it looks about like what you'd expect a meat plant to look like. And if it's on Instagram, isn't it out there in public already? What would they do if they saw it? Fire you? You're already out of there.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I was not in any way allowed to make that picture. I knew someone who took me in there.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">I had a related experience a few years back in Maine. I tagged along with my brother-in-law to a chicken slaughterhouse where he had his chickens "harvested" or whatever.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Harvested, yes, that language all the time, in security we called it the “kill”.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">It was just a shack in the woods basically, with an assembly line inside. Chickens went in one end, throat cut, defeathered, Boom, meat out the other end. No one cared about me shooting photos. In fact there's one in <a href="https://bumpbooks.com/zines-1/blake-andrews-need-clean-fill">that zine I sent you</a>. I think if I dealt with that scene every day I would have a breakdown. I'm a total pussy when it comes to blood and meat and stuff.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Hard to comprehend. I just had another look at your photo, it's a good one, haha. Yours is a great zine. Always been a fan for your photos.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Thanks man. I was on a huge Instax thing for a few years. Had to go to this place in Thailand to finally kick lol. </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Hahaha, they took my camera off me as soon as I walked in there. The monks did, I mean.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">The monastery was just like the slaughterhouse. There must be a joke in there somewhere. Or maybe just that cameras are increasingly unwelcome.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Always, you know this too of course, “photography is not a crime”. I have been escorted from the premises of many a big box store in my time too.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Reminds me of Paul Reas and his book <i>I Can Help</i>. I'm guessing he must have been escorted out of a few stores while shooting that book. Was that book influential for you?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I knew about it at college, friends owned a copy and I'd seen it. I'd say it did influence me, but low key. It's only looking back now though that I can really see how much. I'm a bastard son of 1980s British social documentary. Harvey Benge, who had given a lecture inspired me a lot at that time. His book <i>Not Here. Not There</i>, and later <i>Vital Signs</i> both really effected me. His idea about the "I-ness of other-ness" is something that instantly took hold and is still very much a part of how I work today. I only have a 3 short shelves of photo books these days.. lost so much, but <i>I Can Help</i> is there. It's so good too.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">What do you mean lost? You sold off your books? Or actually lost them?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Traveling around, I left a box here and there, some lent and not returned. I've been rounding up my few possessions.</b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-it8qRY8ltPY/YY7s_Li01_I/AAAAAAAAYEQ/yu1Tq3tSDjQWUa_FuvggwGLAbiuseU7-gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1024/14241689_10210402334397056_5665883267069233635_o.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="1024" height="424" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-it8qRY8ltPY/YY7s_Li01_I/AAAAAAAAYEQ/yu1Tq3tSDjQWUa_FuvggwGLAbiuseU7-gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h424/14241689_10210402334397056_5665883267069233635_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">This might be a segue into your car life the past few years. Can you tell me a bit about that. How that situation came about and where you went, etc.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>When my marriage ended I spent the following year working hard, living simply and saving as much as I could. This was 2014. The 'car life' (love it) was planned, and I had given myself one year to be ready. I was an EMT then and worked for a big casino in Kansas City and also for an event management company who were an agent for EMTs and security guards looking for extra gigs.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I had decided it would be a trip that was going to take a year and that first leg of it did. I left KC in May and was back the following year at the same time. I had driven from Kansas City out and up the east coast to NYC then west to Detroit, north over the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, then out to Wyoming. I had planned to go to the northwest, but because I had snow coming in behind me, I made an exit road sign decision in Dylan, Montana and headed south to avoid it. I then went south down into those deserts. I spend some months in southern California after that and eventually headed back though Texas. I would only be back in KC though for about 3 months and that was punctuated with 2 trips to Colorado. My friend, Photographer Philip Heying had also arranged for me to be artist in residence at one of the little houses (on the compound) that the late William Burroughs owned in Lawrence, Kansas. There I got a chance to sit down and begin editing what I had shot the previous year.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Was this when you shot the <a href="https://bumpbooks.com/zines-1/simon-kossoff-descendant">Bump zine<i> Descendant</i></a>?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>There are about 10 pictures from then in it, I believe. It was from Lawrence that I went to south Missouri and the meat processing plant.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Did you ever shoot photos as an EMT? </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>No. It was not possible. I thought about it, and it was going to get in the way, so no. </b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">What was the Burroughs compound like? Did it still have any of his stuff? It always struck me as strange that he lived in Lawrence. I know he wanted to escape NY. But all that time in Kansas...Weird. Of course I live in bumfuck too, which is maybe why I'm intrigued.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>His stuff was everywhere, his cane and jacket by the front door. The wishing machine was next door. His paintings and those few who take care of everything. Should be a museum I think.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">How would you describe Lawrence, Kansas, to someone like me who's never been there?</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n1FYbNGNAIU/YY7tLTyVMwI/AAAAAAAAYEY/vlVp_235FHA1RdmS5v4eEdior_fmmPj4gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/244593088_10226264931512070_839859985632332143_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n1FYbNGNAIU/YY7tLTyVMwI/AAAAAAAAYEY/vlVp_235FHA1RdmS5v4eEdior_fmmPj4gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/244593088_10226264931512070_839859985632332143_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b>College town, leafy neighborhoods. The downtown is pedestrian, so enough like Europe for me to feel comfortable, but for sure apple pie.</b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">You're more comfortable in Europe that America? Do you still feel like a foreigner living here? Or do you feel American now?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>No, I am a foreigner.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Do you think you'll ever move back to the UK? Or somewhere else maybe?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>If I leave the USA it will be for somewhere like Nepal, via the UK for bye byes.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">What is your least favorite aspect of America? Keep in mind we produced WS Burroughs. So we can't be 100 percent bad. And Hondas. No wait, that was someone else.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I have only lived in the UK for 3 years in the last 20. Least fav thing about the US, the health care system. Mind boggling all the way. No insurance and it’s back to listening to old wives tales and make do and know how, remedies from Dollar Tree, hope for the best. 1890 again, street drugs and Vet meds.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">But that's just the thing. You've lived many years in the US but you still feel like a foreigner. </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Been here 13 years. The UK has changed so much since I left. Last year when my back was injured and I was at my lowest, It crossed my mind to perhaps return, but I soon realized that was ridiculous. This is my life. There is no going back home. I’m a foreigner everywhere now. </b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">I think it's a very clubby country in some ways, and not easy for outsiders. But of course it is built on immigration so outsiders are quite essential to its character. </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Being an outsider, for me, has helped. The amount of times I have been confided in while others have talked candidly about their lives and their country, because I am an outsider. As an EMT and security guard having a British accent has helped. I have found it has disarmed people gently. Same with photography.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Alienation I think is very useful in photography. All of my favorite photographers (you included) exhibit that tension in their work. That sense of an outsider looking in.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I have always felt like an outsider and being part of a group has never appealed to me either (like <a href="https://www.burnmyeye.org">Burn My Eye</a>). Growing up we were on the move as a family and I was often the new kid at a school and always felt out of step. Then later as a young adult I began traveling on my own or with a friend on the trains throughout Europe, back packing with hardly any money, sleeping on beaches, mixing with locals wherever we were, getting lost, finding our way and stumbling onto sites where there were the remains of previous civilizations. I used to think, how else would anyone want to live. Traveling is what I have come to know, reflecting now. Being in one place only meant getting a job and saving for the next trip. That was the difficult part for me, being in one place and all the things one has to do to remain there. Its easy to lose your way and I have. Right now I am happy to not be out there in the 'wilds' anymore and after 6 years I have gone a little feral too, but I am finding my way and have a wonderful partner. I now have a lot of editing and stuff to do too. Yes, outsider and pretty much always the ernest novice.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">You are right about the health care. It is an insane system. It's kind of like a Platypus. You look at it and wonder "how did that thing ever come into being?" But it was a simple process of mindless evolution. A led to B led to C, and here we are.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>It is the most striking difference in our cultures.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Do you think there is more classism in the UK than here? Put on your meat-plant glasses a minute.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XPr82YyC4Xg/YY7tZGEF01I/AAAAAAAAYEg/Q3uZY6C6YhooXt7R9Tu5t8dPPaHf-12CwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/14124933_10210265858425242_882833238293885887_o.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1356" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XPr82YyC4Xg/YY7tZGEF01I/AAAAAAAAYEg/Q3uZY6C6YhooXt7R9Tu5t8dPPaHf-12CwCLcBGAsYHQ/w424-h640/14124933_10210265858425242_882833238293885887_o.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Classism is alive and well here. Being a Brit I have, like us all, a special ear for all the tiny nuances and class markers of the UK. I have heard myself say here "where are they from?" so I can jump to the outrageous conclusion about what sort of person I think they are from what UK city they are from.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Same thing here pretty much.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Yes, it's true, but maybe missing the bitterly sarcastic multi-layered venom.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Are you conscious of that at all as you shoot pictures? I think that photography is inherently a power play. It's a way to exert control over others. Of course there's a lot more to it too. But for me that is a constant background presence, as I decide where who what how to shoot. And since class and social structure run throughout American culture, photography intersects with them. Almost always on every shoot, no matter if I'm shooting people or buildings or birds or whatever.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I don't think I have ever seen it as a power play, personally, but yes I can see how it could be. I know a model who had lot of stories of shoots with sleazy photographers. I know that's not what you are getting at exactly, but like anything it has a responsibility and one has to check oneself and pay attention. Photography has a way of keeping me present. I can look at a photo I took a year ago and it can transmit a clear message to me about me then and it is contrasted with the me now, looking at it. It can be intense, like two mirrors facing one another. The feedback can be devastating and in the past, especially when I first started taking pictures, bringing prints to a photo group I felt very exposed as if all my psychology was there to see. This is one of the reasons I still take pictures. Photography connects me to myself, for better or worse.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">You mentioned BME a little while ago. Are you still part of that group? </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I left BME in January. To be honest I never took advantage of the platform and I could never keep up with the endless banter and debate that was going on all the time. Not much of the little I had to do with it was much fun I'm afraid, but I wish them the best. There are some beautiful souls part of it though. Just not my cuppa tea. Dirty Harry is part of UP isn't he?</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">yUP.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>He was in BME before but he was out of there in a couple of months.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Did you interact with him much?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Not really. He proposed an At Home assignment for the group but no-one could agree what was in, out, or about. Tragic</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">I think you got to know Don through BME right? I love Don. </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>No, Don and I had known each other a few years already.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Oh, so maybe he helped invite you to BME?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Maybe hahaha.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">It's all who you know. That's what makes the world go round. I don’t know anyone, unfortunately</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>He is into it much more than me. In fact he was my only point of contact with the group in the end. I asked him to choose what pics they were going to use of mine, for things. I was grateful for that. He’d summarize the banter too. Both Don and Gene are very dear to me. You guys of course know each other, he has told me. I saw you in one of Joe's photos today too. Never met Joe, but love him.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Yeah, I love Joe too. I slept on his couch for a few days in August. The heart of Bushwick. Great location.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>That's really cool. I know there was some trouble with him and he vanished. I always hoped he was doing alright. I should just message him. I am isolated as a photographer. I have wanted to travel to your neck of the woods for so long. I have never met Missy, but I love her work and we have talked here and there over the years, as I have to Ron too. I would like to meet them. And your good self of course.</b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yh68U_p7EXg/YY7tp3NRV0I/AAAAAAAAYEs/3VDNVbBmKWc7Qd9waQAc8AHj2GXIoO3aQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/242579284_4549321201811052_5958422988500552285_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yh68U_p7EXg/YY7tp3NRV0I/AAAAAAAAYEs/3VDNVbBmKWc7Qd9waQAc8AHj2GXIoO3aQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/242579284_4549321201811052_5958422988500552285_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Come up to Oregon anytime. Missy and Ron are cool. I saw them regularly before the pandemic. But I've only seen Missy once this past year. I think she is not doing much photography. Or maybe just not sharing much if she is. You would dig their record collection. It fills an entire wall in their apartment. Our photo meetings used to be structured in 20 minute blocks. Play a side, share some pix, record done…Get up, change the record, repeat...</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I've seen it in the background of some of their photos I think. Photo meetings, I like the sound of that.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Do you have any photo community where you are? People to shoot with or talk shop or share work?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Not at all. I was thinking of having a little show locally for kicks. I have some frames and it will get me making some prints again.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Yeah cool. Is there a good spot?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Looking for it now.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Park your car somewhere. Paste some photos from <i>Descendant</i> inside. Open it up to the public. Boom.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Sadly I donated my car to a charity. That’s why I made <i>Descendant</i>, like a memorial of sorts. It was beyond repair. I like the idea of those paste up shows I'd seen in NYC on construction site fences.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Michael Jang is doing wheat paste shows in SF. Also Jesse Marlow in Melbourne. I have considered it. I think it's a cool idea in a lot of ways.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Me too, I love coming across that stuff too.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Complete subversion of the gallery structure. Photos to the people! But of course, that means no print sales too. So no paying for the show.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Yes, many levels cool. Leave a cryptic web address.</b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6lCQeKYyhNQ/YY7uXNHMASI/AAAAAAAAYE8/LIKRoMIxmvkp5avF-f3AeqCVQc8OkaAVACLcBGAsYHQ/s1080/245950377_10226299137767205_7939122654547107112_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6lCQeKYyhNQ/YY7uXNHMASI/AAAAAAAAYE8/LIKRoMIxmvkp5avF-f3AeqCVQc8OkaAVACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/245950377_10226299137767205_7939122654547107112_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Yeah, send them to some wacko Trump site or something.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Hahahaha.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">So you’re planning a show. You just published two zines with Bump and are about to publish a book. And now this interview. I'm wondering how those projects came about, and how you feel about this general reactivation of your public photo life.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>In May when David Solomons invited me to make a zine with <a href="https://bumpbooks.com">Bump Books</a> I felt it was good timing. I had just completed a mountain of editing and was getting a feeling for what was going on in my work and was ready to start doing something with it. A zine was perfect. I have now made two and David has been an intuitive collaborator and the process has been a pleasure for me. </b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>It was at this time that I heard from <a href="https://www.eyeshotstreetphotography.com">Eyeshot</a> informing me I was one of the winners of their open call to make a book with them. This, of course, is very exciting and a dream come true. Since then work has begun. I have submitted my initial unsequenced selection of about 200 photographs and Eyeshot has responded with their own selection from that edit which is about half of that. The assembling of the book has now begun and I like this tentative semi-final selection very much and it retains the spirit of my secret vision for the book and I am eager to start work on the sequencing. I hope the book will be published this year. </b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>It's lovely to be back online reconnecting and seeing a lot of new work. It appears to me also, having spent time away, there has been an emergence of the photographer as a personality too. There are so many photographers with YouTube channels out there doing their thing and I have spent many an evening down a photo podcast wormhole. This interview has been a wonderful and challenging experience and it has helped me to think about what I am doing. I appreciate it, thank you.</b></span></p></div>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-30635840915667891802021-10-13T09:38:00.007-07:002021-10-16T09:53:53.083-07:00Q & A with Rick Schatzberg<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://rickschatzberg.com"></a></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dJ8gBPpOzco/YWXSTtLavaI/AAAAAAAAYCY/Nuub-m_bJHsMOJMXKwcDd3rDh3XBPmYjgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_9936.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dJ8gBPpOzco/YWXSTtLavaI/AAAAAAAAYCY/Nuub-m_bJHsMOJMXKwcDd3rDh3XBPmYjgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_9936.jpg" width="240" /></a></i></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Rick Schatzberg is a photographer based in Brooklyn and Norfolk, CT, and the author of the recent monograph <a href="https://rickschatzberg.com/the-boys-2/">The Boys</a>.</i></span><p></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic;">•</span></span></span></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>BA:</b> I’m curious to learn about your path to photography. As I understand it, you took it up later in life. Can you kind of sketch out how that happened?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Early in life I thought I'd be a musician. First, singer/songwriter stuff, but later graduated to jazz. I was involved in the avant-garde jazz scene in the 70s. I played French horn with Cecil Taylor's jazz ensemble in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I moved to NYC when Cecil did, and I played piano and horn for a few years with various musicians in the downtown jazz loft scene. That was a pretty stimulating time musically in NY, with punk at CBGBs just down the street from some of the better known jazz lofts; hip-hop Uptown; Latin Salsa everywhere; disco; new forms of classical music pioneered by Phillip Glass, Steve Reich, and others; performer/composers like Laurie Anderson and Meredith Monk; New Wave bands like Talking Heads and Television playing at the Mudd Club. I was living in a loft in Tribeca, where we played music all the time. That’s just below SOHO, and so though I was aware that there was a real art scene there, I didn’t know very much about it.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">At a certain point in my mid 20s I recognized I didn't have the chops—and never would—to play jazz at such a serious level. Having immersed myself in serious music, I had no interest in returning to pop music, and so I entered the business world to make a living. </span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Wow! You say you didn’t have the chops but you were playing with Cecil Taylor. He wouldn’t suffer chumps, so you’d already attained a pretty serious level. Did you feel you’d plateaued? </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Cecil’s Ensemble was essentially a jazz orchestra with roughly 25-30 musicians. Not like a classical orchestra consisting largely of string sections, but instead sections of woodwinds (mostly saxophones), brass, percussion, etc. I was proficient enough to play the parts in my section and to contribute to the whole, and I really loved the music. I also played in much smaller groups (duos, trios, quartets, etc). I eventually concluded that if I spent all my waking hours practicing and studying my craft, I still wouldn’t achieve the mastery necessary to truly participate in that world. People often say that talent—compared to consistent hard work—is overrated. That may be true, but only to a point. I think I understood where that point was, and have never regretted the decision to walk away from that life. I do feel I gained insights from those experiences that have stayed with me. I learned how to really listen to music; how new artistic expression evolves from traditional forms both incrementally and sometimes in quantum leaps; about the synthesis of wildly different inputs to make something new and powerful; and about the dedication it takes to accomplish anything worthwhile.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">While still playing music up through the early 80s I was working part-time at the Village Voice in the art/production area to support myself. When I stopped playing music I transitioned to a small book-publishing company where I got a job as production manager. Then I got a chance to join a start-up in the early 80s (unrelated to publishing) that took off. I started as the junior guy but over the years became a senior executive in what grew to be a Fortune 50 company. I retired early, spent more time with family and also went back to school mostly studying history and political science. After seven years, when our kids were in college and high school, I was recruited by a former boss to co-found a startup. This I did for just a few years, and we sold it. While still there, I became fairly obsessed with photography. So when I could get out of the corporate world for good, I just focused on that. I took some classes at ICP and then enrolled in a six-week intensive program with Tom Roma at Columbia University, which was great and really opened my eyes. My conception of photography up until then had been pretty much stuck in a mid-20th century aesthetic. Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment and all that. Which was fine so far as it went, but so narrow and limited. I then enrolled in a full-time program at ICP where I learned to shoot film and work in both the B&W and color darkrooms. So many excellent teachers there! I also learned to use a large format camera (4x5), taking classes with Joshua Lutz and Justine Kurland. I graduated from ICP in 2015. For the next year and a half or so I worked only with color film, and in 2017 I started in Hartford Art School's MFA program. I was becoming increasingly interested in the photobook as a medium. Hartford placed a great emphasis on photobooks, and it seemed like this was a good environment to advance my work.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: You said you became “ obsessed with photography”. Roughly what year was that. And how did it happen?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: I think it was around 2008. But my wife and I had been interested in photography for a long time, and occasionally bought something for ourselves as an anniversary present. My wife, Marilyn, was the photo intern for the Village Voice when we met, under Fred McDarrah and Sylvia Plachy. She worked freelance and also shot for Country Music, Rolling Stone, and several other magazines. (She never loved the hustle of free-lance work and gave it up in the mid-80s.) </span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I started taking pictures when I was out mountain biking, just with my cell phone. I began experimenting with various apps to process these images and share them on social media. From there both the cameras and the places I’d shoot kept expanding: first to a "micro 4/3", then a full-frame digital, next a mirrorless digital, then medium format film, and finally 4 x 5 film. But I am now in the process of selling my film equipment and transitioning to medium format digital.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: What kind of photos do you and Marilyn collect? Any examples?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: We are not what I’d call serious collectors, but we do have a few nice photographs. I think the first photos we bought were in Santa Fe in the early 80s, work by Meridel Rubenstein and David Michael Kennedy. Other examples: We have a couple Louis Stettner prints from the 40s; a few Jack Spencer photos; a beautiful Roy DeCarava photograph of John Coltrane and Elvin Jones; a well-known image by Albelardo Morell; a striking color image by Yola Monakhov Stockton, who was a teacher of mine at Columbia. Once I started paying for art school and making my own work we stopped buying photographs, and I began acquiring photobooks—which by now have taken over the house. (These I regard more as part of a working library rather than as a “collection;” I don’t obsess over first editions.) Recently, we acquired a beautiful palladium print from Andrea Modica’s <i>Treadwell</i> series as an anniversary present to ourselves. We are pretty much out of wall space, but if I were to somehow manage to add more, Mark Steinmetz and Alessandra Sanguinetti would be high up on my list.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>BA: </b>Would you say that Marilyn’s photography influenced you? </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: I don’t think so. She was mostly shooting musicians in the 70s and early 80s like REM, Irma Thomas, Sun Ra, etc. She was also hand-tinting images (pre-Photoshop). She did great work, but it wasn’t anything I could see myself doing.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Does she give you feedback now on current work?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qdph2wwfLco/YWXfPI5TjdI/AAAAAAAAYCo/vyiu8uUXWtMjnySQhDjnJlqKvXAsslBWACLcBGAsYHQ/s1008/08-the-boys-345.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="957" data-original-width="1008" height="608" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qdph2wwfLco/YWXfPI5TjdI/AAAAAAAAYCo/vyiu8uUXWtMjnySQhDjnJlqKvXAsslBWACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h608/08-the-boys-345.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Absolutely! I am always interested in her opinion, and she’s very frank. For my work in <i>The Boys</i>, she helped me make my self-portraits, which were pretty awkward to do myself on a large format camera.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: What do you think was it that first pulled you into photography? Did you ever take photos before 2008, either as a kid or earlier in life? </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Starting in high school and college I did make photographs. But music was my obsession. By the time I was playing jazz I was practicing 6 hours a day and playing with others at night. When there wasn’t music, I was reading. Just no room to be serious about photography.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: It doesn't always have to be serious, lol.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: I think I was an all-or-nothing type of guy back then. When I stopped playing horn I never picked it up again.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: I thought the early color photos in <i>The Boys</i> might be yours. But judging by this info, they were not. Where did you source those photos?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: A couple of the snapshots were mine. But mostly they're of uncertain authorship. Each of us, our girlfriends, friends of friends, ex-wives snapped pictures. I actually love that uncertainty; they sort of belong to the milieu. This is in stark contrast to the 4x5 portrait sessions, which were scheduled, lengthy, and carefully considered. I found most of the old snapshots in several of the guys’ photo albums or in boxes of their stuff. There are also a couple that I downloaded online from social media—they’re the ones in the book that are obviously pixelated—where the original prints couldn’t be found. I scanned dozens of the snapshots and then sent them to my book designer, SYB, to make the selections. I felt that it might be better for someone who had no emotional attachment to the subjects or the place (SYB is Dutch) to make these choices. I made some additions and deletions, but for the most part went with his selections.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s1ukb2cGKHw/YWXfcAHGSTI/AAAAAAAAYCs/DEJQtw8crPgH5Z2XqxJqsVKMNtwZIFPAACLcBGAsYHQ/s2000/RSchatzberg_180607_07007-Edit.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1346" data-original-width="2000" height="430" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s1ukb2cGKHw/YWXfcAHGSTI/AAAAAAAAYCs/DEJQtw8crPgH5Z2XqxJqsVKMNtwZIFPAACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h430/RSchatzberg_180607_07007-Edit.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Maybe you still have some all-or-nothing component in your personality? After you became interested in photography you did plunge ahead full steam. Studying at ICP, Hartford, etc.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: That is true, I tend to immerse myself in whatever I get involved in. I think I’ve always been fascinated by pictures, but when I studied at Columbia and ICP, I became aware how much I didn’t know, and I had a sense of urgency about filling in all the gaps. And I also wanted to develop some real skills. Once I embark on a specific photographic project, fascination turns to obsession. Which may be why I feel I need to leave some space between projects now.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: What did you think of Hartford?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>RS: Getting an MFA at age 65 is not an easy proposition. I can’t say I “enjoyed” that experience, but it surely made me a better photographer. The pedagogical approach is fairly typical of a certain type of MFA program: tear you down and build you back up—and repeat. I think that’s harder when you get to a certain age—or maybe I just have a thin skin. I’m the type who mostly remembers negative criticism. I think what I really was looking for was a mentor, and that’s not at all what art school was about. </b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>The university teaching model of mentor and student working in collaboration from the days of Minor White and Ben Shahn in places like Black Mountain College is now long gone.</b></span></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: I have a friend Doug Lowell who did the Hartford MFA later in life, maybe in his late 50s? He graduated in 2012. </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: I know a lot of the alumni—or at least their work— but not Doug. I am in touch with many, and am in a crit group with some, informally led by Tim Carpenter who was in Hartford’s first graduating class around ten years ago.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: That's one of the perks of an MFA program. It creates an automatic peer group. Or least it can.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Did you ever find a mentor? </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Not really. Alec Soth was an early supporter of the work when no one else felt very supportive. But Alec was a guest reviewer at Hartford, and present in the summer sessions only. When I had my first fully designed PDF for The Boys, he was the first person I sent it to. His enthusiasm for it really gave me confidence when I later presented it to my instructors and peers. I also had a second year advisor, Michael Vahrenwald, who was supportive and made many insightful suggestions. </span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Did Hartford make you a better photographer?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Well, for one thing, you are continually turning in work and getting feedback from instructors, guest reviewers, and peers. For that 2 1/2 year period you are only thinking about, looking at, and making photographs. I think that in grad school, one of the challenges of making work that you hope to eventually present to the world is interpreting and deciding what to do with the near constant and often contradictory feedback you receive. You go to art school to not be limited by your inclinations. But there’s also the danger of gearing your work for approval of teachers and fellow students. In the end, I had to absorb what was helpful and discard what wasn’t; making that distinction was sometimes a confusing struggle.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I should also say that the “design” of the Hartford program is pretty ingenious, and program director Robert Lyons deserves the credit for this. It’s “low-residency,” which means you live and work wherever you want, and students live in many different states and countries. You turn in new work every two weeks online, and have regular crits via Skype (maybe Zoom these days?). That includes an hour long one-on-one crit every two weeks with your advisor, as well as monthly small-group crits combining 1st and 2nd year students who share the same advisor. Then there are the two-week in-person residencies, which occur 3 times a year in various places. Hartford and Berlin are always destinations, but other locations can vary from year to year. The connection to Berlin is very strong, and it results in a much less insular view of the photo world than Americans tend to have. Spending time with curator Thomas Weski and photographer Ute Mahler, for example, was a great gift. (Since I graduated there have also been residencies in Tokyo.) A lot happens during these residencies, which are very intense, including long crits and studio visits. Lastly, it’s a photobook-oriented program, and so thinking about the book form, editing, sequencing, and making book dummies all play a prominent role. </span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Is the crit group with Tim Carpenter similar? How does that function?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: The current crit group has anywhere between 15-30 people. Not all Hartford alum. The critiques are much less harsh than at Hartford, but generally substantive. </span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Holy crap, that's a big group! Everyone shows work each time? In person?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Usually 2-3 people show work at each crit, over a 2-3 hour session. It's been on zoom since the pandemic, but in-person (NYC) prior. I expect it'll shrink in size a bit when it's live again.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: I had a good group locally. But it has fizzled during pandemic. We tried Zooming but it wasn't the same at all. I have to say I really despise Zoom. </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Yeah, I get that! But the advantage is that you can create a group that is geographically far flung.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: I am always curious how others do it.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Prior to the pandemic, the group was oriented towards looking at prints, and I am sure it will eventually be again in the future. </span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: We are print/book focused too. A few people bring laptops. But mostly we are old school analogue types. Which made the Zoom transition tougher.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Somehow we made the transition. Tim is the driving force, and we have one or two people who volunteer to handle the logistics for a time, and after a while that rotates.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AhUxAkf883Q/YWXfupwLb4I/AAAAAAAAYC4/KOoOiZwN6jcjh9Zh88Km24UhGach053cQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2000/RSchatzberg_160404_3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1609" data-original-width="2000" height="514" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AhUxAkf883Q/YWXfupwLb4I/AAAAAAAAYC4/KOoOiZwN6jcjh9Zh88Km24UhGach053cQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h514/RSchatzberg_160404_3.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Nice. Did the crit group help you with <i>The Boys</i>?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>RS: No. I made a </b><span style="background-color: white;"><b>book </b></span><b>dummy of The Boys at Hartford as my thesis project. When I graduated I spent the next one and a half years or so refining the work before finding a publisher.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Did it change much during that time?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: In some ways it did, though I didn’t add any new photos. I worked with SYB to make a number of design changes, including the book’s trim size (for the third time). Most of those changes were intended to simplify the design, so that the only major design conceit would be the gatefolds which reveal the portraits when opened. I re-edited all the text (working with my text editor) and wrote a couple of entirely new text "chapters” (or “fragments” as I like to call them) towards the end of the book. This required a degree of reflection and perspective I didn’t have time for in the rush of making work while in grad school. I also re-worked all the post processing from scratch for the two-dozen portraits and the handful of streetscapes and still lifes. Then, when I thought my work was finished and that I only needed to find someone to contribute the afterword, two more friends who are in the book died in the space of 6 weeks. I added the "Coda" to reflect that.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: That section kind of completes the book. I know it sucks to lose friends. But in a way the book couldn't have finished without that event.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: I wouldn’t say it couldn’t have been finished without those deaths, but it certainly added a sad symmetry to the arc of the book’s story.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>BA: </b>What was it like to ask your friends for a portrait session? For most of your lives they hadn't known you as a photographer. And all of the sudden you're making a book and want them to pose. Did anyone express surprise?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: They all knew I was heavily involved in photography the last 8-10 years. I had made a Blurb book at the end of ICP for a project I called Twenty Two North, which most saw, and one of the guys (Fred, the one who died last), got involved in that project a bit, helping me scout locations. Several friends went to the exhibitions of that work. </span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I initially introduced the idea of making everyone’s portrait after the funeral of our friend Jon. He was the second in this group to die in a nine month period. I suggested we make photographs while there were still a dozen of us to be photographed, and that seemed like a good idea to everyone.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UdChzik2IMY/YWXf75m6fdI/AAAAAAAAYC8/9VuiJpXj9XclOMtjGXSb_oocrd5dF3_5ACLcBGAsYHQ/s2000/RICK%2BLENSSCRATCH9.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1298" data-original-width="2000" height="416" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UdChzik2IMY/YWXf75m6fdI/AAAAAAAAYC8/9VuiJpXj9XclOMtjGXSb_oocrd5dF3_5ACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h416/RICK%2BLENSSCRATCH9.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Did the request to be photographed bare-chested add another dynamic?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: That didn’t come up until a bit later in the process, after I’d already had a couple portrait sessions. I tried a few approaches. At first I was making more environmental portraits, which put them in the context of the times: their homes, yards, neighborhoods, clothes, etc. I was also trying different cameras. I made some portraits with a hand held medium format camera, using both color and black and white film. After reevaluating the first group of images and talking with my advisor at Hartford, I made three consequential decisions. First, I would use a large format camera because with all its fussy rituals and traditions, I thought it would feel more performative and serious. I hoped that would amplify the psychological intensity surrounding the project. Second, I would photograph each man in front of a blank wall, to isolate them, to make them seem exposed. The idea was that the portraits would stand in stark contrast to the snapshots, which are all so lively, silly, and context-rich. Third, and to get to your question, I would photograph at least some of the men bare-chested, for a couple of reasons. I wanted to show vulnerability. I also simply wanted to describe the skin of 64 year old men using Portra 400 4x5 film. I couldn’t recall seeing that elsewhere. </span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">My friends were game. There was one friend who would only agree to be photographed shirtless if he could approve of the photo before publication, so I didn’t even bother to have him pose shirtless. </span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: I’m sure you've shown the book to the people in it. Can you characterize their reactions? </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: It’s funny, all the time I was making the work, I was thinking less about the reactions of the people in the book than I was about viewers who don’t know the subjects or the place we’re from. Obviously, this work is radically specific: a very particular group of white guys of a particular generation, raised in a very particular American suburban community. From the outset though, my feeling was that if this work isn’t felt to be universal on some level, then it’s a failure. Mortality, after all, is the bedrock of our biology. </span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">During the photo sessions my friends and I discussed the deeper underlying themes of the project – aging, loss, memory, mortality, long-lasting friendship. These conversations helped to create the atmosphere we needed to portray vulnerability. I also explained that I planned to use the work as the basis of my master’s thesis, so they understood that there would be a critical audience beyond our circle. Their attitudes went from gracious acceptance to genuine interest. It was as though they became partners with a stake in the outcome. It was clear that I would be making unheroic portraits that might not be flattering, and they understood that there was a good reason for doing so.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">That said, it was not a true collaboration because the power to select specific portraits for use in the book was mine alone. My friends did not even see the images I was choosing between, nor did they know how I would ultimately deploy them. They trusted me. It was important to assert my authorial voice, but without entirely drowning out the voices of my friends, which they asserted through the written word, their snapshots, and their gestures in the portraits.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">When the work was complete I sent the PDF to all my friends who are in the book, and suddenly I was apprehensive. Fortunately, they were extremely happy with it. They understand that it's my version of things, my particular way of telling this story, but they feel like these friendships have been duly noted for posterity. They also like that it honors our four friends who have died (actually five, counting Andy who died in 1977 and is referenced in the text and a couple of snapshots) . They have enjoyed reading the reviews these past nine months, seeing the reactions of critics, just as they were interested in Rick Moody’s essay about the work. The photo sessions themselves have become part of our shared history as well. It felt ceremonial, as though we were eulogizing our friends who died, but also creating a "certificate of presence" at the same time, to steal a Roland Barthes phrase. It also simply provided a good reason to get together.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8dJetHSj3gw/YWXgINiEzYI/AAAAAAAAYDA/2tA7_dcP4foudBlIUrf7DQsgNgy60GfewCLcBGAsYHQ/s2000/RSchatzberg_171222_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8dJetHSj3gw/YWXgINiEzYI/AAAAAAAAYDA/2tA7_dcP4foudBlIUrf7DQsgNgy60GfewCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h640/RSchatzberg_171222_.jpg" width="512" /></a></b></div><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: I think your friends look pretty good actually. A few battle scars and wrinkles, but all things considered they are in good shape. They are somewhat of an anomaly actually, compared to the poor health of average Americans. And the group itself is an anomaly. I mean, the fact that you still regularly communicate with a tight group of friends from childhood is very unusual. You are fortunate.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: The group is an anomaly, that's for sure. Boys/men in American culture are presumed to be emotionally illiterate, right? As for health, remember 4 of 14 are dead. A few more are dealing with some pretty serious chronic conditions.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: How often do you guys get together now?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: The pandemic put an end to face-to-face for the most part, though that's changing now. Before and during the pandemic though there have been texts and emails almost daily. But not as one large group, mostly in pairs or threes. When we do get together in person it's mostly in sub-sets. As many as 8 of us if we're very lucky, but more often in twos and threes. There's a guy in FL, one in Pittsburgh, one in NH, one now in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the rest in the NY area (Brooklyn, Jersey, LI). So it has been catch as catch can. We always know what's going on with one another though. </span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-97UcdC-_I5Q/YWXgXZhOb-I/AAAAAAAAYDE/8cvMwmZb0zkEngz8TmZUg7HrqFWdMUMSgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2000/RSchatzberg_180124_-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1590" data-original-width="2000" height="508" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-97UcdC-_I5Q/YWXgXZhOb-I/AAAAAAAAYDE/8cvMwmZb0zkEngz8TmZUg7HrqFWdMUMSgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h508/RSchatzberg_180124_-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: One thing that comes across in the book is a general upbeat vibe. All your friends are smiling and hugging and laughing. I know that's partially due to your archival selection. You chose certain photos for a certain mood. But still, it puts this nostalgic haze of bliss over the past. Maybe that's drug related too, who knows?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Photo selection, sure, but I also think pictures were usually taken when we were having fun. And humor has always been a very big thing with these guys. A way of not taking ourselves too seriously all the time. As for nostalgia, I don't really think of the work as nostalgic. Of course every viewer/reader gets to have their own sense about things like that.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XT8ZV37zUlg/YWXe9STLxMI/AAAAAAAAYCg/Lo8gd6s6tCoFn16f9iwYsIMMCuk0OHSGgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1008/06-the-boys-339.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="679" data-original-width="1008" height="432" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XT8ZV37zUlg/YWXe9STLxMI/AAAAAAAAYCg/Lo8gd6s6tCoFn16f9iwYsIMMCuk0OHSGgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h432/06-the-boys-339.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Nostalgia is kind of a nasty word in photoland. I think it is suspected as a counter to intellectual rigor. But I have no problem with nostalgia. Most old snaps have some element of that and it usually makes them better IMO.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Nostalgia is often associated with "sentimentality,”—<i>those were the days!</i>—which may be even worse in photo land! But those words not exactly synonymous. I feel that the almost forensic nature of the portraits grounds the work in the present. But for some viewers I’ve heard from, the immediate connection to the work is nostalgia for their youth or that time or place. For others, typically younger readers and often European, it may be “anemoia”: nostalgia for a time or place you’ve never known. (Photography is good at evoking this.) But the portraits of a bunch of isolated old guys inevitably bring you back to reality.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: How did Rick Moody get involved? </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: I was advised by Alec Soth to get a "real" writer to do my essay. I decided—at the advice of another person I know who heads a literary publishing house—to consider a fiction writer. I'm not sure why he suggested that but the idea appealed to me. Rick Moody and I have a mutual friend, and so I asked Joe if he would mind forwarding the PDF to Rick to see if he'd be interested. I heard back directly from Rick in under a day! It was a good match.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Why did Soth suggest a “real” writer? Is that just general advice? Or did it pertain to your project in particular?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: I don’t think it pertained to my project in particular, but to the type of contemporary photobook that aims to create a world, to convey a story. These types of photobooks, which are abundant these days, stand in contrast to books that are collections of individual pictures, or to comprehensive retrospective accounts of an artist’s work. Alec said he thought it was a mistake to only consider other photographers or critics for the task of appending an essay to the type of photobook I was making. He suggested that it’d be a good idea to get well-known photographers or critics to write blurbs, but not the essay. In contrast, for a comprehensive retrospective monograph covering an artist’s career, he thought curators and critics can provide important and insightful essays, and I completely agree with that. </span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: And how did you connect with Powerhouse?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: I sent my PDF to a zillion publishers, and got some interest from a few. But a photographer friend knew some people at PH and she reached out to them. I thought they'd be a good choice because they were willing to share the production costs, and they wanted to print around 1,500 books. I know most photobooks are done in smaller quantities, around 500 or so. But as a "hybrid”—a photo-memoir— I thought that my book might be of interest to people who don't normally buy photobooks, and so a larger print run would make sense. I mean, I was publishing to be read, and I didn't care about the being able to say early on that the edition was sold out quickly.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Has that target audience materialized? Do you think it's appealing to the "hybrid memoir" crowd? I always think of photobooks as such a nerdy insider thing. Like the only people who could possibly care are photographers. But I know that's not always the case.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G2nUAFE9yH0/YWXgiAk5faI/AAAAAAAAYDM/nomb22V2qiAq1T2C-4sMUIlhfjwxmIVnQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1008/03-the-boys-329.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="653" data-original-width="1008" height="414" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G2nUAFE9yH0/YWXgiAk5faI/AAAAAAAAYDM/nomb22V2qiAq1T2C-4sMUIlhfjwxmIVnQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h414/03-the-boys-329.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: You're probably right. I've gotten a lot of reviews in photo journals or by photography writers in more mainstream outlets, but only in a couple of more traditional literary outlets (Literary Hub and NY Journal of Books). The photo-to-text ratio is too high towards the former for The NY Times, LA Review of Books, NY Review of Books or the Times Literary Supplement. So if there even is such a thing as a “hybrid memoir crowd,” they wouldn’t know about the book.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: There was a Vogue piece. That's crossover.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Vogue Italia, yeah. Rica Cerbarano is great. I wonder who reads her columns though. Just us photo nerds, probably.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: I have no idea. To me the book falls pretty easily into "photobook" category. It is picture heavy. There are some texts but they feel secondary. So it seems naturally aimed at the photo crowd.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: To quote Alec Soth, “… and that’s one of the great struggles with combining pictures and words. Do you find a photographic audience? Do you find a literary audience? In the end, it’s kind of neither one, very often.” For me, the text isn’t secondary, even though it’s only about 4,000 words. But again, every reader/viewer forms their own opinions about a work once it’s released.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: You just gotta do your thing. All the audience targeting is just a guessing game.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: I agree, and I made the book I had to make. I am not second-guessing that.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: I’m sure Cecil Taylor ran into the same marketing issue. Who buys jazz albums? Other jazz musicians. Or extreme music nerds. Not much general crossover.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Perhaps. But Cecil was a genius.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Genius doesn't count for shit selling product</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>RS: True, at least in the short run. In Cecil’s case, he has earned his place in music history, and so he will be listened to and studied over the long haul. With respect to photobooks that combine images and text, I do feel that a lot of photobook aficionados don't like text much, especially if it is assigned the task of helping carry the weight of the narrative. </b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">I<b> think it was Roland Barthes who said that the linguistic message, when used as an anchor, directs us towards a meaning selected in advance. </b></span><b>So there's that. That was the prevailing sentiment at Hartford, in my opinion. </b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><b>Personally I think it depends on the text itself and how/where it sits in a photobook.</b></span><b> </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: I tend to respond viscerally to pictures. Sometimes text can interfere with that. So I think it needs to be introduced in a very deliberate way, or else it can just run wild through the viewer's brain. That's not to say writing and photos can't coexist. It's just a delicate balance.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: It <i>is</i> a delicate balance. And book design becomes very important then. You also have to assume that many people won’t read a photobook from front to back, as they would a literary text. So I was conscious of writing text “fragments” that could read in any order. </span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Even something as simple as a caption can really color the interpretation of an image.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: I specifically didn't want my text to function as extended captions, nor were the photographs intended to just illustrate the text. My goal was for the images and words to exist on equal terms, each telling stories in their own way. Photographs are all surface, two-dimensional exteriors. The viewer is invited to imagine the nature of the subject or of the photographer and to fill in the before and after. This, in part, is what makes good images so powerful and memorable. But pictures can’t really convey a deep truth about the person photographed; we really know absolutely nothing about them. Text can articulate an interior space, where memories, ideas, and feelings are pieced together and can be told. </span></b><b><span style="font-size: medium;">“Interiority—the kingdom the camera never captures,” to quote poet and memoirist, Mary Karr.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: I think the book works well in this aspect. It is mostly pictures but there's enough backstory to fill in the history.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">RS: Thank you, Blake.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>(All photos above </i><b style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">© </b><i>Rick Schatzberg)</i></span></p>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-36456794890713769572021-08-27T10:41:00.012-07:002021-09-01T07:52:45.477-07:00Q & A with Bumdog Torres<p><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i></i></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rY8gn1ei3LM/YSkgEqv0CxI/AAAAAAAAYBQ/AmwvtRk-E5QJFcM68LKnUrOe4t9YqNkJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1536/26685710_10155497842669086_8249387515777304611_o.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rY8gn1ei3LM/YSkgEqv0CxI/AAAAAAAAYBQ/AmwvtRk-E5QJFcM68LKnUrOe4t9YqNkJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/26685710_10155497842669086_8249387515777304611_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></i></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://www.instagram.com/bumdogtorres/">Bumdog Torres</a> is a photographer and videographer based in Los Angeles.</i></span><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic;">•</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium;">BA: Where are you exactly? Do you have a good place to do computer stuff, or are you on a phone? I know you're in LA., just curious about the logistics.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">BT: Currently I have a place in Hollywood. The city gave it to me because of COVID. I didn’t want it but I needed a place to work out of. I’m on a computer right now.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Can you give me some basic background. Where/when did you grow up? What has been your journey since? How did you first get interested in photography? I know that's a lot to cover. Maybe just hit the highlights.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I grew up in LA. I was mainly interested in movies, and movie composition, not still photography. I was inspired to take selfies because of Vivian Maier. That’s what started it.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You saw the Vivian Maier movie?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">No not yet. I saw the original news piece from Chicago describing how that guy found her works. When it first came out.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Oh yeah. What a strange story. I love her pictures. I think the fact that she influenced someone several decades later indirectly is pretty fascinating too. So you weren't shooting self portraits at all before discovering her?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">No, I never had a still photo camera before, just video cameras.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Wait, still? You mean the stuff on IG is from video cameras?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uSQaOrxwHMA/YSkfvjBqyHI/AAAAAAAAYBI/iMkHmRpnb7AhmZ31l5MW9UJVVaJ55Hx3gCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/26168814_10155480816874086_8744734991716679908_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uSQaOrxwHMA/YSkfvjBqyHI/AAAAAAAAYBI/iMkHmRpnb7AhmZ31l5MW9UJVVaJ55Hx3gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h360/26168814_10155480816874086_8744734991716679908_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">In 2014 I bought an iPhone 4s off the streets and started taking selfies. After a couple of years a friend gave an old Sony point and shoot, and I started taking video again of friends. But then I started taking out frames of them as still photos. My earliest portraits are actually video, with the frames taken out.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What was it about selfies that attracted you? I'd love to ask the same question to Vivian Maier but not possible,</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">They were easy to do, and like I said Maier did them so well I was inspired to do the same. But the iPhone back then didn’t take good portraits of people, so I stuck to selfies.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Well wherever you go, you always have yourself available as a model. So there's that. But I'm guessing there was some deeper reason. Was it a way to study yourself? Or find out more about yourself in some way?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">No, I was living on the streets and it was just a hobby. Finding mirrors in the trash and alleys and shooting in them.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Did you shoot other stuff through mirrors at the time?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">No, what could I shoot?</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You can shoot anything in a mirror.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I wasn’t aware of that.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9fIYHJkqYHc/YSkfXWD_9yI/AAAAAAAAYBA/UYh830oNddc4jd3R0Q0HoGYR-mlzOex_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/26678075_10155489490899086_4354351519851627215_o.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9fIYHJkqYHc/YSkfXWD_9yI/AAAAAAAAYBA/UYh830oNddc4jd3R0Q0HoGYR-mlzOex_wCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/26678075_10155489490899086_4354351519851627215_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Have you heard of <a href=" https://www.ericoglander.com/craigslist-mirrors">this book</a> of mirrors? It's pretty awesome.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Ah, naw. I’m not a good looking guy, but I know I have a LOOK.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Is anyone good looking?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Next question.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I mean, Brad Pitt or Kim Kardashian. What do they see when they look in the mirror? The aesthetics kind of go out the window when you're doing selfies. It's more about self analysis, I think</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Never thought of it like that.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">How did you manage all the photos your were taking during this time? Did they stay on your phone? Or did you print or store them somehow?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Uploaded them to Facebook and Instagram.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So you shared them on social media. Did you also archive them for yourself? Or maybe those outlets <i>were</i> the archive?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I used FB and IG as my storage.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When did you get the name Bumdog?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Back in 1997. I was in jail for failure to appear in court. In the cell I was talking about living on the streets, someone asked "You smoke dope?” I said no. They asked, "Do you drink?" I said no. Then they asked "Well if you don’t drink or do dope why you be bumming everywhere?" I said "Because I’m a bum." They all laughed and started calling me bumdog. It stuck.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g_FZw_L7aDc/YSkreKFbwFI/AAAAAAAAYCE/NcKokHZTUoEqiN5QdL775ip84_0JbhtrACLcBGAsYHQ/s1950/216810614_10158706104029086_2226904035765701565_n.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1950" data-original-width="1560" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g_FZw_L7aDc/YSkreKFbwFI/AAAAAAAAYCE/NcKokHZTUoEqiN5QdL775ip84_0JbhtrACLcBGAsYHQ/w320-h400/216810614_10158706104029086_2226904035765701565_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You never tried any of that stuff? Or went that way and now clean? I'm asking as someone who uses drink and drugs on an occasional recreational basis.</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">No, I never even used it recreationally.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Wow, virgin brain cells. Impressive. Mine are shot, some of them anyway. I guess it's national dog day today. That's what I read on FB. So maybe it’s a good day for bumdogs?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Hmm.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What's your photo process? Are you out shooting pictures most days? Do run into the same people a lot? Do you stay in the same part of the city? What’s your routine?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Just when I’m walkin’ around pushing a shopping cart I’ll ask usually a homeless person if I can photograph them for $5. It doesn’t happen every day.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You always pay your subjects?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Well not ALWAYS, some people I shoot aren’t homeless. I tell them if they let me photograph them Ill give them $5.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It seems like a fair trade. Did you give Steve Martin $5, lol.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c_xUDIIrwSc/YSkiW8FWOxI/AAAAAAAAYBg/1rdkNP3zQ3QrQmQC_Ob1ZmMwMSc__27MACLcBGAsYHQ/s545/ddd.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="359" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c_xUDIIrwSc/YSkiW8FWOxI/AAAAAAAAYBg/1rdkNP3zQ3QrQmQC_Ob1ZmMwMSc__27MACLcBGAsYHQ/w264-h400/ddd.jpg" width="264" /></a></span></b></div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">He is one of the exceptions.</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I like the approach. Usually when I photograph people I don't have much interaction, so there's no time for payment. But even when I photograph people as portraits, in stable settings I haven't thought to pay anyone. But it's kind of a cool idea. It puts a definitive value on photographs. Like, this moment is WORTH something.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Yeah.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Do you give them a print too? Or is it just a passing thing?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">If I see them around and I know where to find them I do.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Are there other photographers besides Vivian Maier who have influenced you?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Mary Ellen Mark.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">She's awesome. Anyone in LA? Do you have any photo friends or community there?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Yeah, I know several photographers here, that I’ve learned a few tricks from.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Like what tricks?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Just things to look for like shadows and reflections.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Do you know the pictures of Suzanne Stein? </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Yeah, someone said my stuff reminded them of her. Her and Suitcase Joe.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What do you think of her photos?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Very good. Better then mine, but I’ve just been photographing seriously for the last couple of years.</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They feel exploitative to me, but maybe that's my personal bias.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">There’s always that element in street photography, but I know what you mean.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It's her position of power shooting people who are less fortunate. It's a twisted power dynamic. But maybe that's true of all street photography. It's always a power play. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">There’s always that element especially when you are making money taking photos of people out in the streets. Whether its just for you or LIFE Magazine.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I don't know how much money she's making at this. Maybe that goes back to the $5 payments. It's a deliberate way to flip the equation? Instead of making money at it you are losing money. Or maybe it’s investing money, not losing.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Well if I sell their photo, I don’t feel like I exploited them. In fact that’s what I say to them. I sell my prints for $10.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c_xn2w8meTM/YSkih1usq8I/AAAAAAAAYBk/jZhwiI6Wpyonrt5grLyyOA_Ke39dL0VgACLcBGAsYHQ/s1350/240355151_10158793436304086_1379322824229074216_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c_xn2w8meTM/YSkih1usq8I/AAAAAAAAYBk/jZhwiI6Wpyonrt5grLyyOA_Ke39dL0VgACLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h640/240355151_10158793436304086_1379322824229074216_n.jpg" width="512" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Do you sell many prints?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Not really, I’ve been making photobooks lately.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">How do those sell? Asking as someone who is terrible at selling prints or books.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s a big investment, and the money just trickles back, but I don’t do it for the money.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Why do you do it? </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s just something I do. It’s not deep or complicated to me. Maybe to others who are much better photographers it is.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I think people can make photography deep and complicated and lead themselves into needless trouble. All the hyper-education and theories that surround it tend to get in the way. It's not very complicated at it's core. Going out into the world to record what you see is a simple act. If you're taking photos on a phone or digital camera and archiving on social media, it's pretty inexpensive.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes, that’s how I got into it. However when you start taking it more seriously then you start paying some serious money. After a certain level nothing is cheap.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-flr3vahXnPI/YSkrF7PeDbI/AAAAAAAAYB8/0Sa1rjt3t00SLH_cV3KnSCyVTxQejcGkgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/216197961_10158706101074086_3290124173994164500_n.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1718" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-flr3vahXnPI/YSkrF7PeDbI/AAAAAAAAYB8/0Sa1rjt3t00SLH_cV3KnSCyVTxQejcGkgCLcBGAsYHQ/w335-h400/216197961_10158706101074086_3290124173994164500_n.jpg" width="335" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br />Maybe it doesn't make sense to think of photography in economic terms. Because in raw dollars, it can be absurd. Very few artists make a positive cash flow on photography. It's almost always negative. So if that was the decisive factor, no photos would ever get made.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Can I ask about being houseless. You have a home now but in previous years you were on the streets. What was that like? Were there parts of that lifestyle which you came to enjoy? Or was it generally negative?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">No, I was better suited to outside life. That’s why they called me Bumdog.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You'd rather live on the streets?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s my element.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Do you see yourself moving back to that lifestyle? Perhaps after Covid?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Sure. It wouldn’t mean anything to me. But as long as I have this place I tried to take advantage of it with the projects I’ve been doing like the photobooks. I’ve made 6 in the 8 months.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Holy crap! 6!?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Yeah, since December to July.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Is that a function of having an indoor place with facilities to make them? I mean, presumably you couldn't make those while living on the streets?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I could have but I was determined to be productive while I was inside.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pDODvdINAf4/YSkg4pASfRI/AAAAAAAAYBY/7OvhY-Iq0TU4EDMs9oGvu_RUkE7Pbrf3wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/225111052_10158750389669086_2230133852473439617_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1028" data-original-width="1440" height="456" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pDODvdINAf4/YSkg4pASfRI/AAAAAAAAYBY/7OvhY-Iq0TU4EDMs9oGvu_RUkE7Pbrf3wCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h456/225111052_10158750389669086_2230133852473439617_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Which photobooks by others do you like? Do you have any that are particularly special to you?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Jim Goldberg's <i>Raised By Wolves</i> I consider the best photobook ever.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Good call. I don't have that book but I have the Fingerprint box with facsimile Polaroids. I love it!</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Yeah, I got that one too.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I think many were shot in LA</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Half in Hollywood the other in SF, I believe. Most in Hollywood I think.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What happens to your photobooks when you move back to the streets?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I’ve sold most of them, I just made 100 copies of each, except the last two, I made 50 of each and sell them together.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I mean Raised By Wolves and Fingerprint and books by others. Where do you store those?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I acquired them since I’ve been here. If I go back on the streets Ill figure something out.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Better watch out. Pretty soon you'll be an indoor person. It gets harder after a while to give up creature comforts and move outside. Especially as you get older</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Not for me. I had a place for two and a half years. When I left it I thought I would be upset about it. But when I got back on the streets I didn’t feel anything. It’s all the same to me.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When I was 20 I could sleep anywhere. Pavement, foam, dirt, whatever. Now at 52 my back gets stiff if I don't have a pillow. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I’m 52 as well.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Oh yeah? What's your birthday?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GqTjBa-86eM/YSkjApXNIkI/AAAAAAAAYBw/VrDX-yDOIqMgIHo3drQqw1XuHE3Oe3DxgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1350/236928000_10158784792934086_5420832105907243437_n.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GqTjBa-86eM/YSkjApXNIkI/AAAAAAAAYBw/VrDX-yDOIqMgIHo3drQqw1XuHE3Oe3DxgCLcBGAsYHQ/w320-h400/236928000_10158784792934086_5420832105907243437_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">May 25.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">December 1968 for me. I grew up in California too. But the other end. Far northern coast.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A different world.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Yup. I'm looking at the photobook image you just sent. What's the one about the Orthodox Jewish Community?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Photos I took while bumming around an Orthodox Jewish Neighborhood.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Fairfax?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Yup.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Shooting homeless? Or other people?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">No, shooting Orthodox jews.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What was their reaction?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I just can’t explain it that quickly. It’s a long story.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Fair enough. What about the book titled "A Homeless Man's Development As a Street Photographer." How do you think you've developed?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s just all the photos I took from my first selfies in mirror, to my later portraits. Kind of a Auto-Retrospective. That one is sold out. I made two editions of it. The second one I added 50 pages and 150 more photos. I consider it a separate book. It was a lot of work.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IB7DqI1H52o/YSkjM_ZEVRI/AAAAAAAAYB0/k5bkAzDdHVEa1Phm-z_eNb8H5zeCuQNIgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/117885974_10157932978949086_4677535119401765977_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IB7DqI1H52o/YSkjM_ZEVRI/AAAAAAAAYB0/k5bkAzDdHVEa1Phm-z_eNb8H5zeCuQNIgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/117885974_10157932978949086_4677535119401765977_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Are you handling all the payments and distribution yourself? That can be a lot of work too.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s not a issue yet.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">How do you print them?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A printshop. I don’t like doing it over the Internet.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You're like a photobook firework going off. I can feel the creative spark a thousand miles away. Where's the best place to buy your books? Through IG? Or do you have a shopping site?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Through me. Just let me know which one you want.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>_____________</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>(All photos above by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/bumdogtorres/">Bumdog Torres</a>. Contact: bumdog@gmail.com)</i></span></p><div><b><br /></b></div></div>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-78725590013534712072021-08-10T12:58:00.004-07:002021-08-10T22:06:38.383-07:00Q & A with Yona Zeldis McDonough<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><i><a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/mcdonough-yona-zeldis-1957"></a></i></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><i><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AD1eRfDjHvQ/YRLOqvRzYOI/AAAAAAAAX_s/oAgOVDMoh9Qztl3JmGNPlHCeMYpyZSGegCLcBGAsYHQ/s867/booth.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="867" data-original-width="697" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AD1eRfDjHvQ/YRLOqvRzYOI/AAAAAAAAX_s/oAgOVDMoh9Qztl3JmGNPlHCeMYpyZSGegCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/booth.jpg" width="257" /></a></i></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><i>Yona Zeldis McDonough is an author based in Brooklyn, and the wife of photographer Paul McDonough. </i></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic;">•</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: What did you mean when you said "there’s a bit of a story" behind <a href="https://waalboghtpress.bigcartel.com/product/in-the-studio-photographs-and-drawings-by-paul-mcdonough">In The Studio</a> (Paul McDonough's recent book of nude studies)?</span></span></p><p><b style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;">YM: For decades, Paul’s photographic life took place outside his home—either on the streets of New York, or the many the places he travelled both within the United States as well as Europe, Japan and Mexico. He’d be out several hours a day, Leica slung over his shoulder, ever on the alert for the serendipitous gesture, face, street-or-landscape that caught his eye. Then a few things happened. He got older. He became a father. And we moved to Brooklyn, where a lucky real estate windfall allowed us to build a studio on top of our house. He had come to photography via drawing and painting—he studied art in Boston—and he continued to draw from models occasionally, often at the studio of his friend Audrey Frank Anastasi. He also photographed nudes but again, in a kind of sporadic way. But having a studio of his own—and it was quite a studio, 400 square feet with big windows front and back as well as a skylight—changed all that. He loved that space and made it entirely his own, covering the walls with artwork and images of all kinds, filling the shelves with his extensive photo and art library, and decorating the space itself with objects and furnishings that appealed to him. It became a world of its own, and he began hiring figure models to photograph (and still occasionally draw) when he was in it. Both the resulting photos and drawings became denser, richer, and more detailed, filled as they were with things he loved (a figure of a cherub I bought him, a teapot he’d found at a yard sale), open books that referenced his favorite paintings and sculpture, ads from magazines and newspapers, wooden screens, bolts of patterned fabric, articles of women’s clothing (a ballet tutu our daughter had worn, a feather boa), a seven foot gilt framed mirror, still life composed of fruit, flowers, goblets, vases and the like. At first this work was only in black and white, but later he began to venture into color. </span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tPfUKDArlOs/YRLUo2aCwxI/AAAAAAAAX_0/3GOI5nuOntsiaPub43kUj5mvr2HK57QEACLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/444.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tPfUKDArlOs/YRLUo2aCwxI/AAAAAAAAX_0/3GOI5nuOntsiaPub43kUj5mvr2HK57QEACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/444.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><b style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For a period of about ten years, he produced a significant amount of work that was, at least to my eye, compelling, singular and flat out gorgeous and I encouraged him to show it to people in the photo world. The initial response was not positive. I think people had come to expect one kind of photograph from Paul and these pictures were so very different—off brand as it were. He was told that the work was “not good” and that he should not seek to exhibit it. </span></b></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The art world is a fickle beast. Negative response might be disappointing, but they don't surprise me. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">But I was not content to let it rest, and because his Alzheimer’s disease had already begun to erode his sense of initiative, he looked to me for support and help. As an outsider in the photo world, I didn’t quite know where to begin. Then I met Joshua Chuang, curator at the New York Public Library, and invited him for a studio visit. On the way upstairs he saw a couple of the nudes that had been printed 30” x 40” and was immediately struck by them. “Did Paul take these?” he asked and when I said yes, those were the only pictures he wanted to look at for the entire visit; he raved about them, and later was responsible for publishing a small group of them in the Swiss magazine <i>Else</i>. His encouragement gave me the push I needed to keep going and I showed the work to <a href="https://www.josephbellows.com">Joseph Bellows</a>; he too raved and said he’d never seen such pictures before and asked to represent them in his La Jolla gallery. This kind of feedback led me to think that the work warranted a book, and </span></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qBDF4CIuufM/YRLU_y6LOzI/AAAAAAAAX_8/prYyraJzX50HYBd9S5CmxnJ90_FAXINCACLcBGAsYHQ/s768/untitled-11small.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="454" data-original-width="768" height="236" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qBDF4CIuufM/YRLU_y6LOzI/AAAAAAAAX_8/prYyraJzX50HYBd9S5CmxnJ90_FAXINCACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h236/untitled-11small.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">thanks to Joe Lawton, who was also a fan of his work, I found Carl Gunhouse, who spent days poring over every photo of a nude and every drawing until he put together the grouping that comprised <i>In the Studio. </i></span></b></span><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><i></i></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">So it was a long road and for me, not always a pleasant one as the opposition often took a hostile and even vitriolic tone. I was accused of many things, including undermining my husband’s work and his position in the photo world. But I was the one who lived with him and loved him; I knew what this work meant to him, and that he wanted to have it seen and recognized. As his disease progressed, and I had to watch this once exquisitely refined, thoughtful and nuanced artist crumble like a sugar cookie before my eyes, the production of this book became even more important—it was both a tonic and a balm. And although Paul couldn’t fully participate in its creation, the result was deeply satisfying to him. It still is. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><i></i></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Did Joseph Bellows ever show that series? If not, what happened? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">No, Joseph didn’t end up showing that work, though he remains a big champion of it. But the #MeToo movement had started to affect certain photographers and Joseph felt the moment wasn’t right. I think this is a good place to add that whatever is said about the male gaze and its effect on women, these photographs are so much more than that. Paul truly loved women, which is not at all a given, even for men who are sexually aroused by them; he loved to talk to them, listen to them and yes, look at them. But there was nothing coercive in what he did, and I know this because I was there—the studio has no door, and everything that went on up there was audible to me on the floor below. He hired young women as figure models, always making it clear what he was seeking from them. He paid them well and he remained professional at all times. These women became friendly with him and they loved the photographs he took. The photographs are also self-portraits, even though Paul doesn’t appear in them. But all the visual references, the things he included, were all carefully selected and arranged. They had meaning for him, and the resulting photos are kind of a map of his life as an artist. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I’m glad you mentioned the male gaze. There are many photos of scantily clad women in <a href="https://collectordaily.com/paul-mcdonough-headed-west/">Headed West</a>. How do you feel about them?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I don’t have any problem with these pictures. These women were in public spaces. He never invaded anyone’s privacy in any way. </span></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fARZjGZ3L44/YRLV2fThNTI/AAAAAAAAYAM/avG8dNs3G5crvUmpps9so56SHhgyrBPfQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1024/sss.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fARZjGZ3L44/YRLV2fThNTI/AAAAAAAAYAM/avG8dNs3G5crvUmpps9so56SHhgyrBPfQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/sss.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What do you think motivated Paul to shoot them? Was there a sexual dimension or attraction?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes, I think that was there, though it was only part of the attraction. Paul really was attracted to the whole person—a woman’s mind and soul, not just her physical appearance. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Was he influenced by Winogrand’s chauvinism?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Certainly attitudes were different in those years, and much of our present reckoning was still decades away. Was Garry a chauvinist? I didn’t know him well—he’d already left New York when Paul and I got together—but he was always lovely and welcoming to me, and treated me with respect and courtesy. I know that when Garry was asked about why he chose the title,<i> Women Are Beautiful,</i> he grinned and said, “Because they are.” I never found his behavior objectionable in the least.</b> </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I never knew Winogrand so I can only speculate. I believe he did self-identify as a chauvinist. His working title for Women Are Beautiful was “The Observations Of A Male Chauvinist Pig”. That may have been a tongue-in-cheek title chosen to be provocative. Or more serious. It’s hard to know what he was thinking. But the photos in that book certainly objectify women as physical objects. At least to my eye.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IP97XdwQXZ4/YRLW3C96xsI/AAAAAAAAYAU/_Br1Gyyk7KQmYNf_z2ov32azpK7E_dIwgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1426/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-08-10%2Bat%2B12.46.10%2BPM.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1426" height="269" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IP97XdwQXZ4/YRLW3C96xsI/AAAAAAAAYAU/_Br1Gyyk7KQmYNf_z2ov32azpK7E_dIwgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h269/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-08-10%2Bat%2B12.46.10%2BPM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Garry Winogrand, from <i>Women Are Beautiful</i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">That sounds like he was joking, making fun of himself. I don’t know how he treated other women but as I said, he was always so nice to me, and in what seemed like a very genuine way. </span></b></span><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My take may sound negative. But I am actually OK with his outlook, and I love that book.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I do too. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One thing I admire about Winogrand is that he seemed happy in his own skin. He embraced his own identity, and did not try to obfuscate or make excuses for it in the way that is more common now. If physical attraction to women came through in his pictures, that was simply an honest reflection of his being. I kind of love that.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I agree with you one hundred percent. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I think very few photographers are transparent in that way nowadays. So that was the thinking behind my question about Paul. I’m curious if he was coming from a similar point of view while shooting in a similar time period.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Well, Garry was a BIG personality. Paul was not. So I find it hard to think of him making such a bold claim for himself or his work. He just wanted to be left alone so he could do it. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I am curious how Paul felt about his studio photos, since these they seem quite different from his earlier street work in style and approach. Do you think he was bored by street photography at this point?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Not so much bored as aged out—he told me he didn’t have the same stamina to pound the pavement hour after hour, day after day. But he still wanted to work, and so needed another outlet for his energy. He was very attached to the studio work he did and felt it had merit. Given his reticent nature, I don’t think he would have sought attention for it on his own. It was because his illness forced me to take a more active role in his career that this book came about; I don’t think he would have pursued it as aggressively as I did. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe he’d reached some creative plateau with that approach? Do you think the studio work gave him the same satisfaction? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Absolutely. It came at exactly the right time and wasn’t, for him, a lesser form at all. Instead it was a rekindling of a long-held interest and passion. He told me that when he was an art student in Cambridge, he dreamed of moving to New York, becoming a successful painter and living in a penthouse. The studio we built <i>was</i> that penthouse it and it allowed a different and previously dormant side of his creativity to flower and grow.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Can you tell me a bit about how Alzheimer’s affected Paul (and you indirectly)? How did it initially manifest?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The first thing I noticed was that he lost his sense of direction, which had always been unerring. He began getting lost, even in neighborhoods he knew well.</b> </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Did Paul express any thoughts about the disease to you?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Rarely. Sometimes he would ask why he was so forgetful or couldn’t do something and I’d explain why. He’d express dismay but it was always passing. He didn’t dwell on it. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You said in an earlier email that he lost initiative. Did he also lose some ability to relate to his own photos? Or how did it effect his understanding of them?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">He still liked looking at photographs, both his own and those of photographers he loved. He still seemed connected to them.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ocWrkRSr0j4/YRLXvMPahMI/AAAAAAAAYAc/Mew09fNCXZUpKnFGpxAV71nsMcxE3FEpACLcBGAsYHQ/s1024/IMG_5854-1024x768.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ocWrkRSr0j4/YRLXvMPahMI/AAAAAAAAYAc/Mew09fNCXZUpKnFGpxAV71nsMcxE3FEpACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_5854-1024x768.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It sounds like the the ticking clock of Alzheimer’s spurred this recent book <i>Headed West</i>. Did he feel pressure to finish it, as if under an impending deadline?</span></span><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">No, I don’t think he was able to feel that sense of urgency. But I did. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Did he still have some mental clarity by the time it was published?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">if so, what was his reaction? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">He was extremely pleased with it, and very grateful for the work Andrew Borowiec did in making the book come together. Even now, he still flips through it and seems to get pleasure from doing that. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I get the sense that Paul did not promote his work very much. And that you helped motivate him to get it out in the world. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">That is an understatement. He would have sooner stepped out into traffic than promote his own work. I urged him to do this but he said it wasn’t his way, and for a long time, I respected his position and didn’t push. But his illness changed things and I felt I had to step in. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Why do you think he was reluctant?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I think that was how he dealt with the possibility of rejection—if he didn’t put his work out there, he was spared the pain of being turned down. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Did he have a poor relationship with the art world?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Not at all. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">How do you think he perceived the fine art world of galleries and museums?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">He had many friends within that world, and during the 1970s and 1980s, was part of that group of street photographers working in black and white. He knew—and liked—people in the photo department at MoMA. Susan Kismaric and Peter Galassi were both friends and he admired John Szarkowski enormously. He was friendly with various gallerists of that period as well. He had a very tolerant and accepting nature, and did not make enemies or hold grudges. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Was there an outlet there for his style of photography?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes, I think there was for a time and then, interest in that kind of work faded for a while. But it’s been rediscovered recently. There seems to be an enormous appetite for what New York City—and many other places—looked like in those years. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I am curious about your relationship. How and when did you and Paul meet? What was your marriage like? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h8CE6s9H3gI/YRLYmXjEGMI/AAAAAAAAYAk/ee3oMeUAQ7syuelPOD9A7bt0MRW1hUUhgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/tt.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="706" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h8CE6s9H3gI/YRLYmXjEGMI/AAAAAAAAYAk/ee3oMeUAQ7syuelPOD9A7bt0MRW1hUUhgCLcBGAsYHQ/w283-h400/tt.jpg" width="283" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">at Tod Papageorge's wedding, 1986<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">We met in 1981, at a party following an opening for the work by Leo Rubinfien. Paul was forty and I was twenty-four. We married in 1985, and had an extremely happy and mutually supportive marriage that was based on mutual respect and admiration for one another’s work (I’m a novelist and children’s book author). In 2001, I sold my first novel to a major publisher for a large sum of money. He was teaching at Pratt that day, so I called the department and left a message asking him to call me as soon as his class was finished (no cell phone yet) and that it was important. The person who answered the call gave him one of those little pink slips that said, while you were out. Just recently I was cleaning out his wallet and I found that message—<i>call your wife, it’s important</i>—still folded and tucked inside. He was a devoted, supportive and loving husband and father and now that I’m not living with him, I can feel the full weight of his loss; I miss the person he used to be.</span></b></span><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Did Paul photograph you and your kids?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">We have two children, James, who is now thirty, and and Katherine, who is twenty-five. He took lots of pictures of all of us, mostly snapshots. He also used me as a subject of some drawings, and he did some wonderful collages (another of his loves) using photographs of our children. He wanted to put together a book of the collages, and maybe I will be able to do that for him. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The collage book sounds very interesting. I hope that happens.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QdVJMdJrpts/YRLZHOYFXhI/AAAAAAAAYAs/FLCsyqJKPH4gK98NYa-h6SkPybmiC6trgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/coll.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QdVJMdJrpts/YRLZHOYFXhI/AAAAAAAAYAs/FLCsyqJKPH4gK98NYa-h6SkPybmiC6trgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/coll.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Street photography is usually a solo endeavor. I’m curious if you were ever around him while he was shooting, or had a chance to observe his process on the streets. If so, can you describe it?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">We took many trips together and yes, I was with him often when he worked. Paul knew Diane Arbus slightly; he told me that she was very charming and used to engage with her subjects to get the photographs she wanted. He was the total opposite—he wanted to be invisible, and did his best not to call any attention to himself. He showed me various ways he made it seem he was looking elsewhere while actually taking a photo, and he had many little gestures to deflect scrutiny or notice. He’d be holding the camera and look in one direction while the lens was pointed somewhere else and then carefully, quietly, press the shutter—that was a typical ploy. Sometimes I would aid in these deceptions, like the time we were in Cezanne’s studio in the Aix-en-Provence (he loves Cezanne so this was a quasi-religious experience for him). Signs posted in several languages made it clear that photography was forbidden but I knew how much he wanted to take pictures in that exalted place, so I very intentionally distracted the caretaker while he discreetly shot film. In another instance, we had stopped at a dairy bar in NH and saw a man buy two <i>large </i>bowls of vanilla ice cream which he then gave to his two golden labs who were in the front seat of his truck. I chatted the guy up while Paul took pictures of those two big pooches deliriously dipping their snouts into the ice cream.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s interesting that you mention Paul’s various tricks and subterfuge methods for trying to remain invisible. Was this his normal mode? Or did he also shoot in a more direct/obvious manner in public? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">He did if it was in a crowd and he could move around unobserved and unnoticed. When there was a lot of activity, eyes were not focused on him. There is one photo, I believe it’s in <i>New York Photographs</i>, in which someone is looking directly at him so clearly the person saw what he was doing. But that was rare. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What will happen to all of Paul negatives, prints, and photo work after his death?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>He has two dealers—Sasha Wolf in New York City and Joseph Bellows in La Jolla and so I am hoping that they will be able to advise on this subject. But since we have children, it might be better to leave all that material for them. </b> </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">About the archive (which hopefully finds a good home), would you say that most pictures have been edited and funneled down into books at this point? Or is there a sizable amount left which might provide material for more books?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>There is <i>definitely</i> more work that could be be assembled into book form. For several years, he photographed funerary statues and monuments and some of the pictures appear in a portfolio that Gus Kayafas @ Palm Press made; it's called<i> <a href="http://palmpress.squarespace.com/paul-mcdonough">Bodies At Rest</a>.</i> </b><b>But Paul always wanted those pictures to go into a book. </b></span></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XAsDGa-GGLc/YRLZqXYGjwI/AAAAAAAAYA0/Nytv0ZQ5S9c3KbVYbX9GAfZkIOPwvywXgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/bodies_web_07.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="670" data-original-width="1000" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XAsDGa-GGLc/YRLZqXYGjwI/AAAAAAAAYA0/Nytv0ZQ5S9c3KbVYbX9GAfZkIOPwvywXgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h428/bodies_web_07.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>And he had other book ideas, like one of windows and mirrors. Also, he was deeply inspired not only by the work of but also the lives of his dear friends John O’Reilly, a collagist, and Jim Tellin, a sculptor. For years he paid regular visits to their house in Worcester, MA, and was always nourished by the time they spent together. He assembled the photographs he’d taken of their home—its garden, studios, idiosyncratic collections and art work on its walls—in a limited hand bound artists’ book called <i>The Geography of the House. </i>It’s a love letter to a pair of artists whose commitment to their work and to each other gave him a model for how to live a life. I know he wanted that to be more widely available a well. </b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What was his printing method? Did he make his own darkroom prints? Or have someone print for him? Did he consider himself a good printer, or was he more concerned with shooting?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">He had a darkroom in our apartment on Second Avenue and then built a bigger one in when we moved to Carroll Street. He did most of his own printing and felt he was good at it though sometimes, when he had a show, he had else print for him—either Sergio Purtell, who has a professional darkroom here in Brooklyn, or Andrew Jarman, a former student. </span></b></span></p>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-76696827122689710872021-08-01T17:33:00.009-07:002021-08-01T17:39:53.948-07:00Q & A with Nicole Jean Hill<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://www.nicolejeanhill.com"></a></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ekVMVc4JKOE/YQcNY0JAKZI/AAAAAAAAX-Y/TCTTwBNcErA6n_os5zCeL2-YC3QIN2swQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_8429.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ekVMVc4JKOE/YQcNY0JAKZI/AAAAAAAAX-Y/TCTTwBNcErA6n_os5zCeL2-YC3QIN2swQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_8429.jpg" width="213" /></i></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i><a href="https://www.nicolejeanhill.com">Nicole Jean Hill</a> is a photographer and teacher based in Eureka, CA, and the author of the recent book <a href="https://fw-books.nl/product/encampment-wyoming/">Encampment, Wyoming</a>.</i></span></span><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic;">•</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia;">BA: I</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia;">'m wondering if we could start with your first trip visit to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encampment,_Wyoming">Encampment</a>. What was your initial impression of the Nichols photos?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;">NJH: During my first real trip to Encampment to look at the work, I couldn't see much of it. The only ones I could see were 100 images that some museum volunteers had made small prints of and put in a binder. The rest were on a very old Mac that hadn't been turned on since probably 1999. So my first impression was that there were probably some really incredible things in the 24,000 images but they were stuck in a weird technologically limbo. The negatives were sealed up in freezers so the only possible access was the files on the old Mac. Each image took about 90 seconds to load. So it took about two years from that point to really start looking at what was in there.</span></span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I guess that's an ongoing issue for any photographer, deciding how to store things with future viewers in mind. Digital formats change so fast. The book also mentioned that selection of 100 "greatest hits". What did you initially think of those 100? Would you have picked the same ones? Did any of them make it into the final book?</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">No, none of them are the same selections. I just had a chance to look again at those initial 100 favorites and I don't think a single image overlaps with the book.</span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MDT8J9irMvU/YQcQLopurhI/AAAAAAAAX-s/d0CLtop6GXo5vkTW5afNNz_Bc_igS-GgwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/18316.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="669" data-original-width="1000" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MDT8J9irMvU/YQcQLopurhI/AAAAAAAAX-s/d0CLtop6GXo5vkTW5afNNz_Bc_igS-GgwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h428/18316.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></b></div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></b><p></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Was that Nancy Anderson's selection? Or was it by committee? Or who decided?</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I believe it was Nancy and a group from the <a href="https://gemuseum.com">GEM (Grand Encampment Museum)</a> board. Nancy had done a small exhibition of Lora's work called "Tapestry" in the 1990s. Some of the images currently hang at GEM. They are lovely, but they were selected by people familiar with the family members and Encampment area, so those selections were really driven by knowledge specific to the area of historical relevance in a way that was outside of my experience.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">So you're digging through these files on an old Mac. When did you first begin to sense that the archive was something special? Did her photos grab you right away? Or did that happen over time?</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c8J-f0S6MQA/YQcP7NoOuEI/AAAAAAAAX-k/KYTxxCxSQ5Av8WFU1ho_uc8zZ9GKb5SVwCLcBGAsYHQ/s499/51CMLxd3HjL._SX373_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="375" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c8J-f0S6MQA/YQcP7NoOuEI/AAAAAAAAX-k/KYTxxCxSQ5Av8WFU1ho_uc8zZ9GKb5SVwCLcBGAsYHQ/w150-h200/51CMLxd3HjL._SX373_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="150" /></a></span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Well, I had read <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lora-Webb-Nichols-Homesteaders-Daughter/dp/0870043684">Nancy's book on Lora</a> before I arrived in Encampment. It's a selection of Lora's diaries and I was really intrigued by Lora's voice as a writer. I knew that if she was also making photographs, starting off at such a young age and compiling so many of them, that <a href="https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/lora-webb-nichols-eye-early-wyoming">there were bound to be remarkable things in there</a>. So getting involved in making the work accessible was a leap of faith. </span></b><p></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I also really connected with Nancy. Although she's 40 years older than me and a Wyoming rancher, we were fast friends right away. We both have a strong interest in Antarctic maritime history (of all things), and I knew I wanted to be friends with her. And SHE knew Lora's work was special, and I trusted her instincts. I met her on that first trip, and she was just devastated that the work wasn't really viewable. Nancy and her husband Victor were the ones who scanned them originally and what they did was really top of the line technologically at the time, but it was pre-Internet and the technology became obsolete soon after the scanning was complete. But the original scans are exactly what is done today in terms of workflow. I used those files for the book and exhibition, I just needed to do the restoration. In a way, it's really incredible what the two of them accomplished.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I doubt Nichols would be remembered at all if not for Nancy Anderson. And of course your efforts were essential too. I think the lesson for photographers is that it's rare for work to find an audience on its own. It generally needs a patron or backer or friend or someone to promote and organize and funnel the pictures to public consciousness.</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A big part of it too was Ezra Nichols, one of Lora's sons. He passed away before I came on to the scene, but he helped pay for the scanners, freezers, etc. He wanted his mother's work to be saved and shared, but didn't have the expertise himself.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What sort of person is Nancy Anderson? How would you describe her?</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Hmmm...great question. She is incredibly smart, very funny, self-deprecating in a charming way. She was a high school teacher—taught drama, Spanish, and English. She has traveled extensively to look at art, and at the time I met her lived in a house at a place called Coyote Canyon probably about 10+ miles from the nearest neighbor. Their house was filled with books and plants and animals. I noticed she had a subscription to the NY Times and I thought, WOW this gal is not like anyone else I've met in Wyoming.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What were other people like that you met in Wyoming?</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I’ve spent a lot of time there before the archive work and since then, and it’s an amazingly diverse place and it would be impossible to generalize. But Nancy has experience as a rancher, teacher, avid historian and writer and she has an encyclopedic knowledge of Carbon County history. She’s a gem. She now lives in Encampment after Victor passed away a couple of years ago. She lives in Lora's old house. </span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MwtUotLG5JA/YQcQZNxI_fI/AAAAAAAAX-w/0l2zdj-FEIcklvOoL5UfiKVE4JAzzodNwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/NJH_00_site02-scaled.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MwtUotLG5JA/YQcQZNxI_fI/AAAAAAAAX-w/0l2zdj-FEIcklvOoL5UfiKVE4JAzzodNwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h426/NJH_00_site02-scaled.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></b></div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></b><p></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What did she think of the book? What did people at the Encampment museum think of it? The book has a totally different selection than their choice of 100 “Greatest Hits". I'm curious if they liked your choices, or if they were puzzled. Or if it showed them a side of Nichols that they hadn't considered?</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It seems like everyone really loves it—at least what trickles my way! I know Nancy is pleased with it for sure. Everyone in town that I've talked to is very delighted by the fact that I named the book after the town. I'm sure there is some puzzlement involved too, but they know I am a photographer myself so I look at form and content in a certain way. I know that Nancy was surprised by how much I love the picture of Lora's son cliff sleeping on the couch with his military jacket and shoes next to him. But she likes seeing things from different perspectives. </span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">As far as the different audiences, Nancy is definitely art savvy, and everyone else in Encampment that I've talked to has been really supportive of my efforts to get the work out there. I have given at least three talks in Encampment about the work, so they have gotten to know me and my point of view on her work. The only issue has been some of the more religious and conservative members of the community have been a little flustered by the bits of nudity in the book.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Now I'm scratching my head trying to remember the nudity. The <a href="http://digitalcollections.uwyo.edu/luna/servlet/detail/uwydbuwy~6~6~11785~323559:-Skyline--Boys-in-river-below-Toga-?sort=rid%2Ctitle%2Cdate_original%2Csource&qvq=q:swimming;sort:rid%2Ctitle%2Cdate_original%2Csource;lc:uwydbuwy~6~6&mi=37&trs=109">photo of the boys swimming</a>?</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ddX-5QmKT5o/YQcRjaLyRqI/AAAAAAAAX-8/JdTNJb8IDGMod-FlTMThhtqivNgCvi9dwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-07-29%2Bat%2B1.52.03%2BPM.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1186" data-original-width="2048" height="370" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ddX-5QmKT5o/YQcRjaLyRqI/AAAAAAAAX-8/JdTNJb8IDGMod-FlTMThhtqivNgCvi9dwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h370/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-07-29%2Bat%2B1.52.03%2BPM.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The issue was with the one of Guy Nichols in bed recovering from the flu.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Haha, I guess it didn't seem too pornographic or I would've remembered it. I just looked through the book again. I think nudity is a very minor element. Hmm. The picture of the boys swimming is one I saw online. I thought it was in the book but no. But it's awesome.</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Well I think in the photo world we don't blink an eye at skin.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The book is named for Encampment and features the town. But her archive includes a lot of other material from Stockton and other places. Do you foresee future books based on that material? Perhaps a less portrait focused book? Or some other curation?</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I made this book knowing I wanted to focus mainly on portraits because I do think it is the most captivating part of her archive. I also wanted to cover in the book both her work and the items she collected as a photofinisher. To create kind of an overarching overview of the collection that focused on the community she built around her. But I think now that this book exists, it frees up the possibility of a book that expresses more of Lora herself. I've started doing the very basic ground work on that, but I'm not in any rush. I'm also encouraging Nancy to finally publish part II of her book on Lora.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What do you mean a book that expresses more of Lora herself? </span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8mL5m3xDw64/YQc-vZmtpTI/AAAAAAAAX_g/eTS-Se5VYaYRk-ZvMYRmVVa2atDK8OLAgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/ddd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8mL5m3xDw64/YQc-vZmtpTI/AAAAAAAAX_g/eTS-Se5VYaYRk-ZvMYRmVVa2atDK8OLAgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/ddd.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Well it's in a very tender place in my mind right now so I don't want to say too much, but I can give an example. The image in the book of Lora that is double exposure of her with a banjo...I didn't originally have that in the book. <a href="http://www.hansgremmen.nl/demo-item">Hans Gremmen, the designer</a>, encouraged me to include it. I didn't want to initially include pictures that I wasn't confident were perfect in terms of both form and content, or could be labelled as a collection of snapshots, because I really wanted to the photo world especially to take Lora seriously as a photographer. Another component of the next book may include how Lora made use of the photographs as the physical objects in albums, diaries, etc. </span></b><p></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The book includes Nichols pictures along with photos by others which she collected. There are no captions or easy way to trace which photos are which. Can you tell me a bit about that editing decision?</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5DjU8cRjfw8/YQcRxOq72HI/AAAAAAAAX_A/5Y-K-kBcaEgKsz1nrDMCA1ZYP62ZBhWpQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1705/11_10059.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1705" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5DjU8cRjfw8/YQcRxOq72HI/AAAAAAAAX_A/5Y-K-kBcaEgKsz1nrDMCA1ZYP62ZBhWpQCLcBGAsYHQ/w376-h640/11_10059.jpg" width="376" /></span></a></div><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">For the photos by others, if one wants to hunt it down, the other photographers are listed in the plate captions. But I wanted to front load the book with images and decided that even if she didn't take the photographs, she was curating an archive making certain decisions, so it still reflects her throughout.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">How did <a href="https://fw-books.nl/product/encampment-wyoming/">Hans Gremman and Fw:books</a> get involved? And how much editing input did he have?</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I met <a href="https://melaniemcwhorter.com">Melanie McWhorter</a>, who used to work for Photoeye, at <a href="https://www.photolucida.org">Photolucida</a> back in 2008. I reached out to her in 2019 after a slew of rejection letters for the book to see if she could point me in the direction of someone that might take a gamble on the project. She suggested Hans because he's a great designer and also has an interest in Americana. I liked the idea of a European publisher. The original edit and sequence is mostly intact from what I provided him, and he made some page spread decisions, including selecting the cover for the book, and then the design. It worked out really well. I love how he totally got the idea about making the images front and center without any directions as such.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Why do you think the book was initially rejected by other publishers?</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I suppose I didn’t make a convincing enough argument for the need for an academic book on Lora, even one largely image-based. I’m coming from a studio art background and am not a historian. But rejection letters are just a part of the process and I’ve experienced them throughout my whole art career, so I know it’s just about keeping on plugging away. I pursued the academic angle first since most do accept submissions—that is not the case with many other publishers. </span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It turned out great. I especially love the design choice of text set against a black background, with silver ink. The photos in this section have a ghostly presence. Very nice.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2b3tU6poFU4/YQcNJQ7DgMI/AAAAAAAAX-U/EOL-4SNNwCUmlcLFr7-nT7jN6xZI3k5dQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/NJH_25_site02.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1336" data-original-width="2048" height="418" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2b3tU6poFU4/YQcNJQ7DgMI/AAAAAAAAX-U/EOL-4SNNwCUmlcLFr7-nT7jN6xZI3k5dQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h418/NJH_25_site02.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes, very classy.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The fact that it was rejected from a few places, and that it eventually found the right publisher, just reinforces the power of editing. I mean, someone else could take this same archive and produce a completely different book. But I think what makes yours work is that it combines Nichols pictures (which are strong), with a particular curation. It’s her voice, yes, but also yours. You mentioned that your selections were aimed at the photo world. So maybe that's what I'm responding too. But the book also seems very alive and animated, and looser than what I commonly associate with old historic photos. It’s not so much about the people she shot but the spirit of the place.</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes, exactly. I think because she started photographing so young, in a geographically isolated place, and then continued throughout her life means two things. She both was able to really refine her craft, and also didn't have pretenses on what photographs needed to be. So it is all very genuine. And thank you for your acknowledgement on the curation- there are certainly an infinite number of ways her work would have been introduced through a book and I’m glad to hear that you have interpreted Lora’s work this way.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">That kind of goes back to my earlier question. It does seem like a strong "photobook" which fits comfortably into the fine art genre. But I think it might also appeal to Encampment’s "Greatest Hits" crowd. Finding that balance is a challenge but you seem to have finessed it.</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Her work has incredibly broad appeal. I didn't have to pick images to tell a specific story about the history of Encampment which the original 100 did. I could pick images based on a broader template. I needed it to be visually convincing in a way that Lora wouldn't get labeled as being only relevant to Wyoming and Wyoming history, although that's a big part of it too.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Do you think Nichols was aware of other art photography? Maybe she saw pictures in museums or galleries? She may not have thought of her work that way. But perhaps she absorbed other photographic influences somewhere?</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The only other photographer she mentions in her diaries in George Irving who was an industrial photographer from NY that came to the area in the early 1900s to photograph the copper mines. They ended up being pen pals and wrote about photography...but mostly just tech talk. I am sure she found her way to magazine articles and other items put out by Ansco and Kodak, but not in an art context. I don't think museums or galleries would have been part of her experience, at least not that I could find in her writings and not from what I have heard from Nancy. So her photo practice was largely homegrown and organic.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cn1p9U7La00/YQcSGWLzZkI/AAAAAAAAX_I/Ltkh4Vm1V9cQaI_yQ88rajg7mAzkpZf3QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/02110.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="894" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cn1p9U7La00/YQcSGWLzZkI/AAAAAAAAX_I/Ltkh4Vm1V9cQaI_yQ88rajg7mAzkpZf3QCLcBGAsYHQ/w382-h640/02110.jpg" width="382" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">When I first contacted you I sent a link to a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/who-owns-mike-disfarmers-photographs">New Yorker Mike Disfarmer article</a>. I see some parallels there, and to Vivian Maier and Atget and Bellocq, and several others photographers who found fame posthumously through the efforts of admirers. Disfarmer's archive is now tangled in a big legal battle. What's your reaction to that story, and were any of those issues on your mind as you embarked down the Nichols rabbit hole?</span><p></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The Disfarmer article illustrates a lot of incredibly valuable issues with archives. Most notable to me was when it mentions the concern moving forward that archives would be hidden from view for fear of litigation. Taking a step back several years, I had heard of the <a href="https://libraries.indiana.edu/charles-w-cushman-photograph-collection-online-exhibition">Charles Cushman archive at Indiana University</a> on NPR a few years before I became involved with the Nichols archive. It's public domain, searchable, really incredible. I have also been loosely aware of litigation around Vivian Maier’s work. So when I came into the project, my hope was that Nichols' archive could end up something more like the Cushman archive, not behind a paywall but as accessible as possible to historians, researchers, students, etc. (I should also mention that I wasn't actively searching out archives to get involved with!)</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The balancing of ownership rights with public access is complicated. I mean, Neither Disfarmer or Maier would be known today without the efforts of dedicated enthusiasts. And sometimes the only way to generate resources for curation is by monetizing the images. But then again the collecting impulse can trample the artist's rights/wishes. What do you think of Disfarmer’s photos or Vivian Maier’s? I mean on their own merits, and also realizing that you’re seeing both artists as they were later curated by others.</span></span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I am enamored by Disfarmer’s work. My favorite part of Disfarmer’s work is that provides a sense of place and time within the vacuum of the photo studio. It is both very narrow and expansive at the same time. The <a href="https://twinpalms.com/products/julia-scully-disfarmer">Twin Palms publication on Disfarmer</a> is one of my favorite photobooks and I had the design of it in mind when I started working on Lora’s book. It’s remarkable that there are some overlaps with Encampment, including the use of black pages, because I don’t think I ever mentioned that book to Hans. It makes space for the photographs to do their thing. Maier’s images of children are my favorites of her work, they remind of some of Lora’s photographs. I try to keep my thoughts about their work separate from my thoughts about how the archives have been handled. I’ve tried to learn from the paths these archives have taken, but try not to let those logistics overshadow my appreciate for the work as it is. </span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CKQIeCca7II/YQcUmkDE40I/AAAAAAAAX_Y/rc9G4tMqcwQreiIAugeXlKALHYLCQ6RMACLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/07808.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="981" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CKQIeCca7II/YQcUmkDE40I/AAAAAAAAX_Y/rc9G4tMqcwQreiIAugeXlKALHYLCQ6RMACLcBGAsYHQ/w418-h640/07808.jpg" width="418" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">As I understand it, a museum has agreed to own, store, and organize the Nichols pictures? Is the sale of her books and prints funneled into funding those museum efforts?</span><p></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The family officially donated the negatives to the <a href="http://www.uwyo.edu/ahc/">American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming</a>, and in the process, although I'm oversimplifying here, they designated the work as public domain. Both the AHC and the Grand Encampment hold a copy of the digital files of all the photos as well. The GEM was donated Lora's diaries and letters. <a href="http://www.lorawebbnichols.org">I am currently a one-person operation</a> managing the outfacing components of the archive, including the traveling exhibition, book sales, etc. I have been able to do some grant writing for that through my home base at Humboldt State University. I'm currently in the process of creating an entity that will be the umbrella for all of this, possibly creating a gallery or residency in her memory. </span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The book seems to have struck a nerve in the photo world. Have you been surprised by the reaction? I know it was technically published a few months ago but mine just arrived this week. And I think other orders were only filled recently. So it may be about to get a new wave of attention.</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes, I’ve been totally surprised. I mean, I think the work is completely amazing and Lora's story really resonates with me on so many levels. But I know other things I am really excited about (like Antarctic maritime history- hahah!) don't resonate with others. And of course, having received so many rejection letters, I was preparing to have a garage full of books to sell for years to come.</span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Now instead of your own garage full of books, your book can join someone else's garage full of books, haha.</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">As long as my garage has not books I'm happy. I live in a rainforest as you know. Mold city. </span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I found it hard to evaluate the book based on online info. But after I saw the photos at Blue Sky I ordered a copy.</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPiV31UlV44">Alec Soth posted a video about the book</a> about a week after the first printing arrived in the USA. Most of my copies of the first printing were donated to public libraries right away, and after the Soth video (which I didn't know was happening) the rest of first printing sold out within a few weeks. </span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It's kind of scary that Alec Soth (or any single person) can have so much influence.</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes, Alec Soth was certainly influential, but I think too a bulk of the copies also flew out the door because it hit the media in France really big in February too. So in Europe where the books are stored, the book was gone pretty quick. </span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Darn Europeans, always a step ahead of us.</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The first run was only 1000 copies and the publisher decided to do a second printing of the first edition, and that second printing just arrived state-side early July. And it really hasn't been in many other USA-based media until very recently.</b> <b>I had the <a href="https://www.blueskygallery.org/exhibitions/archives/2021/lora-webb-nichols">show at Blue Sky in April</a> and didn't have any books available because it was in between the first and second printing. I suppose that was a good problem to have in a way.</b></span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The show was great. But I think it's even better in book form. The picture quality fell off a bit in larger exhibition prints. I think they were meant to be in a book.</span></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes, I know what you mean about the scale. It feels odd to look at something 14"x 20" that was originally printed as a 2” x 3" print for a photo album. But I also recognize that finding different avenues and formats to create an audience for her work is an okay thing. It’s a show that can travel very easily. </span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What about doing a show of her original prints? Hint hint.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I like the idea of the original prints too. It would have to be a particular kind of space for that. They are very small and there aren't many that have survived. </span></b></p>
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<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What’s your favorite Lora Webb Nichols photo and why?</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UG674djt2L0/YQcTGczt_eI/AAAAAAAAX_Q/b5fCzCAmiGMiFL0vopy6eieCsi-7rC0kgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2000/03295.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1159" data-original-width="2000" height="370" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UG674djt2L0/YQcTGczt_eI/AAAAAAAAX_Q/b5fCzCAmiGMiFL0vopy6eieCsi-7rC0kgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h370/03295.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I have too many images that I love immensely that I couldn’t pick a favorite. But I can say that I really appreciate the pictures of Nina Platte. She’s in a few images in the book and she has such an intense gaze for a teenager. She was one of Lora’s muses and must have been such a pleasure for Lora to photograph. In the pictures from a few decades later, I also really love seeing images of Ted Higby, one of Lora’s employees whose work is also included in the archive. With both Nina and Ted, I feel like I really know them through their photographs. </span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>(All images above from the collection of <a href="http://www.lorawebbnichols.org">Lora Webb Nichols</a>)</i></span></p>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-3779488786954694892021-05-31T10:16:00.387-07:002021-06-02T17:19:11.875-07:00That low hanging bar<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia;">The pandemic's grip is gradually loosening (at least in the U.S.). A few days ago I found myself in a real-life, nuts and bolts bookstore. Smith Family Books in </span></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">downtown Eugene, to be specific. Their used photobook section had been a regular haunt in pre-pandemic times, but of course Covid, bla bla bla. You know the story. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Aside from my mask it was just like old times at Smith. I can't say their selection had much changed from a year ago, but it hit me differently this visit. Tastes shift over many months. Some books which I'd previously ignored struck me with new interest. Meanwhile, others seemed less exciting now than before. After browsing for a little while I wound up coming home with two, Mark Klett's <i>After The Ruins</i> and <i>Car Crashes & Other Sad Stories</i> by Mell Kilpatrick. Both books discovered by chance and acquired together for about the price of a six pack. That's the sort of experience that's hard to replicate online. And trust me, I've tried.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">As a comparison, I ordered Meg Hewitt's <i>Tokyo Is Yours</i> a few weeks ago. There aren't many people who live farther from me than Meg, and it's been entertaining to track her book's long meandering journey from Australia to Oregon. In fact it was in Eugene just this morning. Now it's in Springfield. Hmmm. I guess it's not quite ready to settle down yet.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tiGXC_wd_ck/YLZswxbMf4I/AAAAAAAAX6s/4ItNlzNG4poQV2eoUlSGHd3hbw9pnAfQACLcBGAsYHQ/s1770/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-06-01%2Bat%2B8.49.55%2BAM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1770" data-original-width="1410" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tiGXC_wd_ck/YLZswxbMf4I/AAAAAAAAX6s/4ItNlzNG4poQV2eoUlSGHd3hbw9pnAfQACLcBGAsYHQ/w510-h640/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-06-01%2Bat%2B8.49.55%2BAM.png" width="510" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Along the way<i> I Shot Tokyo </i>has made stops in Singapore, Vietnam, Korea, Anchorage, and Kentucky. Yikes, this book has traveled through all sorts of exciting places. I'm jealous. It's been a spectacular tour. But when these exotic locales are filed into a rote shipping list, they transform into something rather ordinary. </span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Have I merely found the banal in the spectacular? </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">If so,</span><i style="font-family: georgia;"> Car Crashes</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> takes a similar tack. The book (with excellent printing, by the way) is a recent edit of lost work, the archive of a bygone photojournalist rediscovered by curator Jennifer Dumas decades later. This</span><i style="font-family: georgia;"> lost/reborn</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> schtick is a recurring theme in photoland, but I haven't tired of it just yet. </span></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p9AlhVaC7j8/YLZzoprKRUI/AAAAAAAAX7A/rhwfKmFwXZ0X10JpRG0urUv7yhNZsV33wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/da.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p9AlhVaC7j8/YLZzoprKRUI/AAAAAAAAX7A/rhwfKmFwXZ0X10JpRG0urUv7yhNZsV33wCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/da.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mell Kilpatrick was a self-made autocrashdidact who bullied his way into a late career at the Santa Ana Register at age 47, simply by hanging around and obsessing. Soon enough he was head of their photo staff. From that point he became something of a regional Weegee, documenting the never ending stream of local accidents and crime scenes in 1950s Orange County. His pictures are in the same general ballpark as the great cigared one, and also Enrique Metinides. But they are rawer, gorier, and less consciously artsy than either. Kilpatrick shot police scenes more like a technician, pure kill shots recording blood, guts, and debris with the mechanical efficiency of an old school reporter. Just the facts: What, How, Where, Who, etc. Looking at his pictures at my kitchen table last night, it struck me that Kilpatrick had found banalities in the spectacular, like a book </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">shipped around the world.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think much of contemporary photography is headed in the opposite direction, away from spectacle. I could name some examples (such as <a href="https://mackbooks.co.uk/products/the-local-br-nick-meyer">this</a>, <a href="https://aperture.org/books/coming-soon/tim-davis-im-looking-through-you/">this</a>, <a href="https://loosejoints.biz/products/amen-break">this</a>, <a href="https://www.perimeterbooks.com/collections/all-titles/products/special-edition-pre-order-david-rothenberg-roosevelt-station">this</a>, or <a href="https://mackbooks.co.uk/products/units-br-seth-lower">this</a>) but I'm sure you can think of your own favorites. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">The spectacular has long been vanquished in most photo quarters. The vernacular humdrum carries the day.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span><span style="font-family: georgia;">One could trace it to back to New Topographers perhaps, or art schools, or maybe just general societal malaise. Who knows. Pandemic restrictions have only exacerbated the situation.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia;">On a recent edition of his podcast A Small Voice host <a href="https://bensmithphoto.com/asmallvoice/genitempo-and-schutmaat">Ben Smith asked Bryan Schutmaat</a> <i>What advice should young photographers be leary of?</i> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Schutmaat noted</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> that art photographers in MFA programs are commonly ta</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">ught to avoid exotic/spectacular subject matter, and to focus instead on plain material found nearby. In other words, they're told to shoot like Robert Adams, not Ansel. In this brave new world spectacular car crashes might be far down the list, somewhere below a decrepit shop front or a blade of sidewalk grass. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">All well and good. But the potential problem with this approach according to Schutmaat, is that boring material can lead to boring photographs. How true! </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">He cited Adams, John Gossage, and Paul Graham as tantalizing counter examples. All have photographed seemingly plain scenes, often in interesting ways. But of course those guys are exceptional. They make it seem easy, and most students attempting the same trick will get caught in the weeds. To convert the everyday into something noteworthy requires experience, and a measure of talent, and even then it's a challenge. So we're awash in boring photos—at least I feel that way most days—and it's hard to parse out the noteworthy.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I had a chance to shoot my own spectacular car crash a few months ago. I was driving home from Portland to Eugene one evening, the same drive I've done a thousand times, straight highway, 65 mph, enjoying some tunes. But this time was different. Just past Salem was a row of semi trucks backed up in the right lane, moving very slowly. By the time I saw them and slammed the brakes it was too late. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9Wd64NDELnU/YLZzZ-GPVDI/AAAAAAAAX64/76kdtOkT0msXD6iYaGUORwsCAFcF0ITEQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/44.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9Wd64NDELnU/YLZzZ-GPVDI/AAAAAAAAX64/76kdtOkT0msXD6iYaGUORwsCAFcF0ITEQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/44.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">People say time slows down during an accident, that your entire life passes through your eyes or whatever. That wasn't my experience. It all happened pretty fast. But there was a strange normality to the chain of events. Even as my van was slamming into the rear of the semi in front of me, part of my brain was observing patiently, as if it were just another daily event. Once again I'd stumbled on banality in the spectacular. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">If you've ever noticed that bar hanging down near the back tires of 18-wheelers, that's what stopped me from plowing straight under the trailer. Instead I came to a rather abrupt stop, my car in a heap. Airbag deployed, engine block totaled, the full deal. The good news is I was fine, and I don't think the semi-driver felt a thing. Maybe a mosquito-sized nudge. A few good Samaritans helped my car off the road, cops came, medics, a tow truck, etc. There was a routine quality to their actions which felt reassuring.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The pandemic has shifted all judgements about what is or isn't mundane. It's the most unusual event of my lifetime. I've never experienced anything remotely similar. Yet within just a few months of its onset, I had adjusted my mental compass. Social distancing and masks and quarantining felt, well, not quite normal. But they were part of the everyday fabric, no longer worth noticing. When things like that become routine, who knows any longer what is unusual and what is common? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 2019 I would have been very excited to see people in masks on public streets. A great photo op! How special! </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">That was then. Now I'll be happy if I never see another mask again. When all of this craziness is over I'm going to collect my mask stash in a pile (they now number a few dozen) and incinerate them. It should be spectacular.</span></span></p>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-78829425358772854992021-05-18T11:50:00.016-07:002021-05-19T14:51:43.044-07:00Q & A with Dan Shaffer<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i></i></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7vf9BV--CE/YKLoY7uyxaI/AAAAAAAAXzE/AGdXG0Lp2E8nYMQGlSRLKdsOFMvNBHrvgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/IMG_2576.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7vf9BV--CE/YKLoY7uyxaI/AAAAAAAAXzE/AGdXG0Lp2E8nYMQGlSRLKdsOFMvNBHrvgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/IMG_2576.jpeg" width="400" /></a></i></span></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://danshafferphoto.com">Dan Shaffer</a> is a photographer based in Albuquerque, and the other of the recent book <u>Joe Deal's Albuquerque Then & Now</u>.</i></span></span><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic;">•</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BA: Can you tell me briefly about your background in photography.</span></span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;">DS: I was fortunate to get an early start in photography, getting a Kodak Starflash camera in fourth grade in 1959. My father was always shooting and experimenting with different cameras. Much of my youth was in East Africa so wide open vistas were what I loved to photograph. I worked on the high school yearbook and college yearbook. My first job after college was as a pasteup artist at a printing company and then I became a freelance graphic designer for 10 years. I was never technically oriented so usually hired better photographers for projects like motorcycle billboards that I did for several years.</span></span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I’m tempted to ask about Kenya but probably should stay on topic. </span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes, Kenya and Tanzania. I experienced the transition from colonial to independent countries and was taught to be comfortable in a mud hut or in an embassy function.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What brought your family to Africa? </span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">My grandparents spent their entire careers as Protestant missionaries in Kenya from 1925-1955. My dad was born and raised there and returned as a public health medical doctor so I spent most of my youth in East Africa, coming back to the US for college. I was drawn to New Mexico since it has a lot in common with East Africa —high altitude, blue skies, wide vistas, multicultural population, hot food, etc.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">When did you first become interested in rephotographs?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;">My introduction to rephotography was with "Albuquerque Then & Now" by Mo Palmer and "New Mexico Then & Now" by William Stone and Jerold Widdison. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;">I’ve always enjoyed contemporary rephotography</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;">. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;">I suddenly realized there was a <span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">project I could do like that.</span></span></b></span><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> A friend introduced me to the <a href="https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/new-topographics/">New Topographics</a> movement on Facebook which I have been following for a long time. That’s how I discovered the New Topographics exhibition in Rochester and the fact that several of the photographers were based in Albuquerque when they were at UNM getting graduate degrees. I moved here about the time they were here, Joe Deal and Nicholas Nixon in 1972. Nixon photographed the Boston area for the big show but Joe’s pictures were all local and I was fascinated and intrigued and determined to find and shoot them all and I have finally succeeded after about six months. I self published my own book with about a dozen of the pictures that I had found.</span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iXQ0Dc18riM/YKLpo3rh06I/AAAAAAAAXzM/Fcz7Xmz7nkAyd5sPPTks_P_e_SFq-nMpgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1100/p2201741690-5.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="1100" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iXQ0Dc18riM/YKLpo3rh06I/AAAAAAAAXzM/Fcz7Xmz7nkAyd5sPPTks_P_e_SFq-nMpgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h320/p2201741690-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><b><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Did you know Joe Deal's pictures before discovering New Topographics?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">No, I learned about the exhibit from the NT Facebook page. If I do a second edition I think I will include all 18 of Joe Deal's Albuquerque scenes from the New Topographics exhibit with my rephotography versions.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Which ones are in the first book?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Only the eleven locations I had found and just wanted to get this project into print. I have since located all eighteen </span></b></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Albuquerque scenes.</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">So the second edition would be the full Joe Deal rephotography book. </span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Because of Covid I’m having trouble getting UNM at all interested in what I’m doing. I would think they might have some archives from his two periods at UNM for MA and MFA. Jim Stone is UNM photography professor emeritus who I gave a book to and may help me make some progress at UNM.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">How did you go about finding the locations of Joe Deal’s pictures?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I could easily tell these shots were in Albuquerque but because the horizon line was cut off it was a little hard to locate them. I was puzzled how he got so high up above the homes he was shooting. I finally realized he had climbed boulders to achieve almost every single one of these shots. He was carrying a 2 1/4 camera on a tripod. I used a Lumix FZ 2500 with a mono pod which came in handy as a walking stick. The Sandia Mountains create a practically vertical western face at the edge of town and millions of enormous granite boulders have tumbled down over eons. It was a scramble to achieve the right viewpoint and sometimes I’d have to jump to the next boulder up or sideways. Not using the exact same lens as he did provided frustration. I could get the scene framed exactly in one corner but in the other opposite corner the composition might have changed. I didn’t worry too much about that variance though.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">So all of the photos were from the same general part of town. The western edge near Sandia Mountains?</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EXRl_6MTrpo/YKLqI5auz6I/AAAAAAAAXzU/mUv_TPb1sW0dAJLQEQ7g4gVBm90YWaLJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1100/p2201741908-5.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="1100" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EXRl_6MTrpo/YKLqI5auz6I/AAAAAAAAXzU/mUv_TPb1sW0dAJLQEQ7g4gVBm90YWaLJgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h320/p2201741908-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes. From about 5 miles north of interstate 40 to 1 mile south of interstate 40 where it emerges from the canyon. From the north it’s Glenwood Hills, Supper Rock, and Four Hills neighborhoods.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What do you think attracted him to that area? Was it the high vantage? Or maybe he lived nearby? Maybe it was a rapidly changing area?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The shots have the irony of the man altered landscape, just beginning in these neighborhoods in the mid-1970s. But his special touch was getting an elevated viewpoint. He more likely lived in the UNM area as most students did. This neighborhood seemed very far away at that time and now is surrounded by shopping centers and/or homes with very few empty lots.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You mentioned that you even tried to time your photos at the same time of day as him?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It’s not hard to get good lighting in New Mexico! But yes, I did try to go in the morning so the angle of light was similar. I was photographing in October, November, and December so it was never very hot. Don’t know when he was shooting. Another help in finding these locations was access to annual aerial surveys in the 1960s and 70s by Dick Kent, a local commercial photographer. I am volunteering to scan hundreds of his 4x5 negatives. He would fly from one edge of the city to the other on clear days, often on assignment for businesses.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Maybe you should rephotograph his pictures too, haha.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zgpxPKq7cC8/YKLq8N5ZFSI/AAAAAAAAXzc/IRklmTHatcwdCNyaIZkSR-f_TiFesYTNwCLcBGAsYHQ/s397/kent.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="397" height="309" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zgpxPKq7cC8/YKLq8N5ZFSI/AAAAAAAAXzc/IRklmTHatcwdCNyaIZkSR-f_TiFesYTNwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h309/kent.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I will order a high altitude drone trying to rephotograph Dick’s aerials. </span></b></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Can’t tell if you’re joking? </span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Joking. I don’t know if drones can fly that high. At least I wouldn’t have the expense of renting a plane for every aerial survey. I noticed Dick Kent usually chose clear days to avoid the black shadows clouds would cast on the land.</span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A Dick Kent photo is on the back cover of my book. Dick’s son was very encouraging. The father of a 60-year-old man who let me in one of these houses was in a photo that Joe took. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Oh, that's amazing. The guy standing in his garage in the shadow, is that the man? That's on the only photo that seems to have a person in it</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Right, hardly any people. That’s a NT thing. Yes, the man in his garage I think is the photo. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Did he know about the Joe Deal photo of his house?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IKMl6IDtN34/YKLrTOUh6aI/AAAAAAAAXzk/S8wbtquiw8goqWxUSWkYLKoBXH20AYqAACLcBGAsYHQ/s1100/p2201741687-5.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="548" data-original-width="1100" height="318" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IKMl6IDtN34/YKLrTOUh6aI/AAAAAAAAXzk/S8wbtquiw8goqWxUSWkYLKoBXH20AYqAACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h318/p2201741687-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">No, it was a surprise to him and I gave him and his 80-something mother a copy of the book. They have lived in the house since they built in 1968 and it looks the same as it did then I’ll bet. They offered to let another group that I belong to called Modern Albuquerque come in and photograph the interior. That group is fascinated with mid century modern architecture, interior and exterior. I am more interested in documenting the world than in creating fine art.</span></b></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yup.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I think I read a quote from you on your blog describing the difference in photographers who think about what they are going to shoot before they shoot as opposed to those who shoot what they see on their walks. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Everyone has their own way of doing things. For me the photographs are always first. If I get ahead of them, I wind up in trouble. Photos are a continual source of information and new leads and entertainment. They have a lot to offer already, without me and my thoughts getting in their way.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I like that attitude. Except when I am rephotographing then I do think in advance about what I’m going to shoot.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I don't know Albuquerque at all. But if it's like any other western city I imagine it has seen steady growth. Eugene is the same (but smaller). So it's not surprising to see lots of new development in your rephotographed pictures. What I found more surprising was the amount of new vegetation since Deal's photos. His photos show natural desert scenery. Yours are much more vegetated.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">We are heavy water users but are learning to water less and less. In Joe Deal’s time the civic authorities believed there was a water source the size of Lake Superior below us, no kidding. But it’s all chambered in inaccessible sections so we actually use most of our water from the Colorado River diverted through dams in northern New Mexico, then the Chama river and back to the Rio Grande. Then it’s pumped up to dozens of large water tanks scattered through neighborhoods and distributed by gravity to homes. The increase in vegetation is what most people comment on when viewing my book.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">So the city uses more water now than in the 1970s, but from a different source?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I’m told it was a desert like San Diego area until irrigation. The city has tripled in population from 250,000 to 750,000 in that time. We have always used river water from early colonial days for irrigation in the field in the river valley. But needed a lot more when suburban development crawled up the mesa towards the foothills. Complex legal agreements between Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas share the Colorado river water now. Phoenix will dry up without it.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">May I divert to another project I’m dreaming up? It would be to rephotograph the many other scenes of Albuquerque by other photographers like Ernst Haas, Lee Freidlander, Garry Winogrand, Stephen Shore, Henry Wessel, Frank Gohlke, etc</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">That would be a massive project. </span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You are right the next project is huge but I’ve only been retired two years and have plenty of time ahead. </span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m7B3wZFRCag/YKLu0KNGPGI/AAAAAAAAX0M/Mq7iiGHOdZUHA1RYmWCiLVxtiWkA5d0kgCLcBGAsYHQ/s700/haas_ernst_17_1976_450969_displaysize.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="700" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m7B3wZFRCag/YKLu0KNGPGI/AAAAAAAAX0M/Mq7iiGHOdZUHA1RYmWCiLVxtiWkA5d0kgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h428/haas_ernst_17_1976_450969_displaysize.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Ernst Haas, Albuquerque, 1969</i></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">How is it going so far?</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I am slowly accumulating a list. What I cannot seem to get an answer for is if this is an allowable fair use without a copyright permission. I actually have Ernst Haas’ daughter Victoria‘s permission to use his Famous Central Ave., Albuquerque scene. I thought with that I might get more approvals from other photographers estates or heirs or representatives. </span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background-color: white; float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AWt0FCf05fU/YKLt612RcSI/AAAAAAAAX0A/MAZCX_3-9ro4FDXyuwW2PVweFrHQSWLaACLcBGAsYHQ/s1765/P1030459%2B-%2BVersion%2B3.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="1765" height="256" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AWt0FCf05fU/YKLt612RcSI/AAAAAAAAX0A/MAZCX_3-9ro4FDXyuwW2PVweFrHQSWLaACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h256/P1030459%2B-%2BVersion%2B3.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Dan Shaffer, Albequerque, 2020</i><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The safe answer is I would not be comfortable putting them in a book. Maybe it’s ok online or a small zine. But not anything with wide circulation. </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I have put the Joe Deal book as a <a href="https://danshafferphoto.com/p146318405">gallery on my website</a>.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Even a website is kinda iffy but no one is probably going to pursue that. But a book is a fatter target for lawsuits. Maybe Jim Stone could help with this. Does he have connections? Could he help get some permissions?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes, Jim stone is a good suggestion. Maybe he can crack something open at UNM and he may have good ideas about contacting or not contacting other photographers.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I don't know much about that world. Once photographs reach the gallery scene or museums or $ involved, everything gets weird.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BDLTq49rhgY/YKLwooWzqNI/AAAAAAAAX0c/2Efx-Efbp3odrfh3EuYQ6n1zJl7taYWZQCLcBGAsYHQ/s628/p2201741589-5.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="624" data-original-width="628" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BDLTq49rhgY/YKLwooWzqNI/AAAAAAAAX0c/2Efx-Efbp3odrfh3EuYQ6n1zJl7taYWZQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/p2201741589-5.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></b></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br />Yes, I only printed 25 copies but since Walgreens screwed up the color registration of the black type they printed another 25 at no charge so there is an edition of 50 copies with only five left. I gave away half to nonprofits and people who helped me and sold the rest for cost.</span></b></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Nice. Did <a href="https://www.garymcleod.co.uk">Gary McLeod</a> ever buy one? I sent him your info. He's in Japan, writing a big book about rephotography.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I don’t recall Gary’s name. Albuquerque is an important place in photography. In 1976 I worked in a copy shop near UNM and would make copies for Beaumont Newhall! A quiet tall gentleman.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Very cool. did you know of his importance then?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes, I was an avid photographer and spent time in friends’ dark rooms. But I was not inclined to academia and did not think about applying to grad school in photography at UNM.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You mentioned that you found the Winogrand driveway kid shot. How in the world did you find that? Do the people who live there now know about that photo?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<div class=""><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Regarding the search for Winogrand's baby in the driveway classic, my friend Nick Tauro Jr. has a post about reshooting it called <span class="" style="color: #0433ff;"><u class=""><a href="https://www.nicktaurojr.com/blog-1/tag/winogrand">Worth a Thousand Words: Garry Winogrand</a> </u></span>and so does Joe Van Cleave: <u class=""><span class="" style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="https://joevancleave.blogspot.com/2009/08/in-search-of-winogrands-new-mexico-1957.html">In Search of Wingrand’s ‘New Mexico, 1957</a>.</span></u></b></span></div>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Which other ones have you rephotographed at this stage? Any Shore photos? Friedlander? Doesn't Danny Lyon live near Albuquerque?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes, in the next town north, Bernalillo. I remember his shot of a kid shooting a basket outside the trailer home with the Sandia mountains in the background. Winogrand's baby in diapers, Ed Ruscha’s Frontier gas station, Ernst Haas’s Central Ave, Lee Friedlander’s intersection, Thomas Barrow's dart.</span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qQCLFiSxfW8/YKLtIbqMujI/AAAAAAAAXzs/Zp85D4ti79I7aqyDDrBOLb5VrVFkahviwCLcBGAsYHQ/s749/Thomas%2BBarrow%2B1974.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="749" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qQCLFiSxfW8/YKLtIbqMujI/AAAAAAAAXzs/Zp85D4ti79I7aqyDDrBOLb5VrVFkahviwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h428/Thomas%2BBarrow%2B1974.png" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Thomas Barrow, 1974</i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DqXWHaNE310/YKLtPhFlPgI/AAAAAAAAXzw/H1QSOMf09z8tjAXB1WCtGefXHF5uPZs6gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Tom%2BBarrow%2Bby%2BDan%2BDart%2B1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DqXWHaNE310/YKLtPhFlPgI/AAAAAAAAXzw/H1QSOMf09z8tjAXB1WCtGefXHF5uPZs6gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Tom%2BBarrow%2Bby%2BDan%2BDart%2B1.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1479" data-original-width="2048" height="462" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DqXWHaNE310/YKLtPhFlPgI/AAAAAAAAXzw/H1QSOMf09z8tjAXB1WCtGefXHF5uPZs6gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h462/Tom%2BBarrow%2Bby%2BDan%2BDart%2B1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Dan Shaffer, 2020</i><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></b></span></div><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Awesome. The dart must be a well known landmark. But how do you find the </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">more obscure places?</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I even contacted the Haas estate that they had miscaptioned the Western Skies neon sign as being in Colorado, so I did a drive-by and took the same shot out of the driver window to show the mountains in the distance that matched. That’s when Victoria Haas wrote me back and thanked me and said they could not change books that have been printed but they have changed it on all their electronic versions.</span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I can relate to Haas. I think misfiled photos are just part of being a photographer. </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I honestly think growing up in Kenya gave me a sense of scouting out locations. As a very little kid my nickname in Kikuyu language was Macharia, or wandering one. I’ve always liked history and photography and rephotographing combines them.</span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nzWtLijJI00/YKPc4B1eo3I/AAAAAAAAX1M/CZl_uY5y7g4HeNvPvDvfK9Y5Wk0yjXrOACLcBGAsYHQ/s733/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-05-17%2Bat%2B5.48.23%2BPM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="646" data-original-width="733" height="564" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nzWtLijJI00/YKPc4B1eo3I/AAAAAAAAX1M/CZl_uY5y7g4HeNvPvDvfK9Y5Wk0yjXrOACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h564/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-05-17%2Bat%2B5.48.23%2BPM.png" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Ed Ruscha, Albuquerque, 1962<br /><br /></i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sQ-g26lhy3s/YKPdTaqPSOI/AAAAAAAAX1U/_2WqY-vk0tM3rBxRMrGNfnH34hIo9hdbwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1024/P1080979.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sQ-g26lhy3s/YKPdTaqPSOI/AAAAAAAAX1U/_2WqY-vk0tM3rBxRMrGNfnH34hIo9hdbwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h428/P1080979.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Dan Shaffer, Albuquerque, 2021</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><i><b></b></i></span></div><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">When you visit the sites now do you get a sense for what the photographer might have seen or thought? Can you tell why they looked in a certain direction or shot certain things? </span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">No, most of the shots are pretty mundane scenes for most people. But for photographers who like to share what current life is like it’s like candy.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What's like candy?</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">For me, the candy in an ordinary scene is usually lines and shadows that form an appealing composition. Shadows are my mainstay. They are everywhere every day - almost - here in New Mexico. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It's funny you say that. Amid all the buildings and structures and trees that last for decades, and various changes and similarities, shadows are the most ephemeral part of all of it. Speaking of ephemerality, is the legacy of Joe Deal well known in Albuquerque? The people whose homes are in his photos, do you think they have any idea? Or is it just a nerdy insider thing.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I think it is the latter. I showed the book to a neighbor of one of the scenes. He got excited, but he’s a realtor so more likely to appreciate the history of the street. He pointed out that a still-empty lot was soon to have a house built on it, and to make sure I got that shot before construction. But of course it will be on my list for taking after construction too!</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Is there something about New Topographics that makes them especially appealing to you for rephotographing? I mean, there are all sorts of pictures of Albuquerque in all styles and authors. Why do you think you're drawn to NT, or Joe Deal? Maybe Beaumont Newhall has some Albuquerque photos? Why not rephotograph his, for example?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I don’t mind following in other peoples footsteps, even if it means clambering over boulders. Good idea about Beaumont Newhall photos, although I usually think of Manhattan when thinking of him. </span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Sure you could find others. But is there something in the New Topographers that invites revisiting? The pictures are generally static and open, with lots of space. Maybe they leave room a lot of room for development, in the mind and/or in reality?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">As I said I am not the academic type, but the more literal documentarian. What I wish I could find is an essay by someone about Joe Deal and why he shot this way to include in a second edition. Or maybe Stone could give a photo grad student at UNM the assignment of writing an essay.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I just picked up a great book on Joe Deal with a pretty lengthy essay. But it's focused on California. Maybe you've seen it. it has blue lettering? It has a lot of info about him and his thinking, but no photos from NM.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VHe3SfxD_7A/YKLy8xk2teI/AAAAAAAAX04/3G0Yq-fajMc9q5MFj3Ckwh69JaKNPiINQCLcBGAsYHQ/s278/801f20f2acc2023696c9cbd5ef15eee4.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="255" data-original-width="278" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VHe3SfxD_7A/YKLy8xk2teI/AAAAAAAAX04/3G0Yq-fajMc9q5MFj3Ckwh69JaKNPiINQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/801f20f2acc2023696c9cbd5ef15eee4.jpg" /></a></span></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, </span></b></span><b style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think I have it. I’ll check the title. Southern California Photographs, 1976 to 1986.</span></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yeah that’s it. Great photos. You get the sense he could be parachuted into any place and find pictures nearby. Actually it was that book I bought a few weeks back that reminded me of you. Which is when I emailed you. Full circle, zing.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I picked it up at a used bookstore before I knew about New Topographics. You are right I am attracted to that style because even though the scenes may seem boring and empty to most people, they are always well composed and usually have some irony or even humor about them. I read a definition of the word “ironize” from irony the other day that made me laugh. Never heard that word before.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Ah, so you did know of Joe Deal before NT.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I guess you’re right. I did know about Joe Deal by buying his book but had not heard of New Topographics at that time.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Do you know the Christopher Rauschenberg book <i>Paris Changing</i>? He rephotographed some of Atget's pictures in and around Paris.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Love Atget. Things I resent are how uptight many photographers are about how super sharp a picture is, ignoring that half of Atget’s and Cartier-Bresson’s photos are fuzzy.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I've never found that to be a prob with Atget.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">For me an impactful image does not need to be sharp or need to be in a 3 to 2 format or need to be shot with a certain lens. It just needs to appeal.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Photographers can be technical nerds sometimes. Pixel peeping, fine resolution, etc. I think more than other creative fields just because mechanical tools are integral to the craft. So sometimes people get wrapped up in tech stuff. No worries, just gotta like what you like, no apologies.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H_wiLo6X09I/YKLxpwGukEI/AAAAAAAAX0k/r4YpLs-29TIFVt-H9L37p5Mw8FMAljPFQCLcBGAsYHQ/s650/1d480779-0715-4445-9fa7-f66252553853.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="650" height="394" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H_wiLo6X09I/YKLxpwGukEI/AAAAAAAAX0k/r4YpLs-29TIFVt-H9L37p5Mw8FMAljPFQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h394/1d480779-0715-4445-9fa7-f66252553853.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>From Paris Changing by Christopher Rauschenberg, (L) Atget / (R) Rauschenberg<br /><br /></i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What's fun about the Rauschenberg book is there's a section at the end called Atget's Footsteps where he doesn't rephotograph the old pictures. But instead he tries to find his own scenes in Atget's style. That's where it gets kind of interesting, when you put yourself fin the photographer's shoes and try to mimic not only their pictures but their thought patterns.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">There's a mention in the book that Covid shutdown helped inspire the project, or provide time for it. Do you think it would've happened during "normal" times? Or would you have been tied up with other stuff?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes, I think I would have done this without Covid but not until I had retired and had the free time to go out and spend an hour or two or three going to locations and shooting.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Have you explored Albuquerque much photographically outside of the rephotographs? Your Kenyan nickname the Wanderer. Does that apply outside this project?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Most of my career I have been in outside sales so was moving around the city or country all the time with a camera within arm’s reach. Thanks to those employers for allowing me to sneak a few pictures in when the light and shadows and composition presented themselves.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Nice. What about now that you're retired. Are you exploring on your own? Or mostly through this project?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I am Macharia, so I am always wandering and exploring my hometown and this intriguing state. I rarely come home from a morning run without having taken a dozen photos on my iPhone. Flowers, architecture, roadrunners that abound here, and of course shadows.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The subtext is that one of the most essential ingredients for making photos, or any type of serious art, is free time. Just the ability to explore with no deadline for a few hours. I have never done that without getting at least a few good photos, and often many more. In fact photos come in almost direct proportion to time spent looking. Joe Deal was a photo student while in NM. So I suppose that gave him opportunities to shoot. It's something you don't think much about looking at the work now. But all of those bigwigs from the past. Their output is largely just a function of time.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3Qwgue1Orpc/YKLzZPjclDI/AAAAAAAAX1E/BjNywjgfLFwZiTsyM1pDbSgTG5oQwujPwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1100/p2201741712-5.jpg" style="clear: left; font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="548" data-original-width="1100" height="318" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3Qwgue1Orpc/YKLzZPjclDI/AAAAAAAAX1E/BjNywjgfLFwZiTsyM1pDbSgTG5oQwujPwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h318/p2201741712-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes, I tell people I am always scanning around where I am. Luckily I have developed an eye to spot a good shot and since I carry a camera can get that shot and don’t have to go back and hope that it’s there again.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Haha, I've done that before. You drive by something and tell yourself you'll check it out tomorrow. But it's never the same. Photographer pitfalls 101.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I do believe in luck as well. There are times when I go out on a walk or a drive and one good shot after another just pops up for me. Especially nice when that happens during the golden hour. Or photographers’ happy hour. No thinking required, just noticing and using what is presented with the right composition and angle. Then when I think I’ve got the shot looking at it again to see what I missed and maybe move backwards or left or right to reassess the scene</span></b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I know the feeling but I'm not sure if it's luck. I think it’s more to do with mood or mental outlook, but I admit I don’t fully understand how photos happen. Let's put it this way. I find it harder to spot the first photo than the 10th photo. That’s been consistently true for the past few decades.</span></span></p></div>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-38281824576685116682021-04-28T09:38:00.004-07:002021-04-28T09:42:01.505-07:00Q & A with Jesse Marlow<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;"><i><a href="http://www.jessemarlow.com"></a></i></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;"><i><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1iFamBEMBB4/YImAOPU5UbI/AAAAAAAAXxM/uw7k6b1NHLksXi8R8sTi5YJiW5Z7-uIOgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/JM2-2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="668" data-original-width="1000" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1iFamBEMBB4/YImAOPU5UbI/AAAAAAAAXxM/uw7k6b1NHLksXi8R8sTi5YJiW5Z7-uIOgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/JM2-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></span></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;"><i>Jesse Marlow is a photographer based in Melbourne, Australia, and the author of the recent monograph <a href="http://www.jessemarlow.com/books/second-city-st-ed">Second City</a>.</i></span></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><div><div style="font-family: times; text-align: center;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">•</span></i></span></span></span></i></div><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: 18px;">BA: What were the logistics of book publishing?</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: 18px;"> </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>JM: Producing a book during lockdown certainly wasn’t easy. While it was good to have a forced hiatus from work and being grounded from all travel distractions meant that I could really sink myself into the editing and design process, the inability to physically meet up and discuss things with other people made it tricky.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">How did you find a printer?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I worked with a Melbourne printer called <a href="https://adamsprint.com.au">Adams Print</a> who I’d heard great things about for years, so it was wonderful to be in total control and print locally. </b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">How did you fund publication?</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I’ve self-funded all of the books I’ve published and in this case, I had a presale which was announced via my Instagram. Instagram has been, to this point, my only real source of marketing.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">How are you handling distribution and marketing?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><i></i></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><i><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--WHjM-7G5fw/YImBXE1qMZI/AAAAAAAAXxY/gALLDGaw0SEvhm0OR4kDtJ1OwwyBufnjgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1143/JM%2Bbook%2Bv11_low%2Bres-1.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1143" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--WHjM-7G5fw/YImBXE1qMZI/AAAAAAAAXxY/gALLDGaw0SEvhm0OR4kDtJ1OwwyBufnjgCLcBGAsYHQ/w269-h320/JM%2Bbook%2Bv11_low%2Bres-1.jpeg" width="269" /></a></i></b></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Second City</i> was the first time I’d done a presale and tbh, I was a bit nervous about it. The fear of potential printing delays and not wanting to let people down really played on my mind. Luckily it all went fairly smoothly with only a short delay at the final hurdle. I’ve also worked with my old friends the Melbourne publisher and distributor Perimeter Books, who have helped out with local and international distribution into the book stores. There have also been a couple of exhibitions of the work up in both the Melbourne and Sydney Leica stores, which has also helped get the book out there.</b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What is the story behind Sling Shot Press? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I started Sling Shot Press back in 2005 when I self published my second book Wounded. It sat dormant for a number of years before I dusted it off again for Second City. I’m looking to do more books of my work, under the same banner, in the near future.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You shot these pictures a while ago. What made you turn them into a book now?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>It was early on in lockdown and the news websites were flooded with photos of an empty city which instantly took me back to this body of work I had shot when Melbourne was a much quieter place. With time on my hands for the first time in years, I went back into my archive and rediscovered these negatives. The intention was always to turn this series into a book but I'd never seriously taken a look at the broader collection - I had maybe 10-15 shots in the back of my mind, but this was the first time I had actually opened the negative cupboard and seriously considered the work. A number of the images were on my website under a generic title of "B&W" so it seemed like the right time to give them a proper title and delve into it properly.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was the process from rediscovery to publication?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I had a giant pin board up in my office and shuffled photos around that for a few months before settling on the final edit. With <i>Second City</i>, because I had the time (due to Covid and being stuck at home for 111 days straight), I really laboured over the edit and flow of the images. More so than the previous books I've published.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did you have any help with editing? </span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I had a couple of good friends here in Melbourne, Ben Dowling and Rob Donat, who I bounced a few different ideas off with the sequence. This was all done during Stage 4 Lockdown and we were unable to travel beyond 5 km of our houses. It brought about some unique challenges and at one stage I met up with my book designer, Yanni Florence, on a train station platform (within our 5 km from home radius) where we discussed paper stocks and fonts while pretending to wait for a train.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Very creative.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Ha, had to think outside the box for this one. </b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For me the thing which carries through all the photos is Melbourne. It's a real love letter to the city. The photos can be seen on their own as singles. But then they gather together in the book and it's all about you walking through your home town.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Yeah, that's completely right. It's a collection of single images from my hometown, but when edited together reflect a period of time in the city of how I remember it. Now, this seems quite distant to the gentrified city it has become. There's an old cliche about Melbourne and its weather that it's "Four season's in one day" so ideas like this crept in when I was putting the edit together. We don't have the light or landmarks of Sydney so shooting the streets of Melbourne has always had its unique challenges.</b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V4DReGIZyUk/YImFTnMUd2I/AAAAAAAAXyU/p7yKuZkBdCkjHBbdaZN3RsFRmt2FRadlwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Jesse%2BMarlow%2B-%2BSecond%2BCity%2B30.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="1280" height="424" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V4DReGIZyUk/YImFTnMUd2I/AAAAAAAAXyU/p7yKuZkBdCkjHBbdaZN3RsFRmt2FRadlwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h424/Jesse%2BMarlow%2B-%2BSecond%2BCity%2B30.jpeg" width="640" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don't know Melbourne at all...Hold on, I just looked it up on Wiki. Melbourne has 5 million people?! Holy fuck that's a big city.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Yeah, it's a huge city now. Residential living in the city of Melbourne only began in the ‘90s. It's been Australia's fastest growing city for the last few years. The urban sprawl is never ending. The Melbourne CBD is a big grid and has quite a European feel to many of the streets with some lovely older Victorian buildings. There's a labyrinth of small laneways that have been embraced by the City Council in more recent times with bars and coffees shops and they've become the city's main tourism drawcard. In terms of landmarks, we only really have two - The Flinders St Station where many of my photos from Second City were taken and Federation Square - a new building built in the early 2000s. Back when the photos were taken the city and surrounding suburbs had a quite a gritty undertone reflective of the time compared to the slicker metropolis it is today.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Does the name <i>Second City</i> refer to Melbourne’s relationship with Sydney? Is there some other meaning to the name?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>The main idea behind the title is the concept that there is always another side to a city waiting to be discovered. Initially, however, the term ‘Second City’ came to mind because of the constant reference to Melbourne (in regards to Sydney, as you mention) as Australia’s “Second City” during the early Covid-19 reporting. As the editing process progressed, the title took on a whole new meaning as the distinction between the Melbourne we all know now and those reflected in the photographs became so much more apparent. If you scratch the surface of any city, I believe it’s inevitable that you find a completely different version.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I didn't realize until talking to you now that Melbourne had changed so much. You say it gentrified. Or maybe it just passed through the usual changes of any big city. Things die off and other things grow. In any case it sounds like the book is a portrait of old Melbourne. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>That's right. I think the city itself really started to came to life back in 2002 - 2003.</b> </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What happened 2002-2003?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>In the ‘90s the city had a bit of a heroin scene which made parts of the CBD a bit of a no-go zone. This was all cleaned up by about 1999 and the city council really opened the CBD up and started utilising the laneways. The Commonwealth Games were here in 2006 so the clean up and boom of the city coincided with that.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did you grow up there as a kid?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I've lived here my whole life. My parents have owned a clothing store in the CBD for a number of years so I grew up taking weekly trips to the city.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Whenever I see CBD I think of cannabis. But I know it's not that. Is the CBD in Melbourne a firmly defined area, or is it just how you think of downtown? That term is not common in the US.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Ha Ha! Yeah, CBD is our Central Business District like your Downtown. Don't worry we've got the other CBD here too (although it's not legal yet :))</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Is it fair to say that you've been visually digesting the city since before you could remember?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Absolutely. I feel really lucky to have had access to some of the more underground aspects of the city via my parents and their own creative pursuits. In particular my documentation as an eight year old boy of the first wave of graffiti murals. I began photographing walls in the mid 1980's with the help of my Mum.</b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JGzmCgwoh0A/YIl7uhv-gaI/AAAAAAAAXw8/RkOyZ1doQt8Cnr5UV2XLeZBQVoJluoTLQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/JM%2Baged%2B8.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="849" data-original-width="1280" height="424" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JGzmCgwoh0A/YIl7uhv-gaI/AAAAAAAAXw8/RkOyZ1doQt8Cnr5UV2XLeZBQVoJluoTLQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h424/JM%2Baged%2B8.jpeg" width="640" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Wait, you were eight when you started photographing?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>That's right. My uncle gave me <a href="https://afrovisualism.medium.com/book-review-subway-art-by-martha-cooper-and-henry-chalfant-4731e1e072"><i>Subway Art</i> by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant</a> for my eighth birthday in 1986. This set me off and with the help of my Mum and her Minolta SRT101 we'd drive around on weekends and school holidays and I'd shoot photos of the first wave of Melbourne graffiti. The plan is to do a book of these photos next. Unlike a lot of the other people who documented graffiti, being quite young when I shot, a lot of the photos are taken from further away, which now give the work a bit more of a historical context.</b> </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PfOea9OWUSk/YImCjBF5pYI/AAAAAAAAXx0/6NpvQ6uFwAUufqmj1-D4reUkcUmVU4LBQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Early%2Bgraffiti%2B2.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="859" data-original-width="1280" height="430" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PfOea9OWUSk/YImCjBF5pYI/AAAAAAAAXx0/6NpvQ6uFwAUufqmj1-D4reUkcUmVU4LBQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h430/Early%2Bgraffiti%2B2.jpeg" width="640" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></div><p></p><p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I met Martha Cooper briefly in 2019 when <a href="https://www.eugeneweekly.com/2019/08/22/pigeon-cooper/">she had a show in Eugene</a>. Amazing woman. She’s maybe in her 70s (?) but with the energy of someone half her age. I have been trying to find a copy of her book <i>Street Play</i> forever. But it’s OOP and hard to source.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>That’s cool. I haven’t heard of that book of hers but will try and check it out. I still have my First Edition copy of <i>Subway Art</i> sitting pride of place on my bookshelf. I met her very briefly two years ago when she was out here for an exhibition and launch of a short film about her.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Awesome. Very curious to see those photos. Were your parents photographers? What sort of clothing store did they run?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>They've had a Women’s clothing store called Blonde Venus since 1973. Mum designs the clothes and Dad sells them. All the clothes are made here in Melbourne. Their first shop was in a very cutting edge area in the ’70s called South Yarra, which had a real arts and fashion scene. They knew a lot of photographers, in particular the legendary Melbourne photographer Rennie Ellis and the Rock n Roll photographer Colin Beard, were old friends and had often shot their clothing ranges. Mum worked a couple of times with Helmut Newton through her modeling and the fashion scene. Once I started showing an interest in the graffiti and the camera, Mum and Dad were nothing but encouraging and supportive.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Woah, your mom was a model for Helmut Newton! Did she tell you any fun stories? Does she have any prints from those sessions?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Pretty cool hey. He had a studio in the city during the '50s and '60s with another photographer Henry Talbot. No fun stories though unfortunately. Mum and Dad have a few old B&W 8x10s of Helmut’s tucked away somewhere. I haven’t seen them for years but should dig them out again.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was the deal with your uncle? Why did he give you that book?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>My uncle had a darkroom and was really into photography in the ’80s so the book was a wonderful present. It set me off on the path I'm still on 35 years later.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You were a little artsy child. I didn't know that. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Ha, yeah, looking back I was pretty lucky to have the access to things I did.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was going through your mind taking photos of graffiti at age 8? Were you thinking about it at all in photo terms? Or was it just, "That's cool, capture, done."</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bui36KNkYtk/YImB6_ITo2I/AAAAAAAAXxk/tlKcgfDmmdkBtXcNKmvHPui6ZT2NjBHPgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Early%2Bgraffiti.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="797" data-original-width="1280" height="398" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bui36KNkYtk/YImB6_ITo2I/AAAAAAAAXxk/tlKcgfDmmdkBtXcNKmvHPui6ZT2NjBHPgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h398/Early%2Bgraffiti.jpeg" width="640" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Back when I was eight, I had no real idea about what I was doing. Composition was non existent. The challenge was to just make sure I had the meter needle through the middle in the viewfinder and the graffiti piece somewhere in the frame. Many of the photos are shot through cyclone fences and from 50 metres away but for me that's what gives the images a certain charm now, years later. It was an obsession and the process of photographing walls was like collecting something. Shoot it and move on to the next. Just amassing as many walls as I could. Trying to keep up with the number of walls being painted was impossible, so I focused on particular areas closer to home and certain artists whose work I loved. Some of the artists whose work I shot have become life long friends. I shot the walls for 10 years and stopped when I was 18 in 1996. I put together a small B&W Laser copy zine of the work back in high school called ‘Big J’. From memory, I only printed 20 copies and gave them out to my mates.</b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ApcEhcsM668/YImCQoOIBUI/AAAAAAAAXxs/irkwqLHMDwc3RyCIaHPaUv91-mGU1ox6QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Big%2BJ%2Bzine%2Bcover.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ApcEhcsM668/YImCQoOIBUI/AAAAAAAAXxs/irkwqLHMDwc3RyCIaHPaUv91-mGU1ox6QCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h428/Big%2BJ%2Bzine%2Bcover.jpeg" width="640" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did this early brush with graffiti influence your wheat pasting practice? It's like the original people's art form. Straight from creator to viewer, no mediation. Same as wheat-paste.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Absolutely, I briefly dabbled with graffiti myself in the mid ’90s when I was a teenager. I was never any good but I had a small foot in the Melbourne scene through my friends. Most of my work was in laneways and drains around where I grew up so it's fair to say I never had the balls to pull off the more adventurous stuff my mates did. The paste ups I've been doing have definitely stemmed from that idea of "getting up" and finding walls that have huge visibility and traffic.</b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s2SwuitDuNU/YImD--cRodI/AAAAAAAAXx8/OW5IedqdpFcjsfTurNYOeH9ffHkvmXygQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/1%2B4.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s2SwuitDuNU/YImD--cRodI/AAAAAAAAXx8/OW5IedqdpFcjsfTurNYOeH9ffHkvmXygQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h0/1%2B4.jpeg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Reim-i6ZSn0/YImEL2DEjiI/AAAAAAAAXyA/u3KuvTuogzEND8Vask8d8S4hHA3vkZs0wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/1%2B4.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Reim-i6ZSn0/YImEL2DEjiI/AAAAAAAAXyA/u3KuvTuogzEND8Vask8d8S4hHA3vkZs0wCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h428/1%2B4.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I sometimes go out photographing with a friend who's a graffiti guy. Sometimes he tags stuff and puts stickers up or whatever. The best part is he can translate some of the graffiti we see, which for me is like a foreign language. Once you can read the language you realize people are messaging everywhere! At least it's everywhere in certain neighborhoods in Eugene. What was your tag?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I played around and wrote Bronze for a while. I stopped back in 1998 and since then someone else has snapped it up and he's taken it to another level. My offerings were quite limited.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He stole your tag. No way. I thought that was against code.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Ha, yeah, but I was never up enough to be anyone so it was all good :)</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why'd you stop?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I stopped because I discovered the wider world of photography. It was kind of the same time I stopped shooting graffiti photos. I love the stickers you've been putting up by the way.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Glad you like them. I was on a big sticker kick for a while but my energy's faded. I try to put them where other graffiti and stickers have already been placed. Almost like a community bulletin board or something. But there's not much response. It's just shouting into the void. I’m guessing graffiti artists deal with this same feeling. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Absolutely. My approach to the posters has been the same. I'm always on the lookout for walls that have been neglected and had a previous life via other bill posters. There was certainly a lot more wall space last year with cancelled gigs. I love the whole process of finding the walls and curating certain poster grids to suit a particular location.</b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lwMoWiD48R8/YImN3mIvgpI/AAAAAAAAXyk/-A7FSgKKjScL9BU5Pa6KhZ4AMnKK2UH3gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/100.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lwMoWiD48R8/YImN3mIvgpI/AAAAAAAAXyk/-A7FSgKKjScL9BU5Pa6KhZ4AMnKK2UH3gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h428/100.jpeg" width="640" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Is it also a sort of illicit thrill? Almost like the rush of shooting a candid photo without asking? With graffiti and with street photography, I think some of the motivation comes from transgression. Just breaking rules for the sake of it. A very youthful outlook maybe.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Totally right. It’s a very similar thrill to shooting candidly on the street. For me with the posters though, I get a thrill during the actual application but then again when I return to the location the next day to document the work. Then I also get a kick when I pass it on my daily travels and see it live on, sometimes months later.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There's a fair amount of graffiti in the book. Maybe you could say it's just reacting to what you found. But now I wonder if it’s some nod to your past? The central gatefold in the book is semi-graffiti: "People Not Profit" Doesn't get more grassroots expression than that.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VleI1pyFeOE/YImBJGFgRbI/AAAAAAAAXxU/vHkdW2irMnIfR6529YVGUFwRsoGnggx3wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Pages%2B51%252652.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="461" data-original-width="1280" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VleI1pyFeOE/YImBJGFgRbI/AAAAAAAAXxU/vHkdW2irMnIfR6529YVGUFwRsoGnggx3wCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h230/Pages%2B51%252652.jpeg" width="640" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Yeah, there were a lot of other photos with graffiti in them that didn't make the book but the centre page DPS "People Not Profit" image was a must. </b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Is your book meant to have a political dimension?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Nah, not really but more a logical editing choice. It’s followed by an image which really emphasises the slogan.</b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LZjRp9nJWW0/YIl6_coyySI/AAAAAAAAXws/wQO3QrWohZAygQ_85vJ0HJl1VGeFxUSHQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Jesse%2BMarlow%2B-%2BSecond%2BCity%2B24.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="859" data-original-width="1280" height="430" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LZjRp9nJWW0/YIl6_coyySI/AAAAAAAAXws/wQO3QrWohZAygQ_85vJ0HJl1VGeFxUSHQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h430/Jesse%2BMarlow%2B-%2BSecond%2BCity%2B24.jpeg" width="640" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The guy with the bagpipes? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Yeah, that’s right.</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">The bagpipes player in the following photo was one of those long forgotten Melbourne icons who was seen (and heard) out on the street for years and then one day just disappeared.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Never heard from again. Hmm. Maybe he pursued a professional photo career, Haha? What do you mean “the next photo pushes home the point"</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>The point is that a city is made up by its people. The photo of the bagpipe player and drunken revellers following on from the "People Not Profit" DPS for me really emphasises the statement. One of the things I was really drawn to when photographing on the streets of Melbourne as a young photographer was its people and the characters you'd encounter when out and about.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What does Melbourne look like now, during the pandemic?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>It's slowly getting back to its old self. Foot traffic is back up in the CBD. How are streets of Eugene?</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pretty dead. Businesses here have been hit hard. Restaurants, theaters, galleries, any place that had crowds is now dormant. I am not sure what parts will come back. But Eugene was pretty dead before so that's kind of normal. I used to shoot in downtown Portland a lot. But that's even worse than Eugene now. It's a fucking war zone, boarded up windows, inert bodies everywhere. It's feels like Kabul. Depressing. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Yeah, sorry to hear. In terms of the feeling of emptiness, that's what I've always enjoyed about your work. You constantly make photos out of nothing.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was born in nothing. I became a photographer surrounded by nothing. I have never had a choice about what to shoot. I just had to always deal with nothing. So I became good at finding photos everywhere. And nowhere. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Well said. You do “Nothing” incredibly well.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Can I ask you about your process while you were shooting <i>Second City</i>? Most of the photos were late 1990s through early 2000s. What was your daily routine then? for photographing and for editing?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I was studying in ’97 and ’98. I actually failed the course due to lack of attendance, as I was off in the city every day sitting on the steps of Flinders St Station shooting photos. The irony of this was despite failing the course, on graduation night I won the prize for shooting the most film for the year. I still have the prize which was a gold spray painted processing reel. </b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P4TDpMQeoOU/YIl_ZDdSq8I/AAAAAAAAXxE/XoZaGeKol60JoqshZx7WE7FGFGgJLxFmACLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Award.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P4TDpMQeoOU/YIl_ZDdSq8I/AAAAAAAAXxE/XoZaGeKol60JoqshZx7WE7FGFGgJLxFmACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h428/Award.jpeg" width="640" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A gold painted processing reel! I am imagining that now. There is something vital there.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I was shooting around 10-20 rolls of film a week and amassing this body of work. </b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Who was your teacher?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Back at photography school we had a photojournalism teacher by the name of Remind Zunde. He was great friends with the famous Australian photographer Wolfgang Sievers so was regularly bringing in amazing guest speakers. Rei was a bit of a lone-wolf within the teaching ranks and he would often tell his class that we had all wasted our money signing up to a photography course and instead should have spent the money buying books by the masters and learn that way. He introduced me to the work of Robert Frank, Cartier-Bresson and Alex Webb which really triggered the next phase of my photography development. I unfortunately lost contact with Rei about 10 years ago.</b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b style="font-family: georgia;">I never did proof sheets as my mentor Rei told me printing them took away from actual print making time. So I learnt to read the negatives instead. When it came to editing the book and trawling the negs, I discovered a few frames I had never printed or had no recollection of even taking.</b></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There is one photo of some girls talking near some big culverts which I think is amazing! It was new to me. But maybe I just wasn't paying attention. The gestures, the perspective. Plus it's got strange graffiti.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6aHpEF2-01s/YIl7Sn3nMyI/AAAAAAAAXw0/IlbxIw_pC9QIhz0ZRapUjWLnLm45IhFWQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Jesse%2BMarlow%2B-%2BSecond%2BCity%2B6.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="860" data-original-width="1280" height="430" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6aHpEF2-01s/YIl7Sn3nMyI/AAAAAAAAXw0/IlbxIw_pC9QIhz0ZRapUjWLnLm45IhFWQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h430/Jesse%2BMarlow%2B-%2BSecond%2BCity%2B6.jpeg" width="640" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Thanks! You must have missed that one of the girls down at the drains. It's been floating around for a while and I think I posted it on Instagram a few years back.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Which frames were rediscoveries?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>The photo of the kids with the commission flats in the background and the lone figure with the broken arm walking up a fairly desolate city laneway (which, in the photo has only one tag on the wall). That particular laneway (Hosier Lane) is now a major Melbourne tourist attraction as a legalised graffiti precinct. </b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ORBZLV_klD0/YImFwtZOqqI/AAAAAAAAXyc/UaGdL_tHh8Yq-2zlc_jcnBIZArpZsHSYQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Jesse%2BMarlow%2B-%2BSecond%2BCity%2B33.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="1280" height="416" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ORBZLV_klD0/YImFwtZOqqI/AAAAAAAAXyc/UaGdL_tHh8Yq-2zlc_jcnBIZArpZsHSYQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h416/Jesse%2BMarlow%2B-%2BSecond%2BCity%2B33.jpeg" width="640" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Legalized graffiti project?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Well, the city gave up policing graffiti in that spot, so it's just become a free for all. Probably a bit like the Venice Beach Public Arts Walls in LA that has decades of legal graffiti on it.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So when you were editing the photos for the book, you had no proofsheets? Were you just dealing with negatives? Or work prints? Or what was the raw material?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I had about 100 boxes of 8x10 prints from the period that I went back through as well as all the negatives. No proofs of any of the work though.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One of my big fears is that I will reassess old negatives later on. I might make a run through them after I shoot and pick some out. But if I look at the pictures in 20 years those choices might be completely different. This is part of the reason I don't mark up my contact sheets, because I don't want to cause predilections for my future self. I'm wondering what it was like for you to look through those old photos at a later point. Did your initial choice of negatives seem wrong? Did you see stuff in the later view that you'd overlooked? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I'm a bit the same in that I'll make initial selections and go from there - this has always been my approach. I've generally chosen the image based on the best composition, timing and gestures within a scene. With this edit and the time-lag between shooting the work and re-analysing it for a book, there were some images I discovered next to ones I'd initially chosen. For instance the frame before the Bagpipes player photo had been originally selected, but when revisited for the book, the chosen image offered a lot more and suited the flow of the series. Thinking back, I had probably overlooked it at the time as it may have felt a bit too journalistic and obvious in its approach.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Those decisions eat at me. Like, who do I trust? The me from 20 years ago when I shot it? Or the me now? In some sense you've got to trust current me, because that's you! But you could easily be wrong. Maybe yourself 20 years ago knew better. And don’t even get me started on the future you. It's all just a crapshoot. But the thing about a book is that it actually solidifies thinking into some firmly dated body. Forever.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>It's a tricky one hey. For me, finding the two or three images I'd missed at the time was the best part of putting the book together. I think putting together a book about a particular place and a period of time certainly helped with the rediscovery and inclusion of a few of the photos.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was your shooting process back then. Did you have certain places you went a lot? Did you try to explore new areas? Was there a CBD circuit? </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xxt2XqBROkU/YImEsRtYcNI/AAAAAAAAXyM/7uuAX2ewNas9dBVNybTC8Sl-3sHBnbRngCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Jesse%2BMarlow%2B-%2BSecond%2BCity%2B1.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="863" data-original-width="1280" height="432" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xxt2XqBROkU/YImEsRtYcNI/AAAAAAAAXyM/7uuAX2ewNas9dBVNybTC8Sl-3sHBnbRngCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h432/Jesse%2BMarlow%2B-%2BSecond%2BCity%2B1.jpeg" width="640" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I grew up about 8 kms from the CBD so I'd usually drive or catch a train in for the day. For the first few years I didn't venture far from the city. The front cover photo was shot through the windscreen of my car with the cityscape on a rainy day. I was probably sitting in my car waiting for the rain to stop before heading off for the afternoon. My circuit usually began and ended with me sitting on the steps of Flinders St Station. It's an iconic Melbourne place often referred to as "under the clocks" and pre mobile phone days was where you'd often meet people for a day out in the city. It was a great people watching spot as all walks of life would congregate there and where I really found my confidence shooting candid photos of people out on the street. After a few years of this I branched out and began exploring all corners of the inner city via my car, or just by jumping on the train and choosing a random line and catching it to the end of the line.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You've shot all over the city in a variety of places, times and circumstances. Did you learn any lessons along the way about how good photos happen? What are the ingredients? Does it depend on mood? Is it blind luck? Cunning?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Back when I was shooting this work I had a little saying that I'd often say to myself when I was out and about which was "People, Place and the Moment”. These were the key ingredients throughout this work. Apart from the Flinders St Station photos I was all about discovering my hometown and this meant getting out to different suburbs. Also probably like you, I've never limited myself to only shooting at specific times of the day which I think is important with the work we shoot.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Where do you shoot now in Melbourne? Are there neighborhoods there which are still unexplored for you?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I'm shooting most days but rarely set aside blocks of time to go and shoot anymore. In recent years I've kind of just lived my life and always had my camera with me. I found setting aside blocks of time to shoot wasn't working for me. It was forcing more pressure onto a process that can't be rushed. I still live a few kms from the city so I'm shooting my own suburb regularly. When I do feel the urge to look for something new, I generally jump in the car and drive an hour West or North and try to discover a new area that's part of the growing Melbourne urban sprawl.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It sounds like you don't visit the CBD much anymore?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I find myself in there for work a bit, but haven't really shot it properly for 10 years. Most of my colour work isn't from the CBD, rather the inner and outer suburbs or from wherever I've been overseas.</b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rpjDgtlJn-I/YImOiBgG3dI/AAAAAAAAXyw/_yxaeB5JV-gAT83lqKG_4jlzHkfkr__ugCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Page%2B21.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="851" data-original-width="1280" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rpjDgtlJn-I/YImOiBgG3dI/AAAAAAAAXyw/_yxaeB5JV-gAT83lqKG_4jlzHkfkr__ugCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h426/Page%2B21.jpeg" width="640" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have a hard time shooting cities during Covid. I think there's a certain outlook which is necessary to shoot dense urban areas which is maybe fading for me. Or perhaps it’s just lack of opportunity. That sense of random chance and anonymity that makes city cores exciting. It used to suck me in. Now I need to give myself a kick in the pants. At least that’s how I feel shooting in Portland. God that place is rough now. I was in San Francisco a few weeks ago and had a few hours to shoot downtown. It was almost worse than Portland. Bombed out and dead. Maybe there were photos to be found, who knows. I just got depressed.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I know I said earlier that I can find photos everywhere, out of nothing. But the Covid cities defy me. I think the missing element is optimism. I need to feel a sense of possibility when I am out shooting. Which I usually do. But in those downtowns I am just overwhelmed with doom.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Yeah, I hear you. Fortunately for us over here our CBDs are starting to bustle again but I felt the lack of motivation you seem to be feeling. Like you, I get excited when I visit a new city - it's fresh and new and takes me back to the feeling I had shooting Melbourne when I started out. Last time we saw each other was in San Fran, that was a few years ago and I found it a hard place to shoot and get my head around, so can't imagine it now.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You're fully color now. Did this book make you miss shooting b/w?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Yeah, I've been shooting colour since 2004ish and digital since 2015. I switched back to B&W briefly in 2013 after my colour book Don’t Just Tell Them, Show Them was finished and in production. At the time, I felt I needed to put a sense of closure to that colour work and thought shooting B&W again would do that. It only lasted a year or so before switching back to colour. I don't miss the darkroom or shooting film. I packed mine up in 2004 when we had the big drought over here and non-professional darkrooms were on the "black list”.</b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7E29upAtscE/YImOy7GfjOI/AAAAAAAAXy8/MdB4gShLqJsNpXFfCiCYmpBifhEAtyQ9QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Jesse%2BMarlow%2B-%2BSecond%2BCity%2B10.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="862" data-original-width="1280" height="432" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7E29upAtscE/YImOy7GfjOI/AAAAAAAAXy8/MdB4gShLqJsNpXFfCiCYmpBifhEAtyQ9QCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h432/Jesse%2BMarlow%2B-%2BSecond%2BCity%2B10.jpeg" width="640" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></span><p></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What's the black list?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>The naughty list :-) With the lack of water around, non professional photo labs were considered a luxury.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What is the water source for Melbourne?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>We have 10 large water resources spread throughout the Yarra Valley up in the hills. During the millennium drought the State built a desalination plant as the State’s water supply had dropped to about 28% capacity. It wasn’t until around 2011 that the water supplies had returned to a healthy capacity.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The ironic twist is that there is no such thing any longer as a "professional" darkroom. Darkrooms are for amateurs. Maybe they always were.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Are you still enjoying the darkroom? </b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, every week. I'm kind of a dinosaur I admit. I use a community darkroom. For me it's a chance to spend a chunk of time away from family, and away from everything. I crank my music and sink into my own world, just me and my negatives. I can focus completely on my pictures and get a shitload of printing done. I find it's hard to do that when I’m home at my computer. Too many distractions.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I always love seeing your pile of working prints from your darkroom days. There was a resurgence of community darkrooms over here in recent years but with high rents and Covid a few have since unfortunately closed up.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fucking Covid. Oregon is officially open for vaccinations to anyone 16 and older. But some people are hesitant and we're only slowly gaining immunity. Meanwhile cases are spiking. This disease won't go easily. Have you had your shot yet?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>We've been very lucky over here with low numbers and our hard lockdown in Melbourne making a huge difference. The vaccine rollout is slowly happening but as a country we are a way off being anywhere near fully vaccinated. My 95 year old grandmother still hasn't been vaccinated, so I'm not expecting a shot until next year at the earliest.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I got my shot 2 weeks ago (J & J), so I should be I'm good (fingers crossed). </span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Great to hear you’re vaccinated and feeling good.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I felt like shit for a day after my shot. So I guess the germs were doing something. But now fine.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">___________________</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span>All photographs above </span></span><span style="text-align: center;">© Jesse Marlow</span></span></i></p></div>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-40165402192944727302020-11-13T07:11:00.006-08:002020-11-13T07:20:14.402-08:00Q & A with Sinna Nasseri<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #1d262a;"></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VASgFqf_xBo/X6xn51umg3I/AAAAAAAAXsQ/qbA9PHjQ9pMQLOsPLU9Acbh8MGlupksBACLcBGAsYHQ/s1498/IMG_0238.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1498" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VASgFqf_xBo/X6xn51umg3I/AAAAAAAAXsQ/qbA9PHjQ9pMQLOsPLU9Acbh8MGlupksBACLcBGAsYHQ/w268-h400/IMG_0238.JPG" title="ddddd" width="268" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Photo by Kyle Myles</span></i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #1d262a;"><i><a href="https://www.sinnanasseri.com">Sinna Nasseri</a> is a photographer based in New York City. He is <a href="https://www.instagram.com/strange.victory/?hl=en">currently on a road trip</a> around the United States.</i></span></span><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #1d262a;"></span></span></p><div style="font-family: times; text-align: center;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">•</span></i></span></span></span></i></div><div><span style="color: #1d262a; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #1d262a; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">BA: How's it going?</span></div>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>SN: Things are wonderful. I’m hanging out in the Arizona desert taking a break from photos</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">C</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">an briefly recap your road-trip project? What are you doing? Where, when, how, etc?</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I’ve been on the road for most of this year traveling all around the country. I've driven about 20k miles so far in my trusty Volvo. I set out with the goal of making a book about the election and the people of the country in the shadow of this historic event. I started off doing 4 stories with Olivia Horner at Vogue on the Democratic primary. In Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. After that the pandemic hit and I was marooned in my apt in New York City for several months</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>When the president announced his first rally back in Tulsa on June 20th, I hit the road to cover that event and have been circling the country ever since.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Had you ever covered elections or political events before?</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>No elections but I did a series on the UN General Assembly in NYC in 2019 that was politically oriented</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I majored in politics and have always been interested</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5upfn-VqSqQ/X6xqlQcUYmI/AAAAAAAAXsc/CM8kQJ3JLcoSLBKzlBThSrIaEW0j_2tigCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/ss.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1361" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5upfn-VqSqQ/X6xqlQcUYmI/AAAAAAAAXsc/CM8kQJ3JLcoSLBKzlBThSrIaEW0j_2tigCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h426/ss.jpg" width="640" /></a></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></div><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">From what you've seen so far, what has surprised you the most?</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I like to enter an event/scene/interview with very few expectations as part of a sort of process I have. I don't often feel very surprised at all. I think one thing that surprised me is when a Molotov cocktail landed about 10 ft from a group of reporters and photogs in Portland</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I wasn’t expecting that</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Wasn't that the protest where you got the photo of the kid being dragged by cops in the road?</span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Pretty sure the Molotov was the night after that photo</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. E</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>arly September. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>E</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ven the photogs that had been out there every single night were surprised by the escalation</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. A</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> few photographers were set on fire and it really popped off after that</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Definitely got a first sense for what being in a war is like</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Molotov cocktails are generally counterproductive I think. And that was during peak fire season. Bad idea. But I think the use of such weapons highlights the strong feelings and stakes all around</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">If a Patriot Prayer dude threw one I'd probably freak a little</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I can't really say one way or the other how productive it is. I guess I don't have a strong opinion on that.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I see them as counterproductive because they are so easily iconified and then turned against progressive causes. For Trumpers, they can use an image like that in very disruptive ways. Violence! Socialism! They’re coming for your suburbs!</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>That's true but I think the propaganda machine on the Right will find a way to vilify no matter what, and perhaps vice versa</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yeah, they'll stick the "socialist" label on anyone. Even a centrist like Biden.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>The amount of times conservatives mentioned socialism to me in my travels is uncountable</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Have you seen any Molotov cocktails or physical violence approximating that level since Portland? </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #1d1d1d; font-kerning: none;"><b>N</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>o, Portland was the peak for me</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. N</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>owhere else in the country comes close in my opinion</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">How would you describe the scene over the past few days there in Phoenix? </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>t's the hard core Trump people out here in Phoenix and they are angry</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. T</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>hey don't trust the election results at all and there are a ton of conspiracy theories. One big one they call sharpie-gate</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>A lot of the people protesting now are very angry at the media and especially Fox News for calling Arizona on the night of the election</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You seem to have a nose for finding the center of the action. How did wind up in Phoenix?</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I was sent to Maricopa county, Arizona by <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/dont-see-them-accepting-results-025151871.html">Paul Moakley at TIME Magazine</a></b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I was in Austin at the time and drove 2 days to get there in time</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I think it was the perfect place for me to be</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">You were heading back east to New York?</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I was finishing a story for Vogue on NM and TX and thought I'd be driving all the way to Pennsylvania for TIME. But they switched a few days before</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Just think, you coulda been at the Four Seasons Landscaping</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> press conference.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #1d1d1d; font-kerning: none;"><b>H</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>aha, that was perhaps the funniest twist this election</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. S</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>imply perfect summation</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What was the incident you referred to recently <a href="http://www.instagram.com/strange.victory">on IG</a> about shit going down in Phoenix, and other photographers having your back? </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>As I mentioned, people are very angry at the media here. Angry enough to get physical, so it's a scary situation for us</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>and especially me I think because I like to use a flash at night which draws a lot of attention</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. B</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ut there were several incidents</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>An older woman threatened to knee me in the groin and got inches away from my face. That's on video on my IG. Another time a group of militia members with large guns followed me to my car and wrote down my license</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Another time a younger man followed me at the protest and kept watching me and when confronted he started flashing a light in my eye</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I was helped by a fellow photographer who put her safety on the line for me</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>There were other incidents as well</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">If they could see your actual reporting they'd realize you are pretty evenhanded. You have an almost equal mix of Trump supporters and Biden supporters in your stories.</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I think that's one thing which you do well which is a bit different than most outlets</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>That's a big goal of mine is to show everyone</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>All kinds of people</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I especially like spiritual types, a lot of whom will tell you voting is a farce</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, t</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>hat it's not about Trump and Biden at all</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4P0cRNrpFaI/X6xsNdjVtqI/AAAAAAAAXso/pdacQkY_jC0_YOynPgbCY_knp1CNBHIwQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/003_SinnaNasseri_RoadTrip_AZ-NM.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4P0cRNrpFaI/X6xsNdjVtqI/AAAAAAAAXso/pdacQkY_jC0_YOynPgbCY_knp1CNBHIwQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h426/003_SinnaNasseri_RoadTrip_AZ-NM.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">A lot of New Agers baking down there in the desert sun</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yep</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">How do you decide which subjects to shoot on video and which ones to photograph? Is it more or less random? Or do you do both at once? </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #1d1d1d; font-kerning: none;"><b>G</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ut feeling mostly, or just how I'm feeling that day</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. O</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>r if I don't think I can make an incredible photo I go to video</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. N</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ot really interested in making a photo that is just ok</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. S</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>o if someone, say, looks sort of plain or the background isn’t interesting</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> t</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>he photo might not be that good but a video interview might be hilarious</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, because</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> it's less about aesthetics and more about their personality</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You mentioned at the start that all of this will be in a book. So that would necessarily leave out the video content, which seems like a large part now of what you are doing.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Trying to figure all that out now that I have a chance to breathe</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>but yes the video started out being sort of tertiary to the project but as I went along it became very important</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. My audience seems to connect with the videos in a visceral way</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>So </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>it’s really nice to have as an option especially when I feel that I’m in a rut photographically</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>which happens a lot</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"A chance to breath." You mean the Phoenix situation is defusing? </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>It seems to be, yes. Less people out and about. And I am not planning on working much more here</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I don't think these people will ever accept the results, but less people are coming out to protest</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">That's good news if people are returning to normal. From press reporting I can't really tell what's happening. Put on your lawyer hat for a minute and help me project the immediate future. Where do you see all of this going between now and Jan 21</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">? </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tL-DgQiHeB8/X632V5MCRRI/AAAAAAAAXtQ/kXdQ-YrJWLcQAn0__KLGuvfOjuiXaReBQCLcBGAsYHQ/s705/964c08150f8551f3662c37ee1967e7ff.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="705" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tL-DgQiHeB8/X632V5MCRRI/AAAAAAAAXtQ/kXdQ-YrJWLcQAn0__KLGuvfOjuiXaReBQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h426/964c08150f8551f3662c37ee1967e7ff.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>My guess is that courts will uphold the results and Trump will eventually concede</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">You are more optimistic than me. I don't think he will ever concede</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>O</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>r maybe "leave office" is a better term than concede</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. Y</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ou might be right on that</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. H</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>e will probably always maintain it was fraudulent</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I think it will play out in the courts, to not much effect, and Biden transition will eventually take over, although set back several weeks. But Trump will never accept the results, and taking his cue I think millions of people will think the election was fraudulent, probably forever. Which to me is a major longterm problem for electoral politics in the U.S.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> absolutely agree</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I do think that a lot of people thought the 2016 election was fraudulent as well</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>so this is just adding to the pile</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Do you think 2016 was fixed?</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Not really. There would be some hard evidence of that by now</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>but I also consider it a possibility</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">All those people you've been photographing in Phoenix, what's your best guess of what they will do once the courts resolve this in Biden’s favor? Civil war? Uprising? Stay disgruntled and quiet?</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I don't believe there will be a civil war, no</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">That's different than what you told me last summer. Why the change?</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I think being in closer proximity to the militia types and talking to a lot of them perhaps changed my calculation of the possibility of civil war</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You mean after talking to militia types you now consider them less volatile than before?</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>My read of the situation is that they don’t have it in them for a coordinated sustained war effort</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. D</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>omestic terrorism maybe</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Hmmm, possibly. Just like when Clinton ended 12 years of GOP rule. They couldn't handle it and bombed OKC.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I can definitely see horrifying incidents like that happening again, sadly</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I joined a "Stop The Steal" group on Facebook, just to read the temperature of the room on the other side. There are definitely some folks openly calling for civil war in these groups.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>That's interesting</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-x5vAhZnY5ms/X63z8T9IIrI/AAAAAAAAXs0/OGQ3SquYcG8PC0rlFqa7GNkO7uhwcaikACLcBGAsYHQ/s1057/5f66c174eee9a8a274132d66c36e4891.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1057" data-original-width="705" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-x5vAhZnY5ms/X63z8T9IIrI/AAAAAAAAXs0/OGQ3SquYcG8PC0rlFqa7GNkO7uhwcaikACLcBGAsYHQ/w426-h640/5f66c174eee9a8a274132d66c36e4891.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><p></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It's actually reassuring chatting with you. I think I've been watching too much Fox. Seeing their coverage you'd think everything’s up for grabs, and this election outcome is unclear, and pitchforks and torches, etc. But from your reporting the Trumpers seems more pacified.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I don't claim to know the answer but that's my feeling</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I wouldn't call them pacified but a full on civil war seems very unlikely</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-kerning: none;"><b>. W</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>hen was the last civil war in a country as rich as America</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>? T</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>he vast majority of these people live in comfortable homes and have plenty of food.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>They have large trucks and boats</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Those are on Biden's grab-list, right after the guns. I mean duh</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Why does he hate freedom so much? Gas-guzzling megamachines are a god-given right. It's in the 2nd amendment I’m purty sure</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Haha they're coming for our boats! But let's not talk too too much about politics.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-family: georgia; font-kerning: none; font-size: large; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-family: georgia; font-kerning: none; font-size: large; unicode-bidi: embed;">Are you burnt out? You've only been on the campaign trail for 10 months</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: georgia; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">.</span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I am burnt out, yes, but also I consider you a photo master and historian</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>so I hate to miss the chance to talk photos with you</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">A proud </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">amateur at both</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> pursuits. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">OK, we can talk shop. Which photos or photobooks have you seen lately that strike a chord? Which photobooks are you considering as models when you put your own book together? </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>My knowledge of photo books is actually so limited. I have a lot of studying to do. I think Joel Sternfeld's <i>American Prospects</i> is something that really has stuck with me</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>and sort of a loose model for me</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>And the work of Lee Friedlander and Mary Ellen Mark</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">American Prospects is a big book in physical size, and also the photos themselves feel expansive. I kind of imagine your pictures as tighter windows into reality.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yeah I'd love to make something of really high quality in terms of printing and paper and all that. There's too much to learn</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Do you have a publisher?</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I don't have a publisher</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I actually have a big bag of film to develop that I've lugged around the whole country</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I guess we'll see if there's enough in that bag for a book</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I've seen a lot already that should be in the book</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">If you say that then I know I have enough.</span></b></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">When you mentioned limited photo books and lugging things around, it reminded me that you're basically living in a car for the past several months. Which limits any acquisition of books or prints, and probably limits ability to see any photos not on a screen. </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Exactly right. I can't really buy or order anything</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> don’t really stay in one place for long enough and the car is pretty full of clothes and photo gear</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I used to go to the ICP library a lot when I was in NYC and look at everything. But it's been constant work and photographing for a long time</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">That's a good way to be for a while. No attachments. I have gone through periods like that but they were long ago and none recently. But it can be healthy.</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">What's the plan for the immediate future? Is your election coverage done? When is the trip over?</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I think I will transition to the editing process now</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Look at everything I have and start to think about how to pull it together</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Which includes the video work</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>t feels like a monumental task tbh.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I'm surrounded by miscellaneous boxes of prints at home, which means that every waking moment here feels like I'm facing a huge task. It’s kind of overwhelming and the end result is nothing ends up happening. So that might be a forewarning.</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I think I have the book title for you: <i>Strange Victory...Strange Defeat</i></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><i>.</i></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><i>Nothing Ends Up Happening</i> could also be a good one</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>But yeah I cribbed my name from the genius David Berman</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #1d1d1d; font-kerning: none;">M</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">aybe you can get permission to list all the song lyrics as a preface?</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">An homage to the late great singer</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></span></p><blockquote><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Squirrels imported from Connecticut</span></i></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Just in time for fall</span></i></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">How much fun is a lot more fun?</span></i></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Not much fun at all</span></i></span></p></blockquote>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Very smart Blake</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. W</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ill you come on the project?</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>These are the ideas I need</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ha</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8Pm4SjYAQs4/X63310g8ZzI/AAAAAAAAXtc/xooHH7FMMdcDuJSrJJrqKFGNE6lWwnVcgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2016/IMG_6558.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8Pm4SjYAQs4/X63310g8ZzI/AAAAAAAAXtc/xooHH7FMMdcDuJSrJJrqKFGNE6lWwnVcgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/IMG_6558.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Sinna in action, Eugene, August 2020</span></i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What was your general impression of Eugene when you visited?</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Big fan of Eugene mainly because of the people I met. You of course</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>and I randomly interviewed Tim Lewis who is a film maker who did some cool work on the Unibomber and the hard core environmentalist movements</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. W</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>e keep in touch</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #1d1d1d; font-kerning: none;">T</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">he shirtless guy</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> in your video.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #1d1d1d; font-kerning: none;"><b>Y</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>eah</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>great dude</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. B</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ut yeah it was crazy to watch your process</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> could never tell what you were taking a picture of</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>which definitely inspired me</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I never know until I see the photos. Well, I kinda know</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">But that approach only works in some situations. It’s not a good method covering politics for news outlets</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I'm always trying to make different work from the photographers around me</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. There’s a voice in my head at these events telling me to push it further than what others are doing. Y</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ou have a singular style that inspires me because it’s so unique</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I try to avoid any style. Every single exposure has its own complications and requires its own unique approach. I think shooting events which are heavily covered by many photographers is difficult in that respect. Because it's hard to claim your own material in a feeding frenzy. Or at least that's my impression, I haven't tried it much. </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Winogrand was a pro at that stuff. You look at his photos from these major events that were heavily photographed by others concurrently (<i>Public Relations</i>). Press conferences, sporting events, galas, etc. He had a knack for finding just the right space and moment to do his own thing. And his photos don't look like anyone else’s, or even like themselves.</span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lhB38f73G7c/X631_ZpfOvI/AAAAAAAAXtI/JSnxUTvSoNUWTmwB1I-SuyXII7dk8kzSwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1120/thumb_6628_1120_0_0_0_auto.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="748" data-original-width="1120" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lhB38f73G7c/X631_ZpfOvI/AAAAAAAAXtI/JSnxUTvSoNUWTmwB1I-SuyXII7dk8kzSwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h428/thumb_6628_1120_0_0_0_auto.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Garry Winogrand, New York City, 1969</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">It is much easier to claim your own vision when there is no other photographer within 2 miles. Which is most often the case when I'm shooting</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> here in Eugene. I feel like I have the whole place to myself.</span></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>It’s a big struggle definitely</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>but a lot of my time is spent in the middle of nowhere as well</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. T</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>he events are pretty few and far between recently</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d1d1d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You said you are in the desert now. Did you bring your camera?</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I have taken just a few shots in the last 2 days</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. T</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>he first short break from shooting and editing i've had in a long time</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>It's interesting what constantly photographing for 6 months will do to your brain. I don’t think I’ve really figured it out yet but there's definitely an effect</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">6 months? Try 25 years!</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">My brain is toast</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">haha</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Haha, they should scan your brain for posterity</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">They’ll just find a bunch squirrels, imported from Connecticut.</span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="color: #1d262a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>(All photos above </i></span></span><span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px;">©</span><i style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"> Sinna Nasseri unless otherwise noted.)</i></p>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-42510186667344619652020-10-01T13:24:00.002-07:002020-10-01T13:24:40.836-07:00Q & A with Ed Templeton<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><i></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><i><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OQsV9F-HUqM/X3EAAEBIxUI/AAAAAAAAXpY/H0Rf-eoqsUAJDjh5Z0zBIgZigLcvm10ugCLcBGAsYHQ/s483/13912612_1212313318802676_1413034536850938150_n.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="483" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OQsV9F-HUqM/X3EAAEBIxUI/AAAAAAAAXpY/H0Rf-eoqsUAJDjh5Z0zBIgZigLcvm10ugCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/13912612_1212313318802676_1413034536850938150_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></i></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium; unicode-bidi: embed;"><i><a href="http://ed-templeton.com/">Ed Templeton</a> is a photographer, artist, and skateboard executive based on Huntington Beach, CA. (This interview was compiled from two chats during the third week of September 2020)</i></span><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"></span></p><div class="p1" style="font-family: georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><div style="font-family: times; text-align: center;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />•</span></i></span></span></span></i></div><div><br /></div></div><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">BA: How's it going?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ET: It's going well considering.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Considering what?...</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>The pandemic.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Oh yeah. Maybe one good thing about the wildfires is that it has kind of pushed that to the back burner, at least for a little while.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yeah, tough to worry about the pandemic when your countryside is on fire spewing toxic smoke. Just makes everything worse.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I'm personally doing fine, feeling very lucky to have been able to work seamlessly from home through all of this. But after 7 months in I'm starting to go stir-crazy.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">How has the pandemic affected your shooting? Are you still going out most days? Or stuck mostly at home?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>The pandemic has definitely kneecapped my shooting so far. We used to go for a photo walk almost every day, and we normally travel quite often for things, and shoot photos on those trips. So those daytime walks and the travel have been stopped. Fortunately, I do a lot of things, so I just shifted to painting, and working on upcoming books.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>We take a night walk in our suburban tract every night, but I have barely brought my camera out on them.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I'm starting to get itchy to shoot, so I have gone out a few times just to drive or walk in the daytime recently.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Is that a big shift for you, to go out without a camera? I'm one of those people, I just take my camera everywhere as a routine thing. But I know not everyone does that</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yeah, I normally never go out without a camera! But on these night walks we literally see nobody, and there's been scant times I wanted to shoot a night photo of someone's house. Normally it's a routine thing, but since we are in our own tract, the last thing I want to do is freak out my neighbors with a flash photo at night of their house! They can find out where I live. I did shoot some cats, and a rat and took a photo of Deanna the other night. Some kids have done sidewalk chalk I’ve been meaning to shoot. It never rains here, so it stays there for weeks. Some Trump propaganda has appeared on people’s lawns, and I thought maybe I should shoot those, even though it makes my blood boil. But yes, there's no excuse to not be ready for a photo at all times.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Wow, maybe the pandemic will turn you on to a new direction. Night photos</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yeah! I like shooting at night in cities, or when I'm out and about. I usually keep a flash in my bag just in case, but my tract is so commonplace. Having said that, I should bring my camera out every time no matter what. I'm breaking my own rules!</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">You say you live in a suburban tract, which runs contrary to my mental image of Huntington Beach. I thought of it as more gritty. But that might've been just the side of Huntington Beach I was seeing in your pictures. So where you live is more of a typical suburb with lawns and sidewalks and shit? How far is it from there to say, the pier where many of your photos were taken?</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Oh yeah, HB is a fully functioning suburb, born of white flight in the 50s and 60s. An endless sprawl of tract housing, mostly conservative people, lots of Trumptards. (Although Hillary just barely won in the 2016 election, so gaining in Democrat voters) The main street used to be gritty and cool in the 80s. A very surf / local boy culture, lots of fistfights. I had friends that wore rubber mouthpieces around their necks because they would fight the local skinheads so often. But since then it has become fully "Starbucks and Jamba Juiced" out. It's all micro breweries, bars, restaurants. Pretty much the usual gentrification. </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Huntington Beach’s downtown was a summer beach destination for wealthy Angelinos in the 1920s and '30s and now a lot of those old single story beach cottages are being torn down and massive 3 story homes are being wedged into the skinny lots. There's still a mild locals only vibe, but it's mostly young wealthy suburbanites. There's also a lot of flat-billed baseball cap wearing dudes with sketchy vaguely racist tattoos, and suddenly everyone is a trained MMA fighter or trying to look like one. Pit bulls and tribal tattoos. The photos of mine you see from HB are mostly shot in that downtown area, Main street and the beach and pier. I live about 3 miles from downtown. There’s a still a remnant of grit. It's kinda like Venice beach lite.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> People come here to be seen, to parade and peacock around. The easy access to parking and food bring crowds on summer weekends, and therefore the religious zealots come to preach to those crowds. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>There's a drum circle on Sundays and it's a total freakshow. </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Ever join the drum circle?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I've shot photos of the drum circle, but never joined in!</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-syFzdExeoA0/X3TdFNECuKI/AAAAAAAAXq0/v5HoSSUCZj8PUy3-8gPVohlM3z22iP-FgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/Homeless-man-with-money-in-nose-HB-V2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="961" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-syFzdExeoA0/X3TdFNECuKI/AAAAAAAAXq0/v5HoSSUCZj8PUy3-8gPVohlM3z22iP-FgCLcBGAsYHQ/w428-h640/Homeless-man-with-money-in-nose-HB-V2.jpg" width="428" /></a></div><br /><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I've never actually been to HB but I've been to Laguna Beach if it's anything like that?</p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Laguna Beach is way nicer, that's where we go when we want to enjoy the beach.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> <b>They actually have taken steps to keep their charm and restrict some of the rampant gentrification. It’s harder to park there too, so the beaches are typically not as packed, and the water is much nicer. You can snorkel there.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Has the gentrification in HB made it harder for you to find the types of subjects that appeal photographically?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yes it has fully transformed in my lifetime. I skated down there starting in 1985, and still go down there to shoot into the 2020s so the change has been interesting to watch. On paper the vibe down there is the polar opposite of the kind of place we actually like, but it has always been so good for photos, and it's close to home. I have been thinking about the fact that I seem to be drawn to shooting things and places that I’m critical of. I’m worried that I’m a “hate shooter.” I enjoy shooting the things I dislike about human nature rather than the things I like. It’s not 100% true, maybe only when I’m in the USA? </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>We try to see past the people and enjoy the ocean and the sea life. It’s really an amazing place on that level. Perfect weather always, etc. My photos probably lie a bit in that I'm particularly looking for the things that stick out to me in this place, and I'm not shooting photos of the average family dressed normally with their kids in stroller. I'm focused on the religious zealot yelling at them instead.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I guess that leads to the next question. What <i>are</i> the types of things you are drawn to photographing? And why do you think you're attracted to them? Is there some connection to your skating youth? Maybe you want to shoot people who remind you of that spirit?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>There's the million dollar question! My entire photo practice has been almost 100% whatever falls in front of my face as I navigate through life. I started shooting in earnest in 1994 while on skateboard tours, wanting to document the people and lifestyle around me at the time (influenced by Nan Goldin, Jim Goldberg, and Larry Clark). That quickly branched into shooting photos anywhere, anytime but always because I was wherever I was because of skateboarding. And then as I started showing art, the travel started shifting from skateboard tours to art exhibitions (doing both of those for many years simultaneously). So I would be shooting street photos in Barcelona or Copenhagen, for instance because I was there for either and exhibition or a skate tour. I don't think I have ever gone somewhere just to shoot photos. There has always been another reason for the trip. So now, for example, if I need to go to Tokyo for something one of my sponsors is organizing, I will go do the job, but then usually arrange to stay for an extra week or two just to walk around and shoot photos. I guess I’m trying to say that I have never planned ahead of time, like, ”Hey, I’d like to go to South Africa to document the townships" or something like that. All of my photography has been very organic. </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><br /></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MLOUOvOkJA8/X3D_JqwrhdI/AAAAAAAAXpQ/tFcZ0DFnHucnKI9WFB7Odx9A9CbV9VGAACLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/Girl-swallows-snake-HB-US-open-bikini-V2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="968" data-original-width="1440" height="430" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MLOUOvOkJA8/X3D_JqwrhdI/AAAAAAAAXpQ/tFcZ0DFnHucnKI9WFB7Odx9A9CbV9VGAACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h430/Girl-swallows-snake-HB-US-open-bikini-V2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><br /></b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>SO, that leads to the answer. I think I am drawn to anything that is interesting to me, mostly people and how they present themselves and act. I trust my eye and sensibilities as I walk around to guide me. I probably err on the side of being a tad cynical. I like shooting people most. I think that is the hardest kind of photo to take, so I enjoy the rush of getting close and seeing and and trying to compose and capture a little slice of reality that can transcend the moment and tell a story on its own. Although I'm sure many of mine do not succeed on that level, and of course they are open to varying interpretations, that's the idea.</b></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I know a few other photographers who were once skaters. Do you think there's any crossover between the two skillsets? Maybe the ability to be in the moment, or have your brain in a state of flow? Or who knows? (I'm not a skater, just speculating). </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yeah, there's a lot actually. I think at its core skateboarding draws in creative types, and so in many ways skateboarding was another tool, like a camera or brush for self expression. Spike Jonze the academy award winning director comes from skateboarding and BMX, as well as film director Mike Mills. Jason Lee is another example. So many more, Mark Gonzales. The professional side of skateboarding is deeply entwined with video and film cameras because documenting your skill for magazines and films is the whole point of being pro. My early exposure to cameras came from being a sponsored skater and having to go out every day with guys whose job it was to shoot me. All this was very informal, but I learned a lot from being around those guys and basically was exposed to fine art photography through them too. I do think there is a connection actually with street photography and skateboarding in that as skaters you are part of that street milieu. You are amongst the homeless, the security guards, the cops, etc. You have an awareness of the mood and feelings the "street" gives off. Being a skater has made me more comfortable in many street situations. But as I age I feel like those benefits fade away. I still have the reading of the situation down, but visually I'm just a frumpy middle aged white dude, so the "being part of the milieu" part is a bit harder.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I like the “flow” thing you said too. There's certainly a flow to street skating, and also to street photography. You can get into good grooves doing both. I have actually felt it leave me before. Have you had that? You're walking and shooting and then you miss a great opportunity for a photo and there it goes, the flow of the day just left you because you missed it. After that it's like you switched tracks and nothing goes right after.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Oh yeah, of course. There are always missed shots and regrets. That's just part of photography.</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I think I've learned to just accept it. I don't beat myself up too much. As far as the flow thing, that's definitely an aspect. Sometimes I'm seeing really well and photos just fall in front of me. And other times that doesn't happen. I think there's a bit of warmup period involved. Like if I'm shooting for several hours, by the end of that I'll usually be in a pretty good head space. </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>True, you have to work through the funk, I guess.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">What is sometimes tough is to go out and feel kind of defeated, like why am I doing this, there are no photos, what's the point? Because just when you convince yourself of that mindset is usually when the good photos crop up</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">It's like the world kicking sand in your face.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Exactly!</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>If I miss a photo that I totally saw coming, either by flubbing it, wrong positioning, or just plain wussing out, I can get pretty bummed on myself, like I spend all this time and effort to get to this point in time and then I blow it at the moment of truth? So frustrating. People forget how many failures it takes to come up with 10 good photos.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Haha, that's surprising you'd get frustrated after all this time</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">You've been shooting for like 30+ years?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Since 1994, 26 years I guess, feels longer. </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hAoYnVmnIO8/X2ujcDRKdeI/AAAAAAAAXms/2PC-hwjB9JAO1VDRjW2sgGlIdOdZFDk7ACLcBGAsYHQ/s700/152_Sexy-Lady-Russia-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="489" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hAoYnVmnIO8/X2ujcDRKdeI/AAAAAAAAXms/2PC-hwjB9JAO1VDRjW2sgGlIdOdZFDk7ACLcBGAsYHQ/w448-h640/152_Sexy-Lady-Russia-2.jpg" width="448" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Have you ever witnessed a paranormal event?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Paranormal? I have been on some long drives in the dessert on tours, while listening to Coast to Coast radio and probably wished myself into believing I witnessed something paranormal. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>But in fact, no, I don't think I've ever witnessed something that could not be explained.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I think paranormal events maybe happen in the same way as photos. Just when you've convinced yourself they are unreal and nothing strange is happening is maybe when they pop up</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Not that I've ever seen one.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I deeply wish I was able to be in that mind space, because I feel like my skeptical mind is kinda boring.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">My first girlfriend in high school was able to leave her body</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">She would travel outside it and float around the neighborhood and spy on people. At least this is what she told me</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I don't think she was lying. Something in her brain thought it was real. And maybe it was? </span>She was part Native American. </p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>How many drugs did she do?</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Haha, mostly just pot</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I have experienced some psychedelic situations while sick that are probably not dissimilar to an acid trip or a vision quest. I think any state a drug can put you in is also achievable within your own body if you push it there.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">You were ill enough that the chemistry in your brain was psychedelic?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yeah, having an extreme fever, I read, can be the same as the experience felt using acid or mushrooms, etc. And the native American "vision quest" or the Aboriginal "walkabout" is a rite of passage where you starve yourself and push your body to an extreme and have similar experiences without drugs.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>You come back from those trips and changed person. Makes me want to try psychedelics. But I haven't ever.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">They're coming back in style. Oregon has a ballot measure in November to legalize psilocybin for therapeutic uses. Hopefully it passes. We'll see.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I guess all of this goes back to flow states and the proper mental outlook for skating or for seeing photos. Personally I've never had any good luck seeing pictures on drugs or sick. Alcohol does allow some freedom from shooting inhibitions, and sometimes good pictures happen. But I don't feel I'm in control of them, so it's a mixed bag.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Ha! I could imaging being drunk while shooting could be a barrier breaker, but yeah, the focus might be sketchy. Regarding psychedelics I have heard some podcasts about them recently, micro-dosing and all of that. I have been doing OK for 47 years without any drugs, so I guess I'm kinda scared about a drastic change in my brain. Would it be a benefit or a curse? The only way is to try I guess.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Yeah, maybe give psychedelics a try if you want. Personally I'm too old for that stuff. Anyway </span>I'm curious about when you are out shooting at the pier in Huntington Beach (before the pandemic), if you visit that space which is relatively small regularly over a long course of time, do people begin to recognize you there? Are you known as the local photo guy? Or as Ed Templeton? And if so, is that lack of anonymity a problem?</p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yes to all of those questions! I would say that most people do not know or recognize me, so it's not as bad as you might think most days. But some days I feel like the mayor down there, people yelling at me, waving left and right. This all comes from me being known as a skateboarder, not an artist. I have had people stalk me on the pier, or DM me on Instagram to ask when I'll be there so they can get a deck signed or something. I've had a guy secretly try to photograph me without being noticed and post the photos to his Instagram. I can feel myself being looked at by skaters who recognize me at times, and it makes it hard to shoot knowing I'm being watched. Because nothing is weirder than watching a photographer try to get photos. We look super creepy at times. I'd rather have them just come up and say Hi. We can chat and it's over rather than being followed around. Many times, Murphy's Law kicks in and right when I'm about to approach a photo, when my awareness is focussed on the task at hand, that is exactly when a fan will come up and yell out "Ed!" and I have to abort my photo stalk and have a chat. I'm super glad to talk with people though, don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled anyone even wants to say hello to me because I touched them in any way through skateboarding or art or photography. It's an honor to me to get to talk with people in that way. But it's just funny how it always seems to happen right when I'm about to shoot a photo.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>There are locals I avoid, and others I stop and chat with most days. So it's kind of a blessing and a curse being in the same place every day. What's crazy to me is how clueless many people are. People I have seen almost every day for years seem like they are seeing me for the first time over and over again. Maybe I'm that nondescript?</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t49202sLW9A/X3EBPRuL3GI/AAAAAAAAXps/a4G9Vxj_oj8Z-BWNKR7ihbB3mx4wgNHcgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/Twerking-from-Car-HB-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="976" data-original-width="1440" height="434" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t49202sLW9A/X3EBPRuL3GI/AAAAAAAAXps/a4G9Vxj_oj8Z-BWNKR7ihbB3mx4wgNHcgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h434/Twerking-from-Car-HB-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">If you are nondescript count it as a blessing. That's helpful for candid photography</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I see a guy who films bikini girls twice a week in summer down there. I see his techniques. He tries to look one way while filming the other and has a swivel screen on his video cam he can look at. I always wonder if he has never seen the internet? Why film girls in bikinis when you can just see whatever you want at the click of a button? But he probably has the same fever I have for shooting photos towards getting his shots. I think he finally recognizes me recognizing him and it's awkward. Many people witnessing me shooting on the beach would no doubt lump me in the same category as him, just another perv.</b></span></p><p></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">What exactly is a pervert? </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>We all have our perversions. I think intent is a major factor on how to judge a person's actions.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">The definition of pervert is pretty relative. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I mean homosexuality used be considered perversion. Now it's accepted</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. Some people might consider polyamory or pegging perverted. It's completely arbitrary. And of course street photography is perverted to some observers. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">You mean you're out there shooting pictures of strangers!? WTF? You pig! Why not shoot your kids or a sunset?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Exactly. They can't fathom why you are out there shooting strangers. Especially in skateboarding. Lots of my Instagram followers do so because of skateboarding and yet my entire page is mostly photos, books and art. But lots of them can’t wrap their head around the idea that some skater they know spends his time shooting randoms.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I got yelled at by a cop last year, super loudly, he was trying to embarrass me, calling me a pervert. They were actually hassling a couple for drinking on the beach, a boy and a girl both in bathing suits, and I shot the interaction with the cops and then when he saw me and started flipping out. He's like "You shot that girls butt!" And I'm like, "From where I am her butt would show up on my photo the size of a pencil eraser. I was shooting you hassling them!"</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">But to be fair you have shot girl's butts before</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>There are bikini butts in my photos for sure. Shooting at the beach it's inevitable.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>And I will readily admit that the presence of both men and women in bathing suits make the images more compelling on some level.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I think the reason you might do that, and the reason that a guy likes to shoot women in bikinis is the same as the basic urge behind all photography. At a certain level it's about control over the world. Wanting to capture it and seal it off and box it up, even if it's just one little tiny 35 mm bit of the world. Because the rest of the world is beyond control.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I have for sure crossed into pervert territory while shooting down there, but I'm a shoot-first-ask-questions-later type of person. The choice for me comes when I decide what to show, what to include in a book or exhibition, and what context to put it in.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Context is helpful. Knowing about the person behind any art is helpful.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>So, for instance I have a photo of a guy using a long lens to shoot bikini butts from the pier, and I may, in the context of a book, pair that photo with a photo of some sunbathing women to illustrate that point. Taken out of context the image of the sunbathing women might seem a bit frivolous.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I have photos from my skateboard tours of girls having their breasts signed. I am always careful to write on the prints where I am coming from to give context to the photos, because I know there is an alternative reading to the photo out of context that might be, "look, boobies!"</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vNA0YPdC-mA/X3EAotLrhrI/AAAAAAAAXpk/2eTQLqoRdZouOezTTpgnsR8R18QIGT0RACLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/book-11-Tosh-signs-cleavage.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1148" data-original-width="1440" height="510" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vNA0YPdC-mA/X3EAotLrhrI/AAAAAAAAXpk/2eTQLqoRdZouOezTTpgnsR8R18QIGT0RACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h510/book-11-Tosh-signs-cleavage.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /></span><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">H</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">ow do you generally decide what to show...for example on Instagram?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>For Instagram I have been very open to showing anything, but for sure I need to "read the room" when it comes to certain photos because no matter what text is included or context provided, it's still being blasted to 200 thousand people from all walks of life. These followers aren't people who came to a gallery specifically to see my work. It's just coming across their screen at random.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I like that your feed is pretty scattershot, or at least that's how it seems as a viewer. You might show a photo from 20 years ago, then a recent one, bouncing between projects. I can't really find any obvious rhythm or sequence. I kind of like the playfulness. You must have a pretty well organized system to pull all these shots out from different places. I mean, those two you sent me from Eugene. It might take me weeks to track down pictures from a specific city.</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6GukLJliB6s/X2ukZi4cDZI/AAAAAAAAXm8/77vggmPmPA80F8UCM6lGrcecQ6fmprJ7wCLcBGAsYHQ/s712/21-74%2BHappy%2BParade%2BEugene%2BOR.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="712" height="436" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6GukLJliB6s/X2ukZi4cDZI/AAAAAAAAXm8/77vggmPmPA80F8UCM6lGrcecQ6fmprJ7wCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h436/21-74%2BHappy%2BParade%2BEugene%2BOR.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Let me ask you about that Eugene photo. The second one I recognize as near the train station. But I can't figure out where you shot the first one (with the balloons). Do you remember where or what the event was?</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1JCwP8JJJcQ/X2ukqmTGzlI/AAAAAAAAXnE/RJbNe8D25lgz2EDL00iEHdv8BR7Q-e2GQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1376/ed%2527s%2Bphoto.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="1376" height="396" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1JCwP8JJJcQ/X2ukqmTGzlI/AAAAAAAAXnE/RJbNe8D25lgz2EDL00iEHdv8BR7Q-e2GQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h396/ed%2527s%2Bphoto.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">14th and Willamette, Eugene, OR (GSV)</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>It was a parade happening on one of the main drags there I think, Willamette or Amazon? I think it was 2005. I was there visiting my aunt Margie who lives there. I think her and her daughter Ariana took us to see the parade.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">And I assume they're all shot on film? </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">T</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">hat just adds to the organizational headache</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Oh yeah, I think I realized early on that if you can't find the photo you know you shot, then what’s the point! So many of my friends have unorganized or lightly organized boxes of negatives and it takes them a whole day just to find a photo they know they shot. I have a pretty good system that works for me. Yes, it's all on film. I get my processing and proof sheets done at a lab in LA. There's no labs I trust around me locally. So it's an hour drive to my lab. Once I get the proofs back I sit down down and flatbed scan all of them and then separate each individual photo worth archiving into it's own .jpg with the number of the binder and and the proof number within that binder, along with the relevant keywords that will fit in a Mac file title. So If I'm looking for a photo that I shot of my friend Josh Harmony 15 years ago jumping off a bridge into a river, I just have to search for "Josh Bridge" and I'll get a file like: "17-25 Josh harmony jumping off bridge.jpg" That tells me that negative is in Binder 17 and on Proof 25 in that binder. </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">So if you need a shot of Eugene you just type in the city</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Yes. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>It makes bookmaking way easier too. I lay out books using the lo-res images off my proofsheets and only when the sequence and edit is final do I go and pull all the negs to be printed or scanned.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Dang, that' s a lot of work. But worth it. </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Coming back from a trip with 30 or 40 rolls is daunting, but it only takes a few hours a day over a couple of weeks to get them logged in. Most of the time it's only 5 to 10 at a time.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">My system is nowhere near that digitized. I shoot film but my archiving system is all analog. So it's harder to find things</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Oh wow, how do you do it?</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I shoot film, process and make proof sheets, same as you. But my editing takes place in the darkroom. I go through every frame and make a work print of the ones which interest me. It's in the organizing of work prints that I run into trouble. Some are easily categorized. But a lot of them don't fit into easy labels so they just float around in boxes.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Oh wow! That seems like even more work! Making a print of each one? That's nice to have I bet, but seems like a lot of work.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">It's a lot of work but it's actually fun. I like the darkroom. And I like the process of going through negatives and printing. it's like a treasure hunt. I never know what I'll find, e</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">ven though I shot it. I should know</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">but I don’t</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I tend to like and want to archive so many photos that making a print of each one would be crazy. I usually log about half the roll.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Yeah my hit rate is way less, maybe 1-3 frames per roll. Sometimes more. Sometimes none</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Not that I'll ever use half of every roll, it's just I might for some reason want to be able to find it.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Plus it's fun to find typologies within my archive. I have done some zines that are literally search a word and make a zine from the results.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">"<a href="http://ed-templeton.com/photography/teenage-kissers/">Teenage Kissers</a>"?</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">That's a book actually not a zine</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">But maybe it started as a keyword?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Kissers was a concept first based on <a href="http://ed-templeton.com/photography/teenage-smokers/">Teenage Smokers</a>, but yes, finding the photos was easy because I just had to search the word "Kiss."</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sxG8Vzebd6Q/X2ugur6I4-I/AAAAAAAAXmI/SfZwsWpRe8sx5mowGxD53WAF-iQQYH7vgCLcBGAsYHQ/s720/105_finland%2Bnecklace.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sxG8Vzebd6Q/X2ugur6I4-I/AAAAAAAAXmI/SfZwsWpRe8sx5mowGxD53WAF-iQQYH7vgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/105_finland%2Bnecklace.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /></span><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>The zines <a href="http://ed-templeton.com/zines/lick/">Lick</a> and <a href="http://ed-templeton.com/zines/umbrella/">Umbrella</a> and Makeup Girls (<a href="http://ed-templeton.com/zines/make-up-girls/">1</a> and <a href="http://ed-templeton.com/zines/make-up-girls-revisited-zine/">2</a>!) were made like that.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline; unicode-bidi: embed;"></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Speaking of keywords, someone told me that you created #photojousting. Is that true?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I think that is true!</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I wanted to use a word to share photobooks that was weird enough that your average hashtagger wouldn't use it unless they were in the know. I mean have you ever clicked the hashtag #Streetphotgraphy? It's all fucking over the place. You need to use a strange word to make it specific.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">"Jousting" is an uncommon word. Is there some competitive angle too? Like fighting?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>When I first got on instagram I started a thing called #StickerWars so people could share old skate stickers. That's where the idea came from. Then I was like how can I share photobooks? The hashtag #Photobooks is too general, so I threw jousting on there to make it specific and I'm glad it has been adopted!</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">It almost has the same problem as #streetphotography. It's so widely used that it's overwhelming</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Like if you follow that hashtag you just get buried.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>That's the only downside to the word I chose, is that it implies that you are bragging about your book collection, which it kind of is, but the word choice was mostly used to be weird enough that your average mother in Kansas would't use it when sharing her photo album or book of pretty flowers. It was for photography book nerds to share actual fine art photo books.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Do you remember what the very first #photojousting post was?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ebRpZ8f2KwU/X3ED8wCpB8I/AAAAAAAAXqU/f-DqcD5A-VYkDjvYL8JxXByfAON_l9eAQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/IMG-5772.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ebRpZ8f2KwU/X3ED8wCpB8I/AAAAAAAAXqU/f-DqcD5A-VYkDjvYL8JxXByfAON_l9eAQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/IMG-5772.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I'd have to dig down!</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I also use #Edsphotobooks to show my own collection</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>so you can see just the ones I have posted.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>The first book at the bottom of #edsphotobooks is a book by Cheryl Dunn, <i>Bicycle Gangs of New York</i>. That might be the first #photobookjousting!</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I don't know that book</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> but </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Cheryl Dunn is rad</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. What about your own books? What are you working on now?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Most days I’m just trying to avoid a terrible skid of procrastination. I’ve been painting a lot. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I just finished helping Deanna with her book “What She Said” that will be published by Mack next year. I designed it with her, so that was many weeks of pre-press stuff. Color correction and fixing of drum scans, proof printing, all sorts of challenges to overcome. I personally have multiple future book projects I’m slowly editing. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I printed photos in the darkroom yesterday.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eT5PfhxCk6w/X3EEWGKAx2I/AAAAAAAAXqc/HIZdoMBzEagafROvxuTnWffMnaQynOmGACLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/IMG-5774.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eT5PfhxCk6w/X3EEWGKAx2I/AAAAAAAAXqc/HIZdoMBzEagafROvxuTnWffMnaQynOmGACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/IMG-5774.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I was in the darkroom yesterday too. What were you printing?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I was printing a few photos for my <i>Wires Crossed</i> book. There are a number of photos in the book that I want to print first, write on physically, then scan for inclusion in the book.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>It will be a mix of drum scans from the negatives, and print scans.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VOSPAleM1AM/X2ufg1Kb5cI/AAAAAAAAXl8/yL6aH8mdv6ICTZXQZzx_qRe765f_FcRqgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1036/157_Wires_Crossed_6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1036" height="432" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VOSPAleM1AM/X2ufg1Kb5cI/AAAAAAAAXl8/yL6aH8mdv6ICTZXQZzx_qRe765f_FcRqgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h432/157_Wires_Crossed_6.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /></span><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">@<a href="https://www.instagram.com/wires_crossed/?hl=en"><i>WiresCrossed</i> is also your IG account</a> (one of them). So the book will be photos from that?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Actually there are almost no photos on the @WiresCrossed account that are in the book. I have been posting mostly out-takes and ephemeral stuff on that IG for now. Once the production really ramps up I'll be posting more.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>But yes, that account is the hype account for this project which I have been working on since I started shooting.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I probably should have finished it a few years ago, but with all major life works, it's daunting to even start. There's so much work.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">That’s the story of every photographer. It's a volume-based art. You're just always dealing with scads of shit, compared to say painters or sculptors who might do just a handful of things a month. </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>For sure, as photographers we're literally constantly editing. Almost every night I just sit and "prune" my archive. Open folders, look through, rename things, edit things, fix problems. It's a daily thing or it gets moldy. I finally went through, systematically, book by book, binder by binder for this project, doing the due diligence to see every possible photo I've ever shot and make sure it is or isn't part of this series. I did that because there have been past books where because of an archiving mistake, I have missed photos that would have been included in a book. That just kills me knowing I had a photo that would have been used and I never found it.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I think that goes to the core of who we are as photographers. The nature of editing and winnowing down is so important. More than for most other creatives maybe?</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Or maybe that's just self-centered view</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I think photographers generally have a packrat issue which is pretty central to the art too. So perhaps just being buried in reams of shit is a comfort zone for photographers</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Hoarders. They could make a TV show about photographers which would be not much different</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Photographers are for sure obsessed collectors, and those collections keep growing and becoming more hairy. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I also have hoarding tendencies.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Deanna keeps my clutter at bay. It's a good balance.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mhtUuUrqBSE/X3EFpZ3sQ1I/AAAAAAAAXqo/rXX_K9haU6Ib1vk7ew7WN-VBTorgLecOgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/IMG-5769.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mhtUuUrqBSE/X3EFpZ3sQ1I/AAAAAAAAXqo/rXX_K9haU6Ib1vk7ew7WN-VBTorgLecOgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/IMG-5769.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /></span><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">But wait, she' s a photographer too. But not a hoarder?</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">There goes my theory, oh well.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>She is not so much a hoarder. She has her crap as well. As a film shooter her shelf with binders keeps growing too, but overall she keeps things tidy, and puts up with my messy little corners of the house. </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">So what goes into the <i>Wires Crossed</i> book? </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><i>Wires Crossed</i> is a look at my life as a pro skater, seen from the inside. It's a real look at what the lifestyle was like in a certain era, mostly before cell phones in skateboarding.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I was pro for 4 years before I realized that the life I was living and the people I was surrounded by were incredible and more than worthy of being documented, so I really dove in in 1994 and started carrying a camera always, and being that guy who was never 100% in the moment, because I was trying to observe from the outside.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I had to worry about having a camera, not getting it stolen, and deciding when to participate in the shenanigans and when to shoot. I was always the sober guy, and the owner of the company, so I always kept my head about me while essentially enabling the behavior of the kids around me. Both indulging them but also keeping them safe, and getting us the next spot on time.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>The book will be a document about youth, fame, self-medication, testosterone, lust, brutality of skateboarding, boredom, the road.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Have you seen that new Ari Marcopoulos book <a href="https://www.dashwoodbooks.com/pages/books/19834/ari-marcopoulos/polaroids-92-95-ca">Polaroids 92-95</a>? Maybe you guys know each other?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I know Ari. I’ve known him since 94 too! He did a similar book to the one I'm doing. His was on snowboarders called <i>Transitions and Exits</i> I think. Sort of an inside look at the life of pro snowboarders. I have his latest polaroid book, I like it! I #photobookjousted it on my story recently. Our work is not at all similar though. He was always an outsider. And those Polaroids are almost more about fashion and personality than about what it feels like to be a pro skater and what we actually do. I was less interested in portraits, and more interested in actions, emotions, telling a potential viewer the story of what this life was like.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Sort of going for that decisive moment in the HCB vein, but also the raw emotion and feeling of it in the Frank style. If I may be so presumptuous.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">That's an interesting division you highlight, between those in the scene and "outsiders". From your earlier description it sounds like that's something you wrestled with even as you were taking part and shooting. That division between "when do I skate" and "when do I stand back and take a picture" is maybe insurmountable. I don't know if it's possible to do both. I have the same dilemma I shoot my kids. Like, when am I a photographer and when am I a parent? Because those roles don't always agree</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Do I put a bandaid on the cut? Or take a photo first? Sally Mann's problem.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I was always tortured by that fact. I would be "doing my job" aka skating a demo, which means basically I, along with the team, skate a park for about 4 hours straight and then mingle and sign autographs for an hour or two after. It was my responsibility to set the tone of professionalism and keep focussed, but I would always see something going on on the sidelines that I would want to shoot. Some of my fellow skaters would check out early and go shooting while we all skated (Looking at you Jerry Hsu! -that was later, 2010). So for me, as soon as was possible I'd go to the van, get my camera, and try to shoot what I could along the fringes. It haunts me how much I missed.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">But that's just it. You couldn't do both at once. You had to either skate or photograph. But not both at once</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yeah, you can't skate with your Leica on! I had that test in 2003 or something. I was in Wisconsin for my brother’s wedding. My grandparents and my mom had flown out. We were all getting into a car together and my grandpa was driving. He thought everyone was in but my grandma was half in and half out when he took off and it launched her face-first onto the pavement. I was sitting there, camera in hand, and she lay on the asphalt, we were all yelling, and I actually thought, "what a great photo" - but in reality I rushed around and picked her up, and cradled her chin, as her blood filled up my hand. I shot every aspect after that, the hospital visit for stitches, and all. But that moment made me think, “Am I a bad photographer? - Where was my killer instinct?” It actually fucked with me for a while because I thought I could have shot one, and it wouldn't have hurt anything, but I didn't. I have crossed the lines other times, but I think I have my priorities straight.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Yeah I've had a few of those. It kind of goes back to what we talked about earlier. You're going to miss shots. It's just going to happen. So are you going to beat yourself up about it or do the healthy thing and move forward?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FDUaHJF5Awk/X2ulDZ2H5NI/AAAAAAAAXnM/7hALRXvM79wsgnkwm_qsVbf7QDAhcZaEwCLcBGAsYHQ/s700/156_Man%2Bwalks%2BSign%2BFlare%2BZurich%2BLighter.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="492" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FDUaHJF5Awk/X2ulDZ2H5NI/AAAAAAAAXnM/7hALRXvM79wsgnkwm_qsVbf7QDAhcZaEwCLcBGAsYHQ/w450-h640/156_Man%2Bwalks%2BSign%2BFlare%2BZurich%2BLighter.jpg" width="450" /></a></div><br /><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yeah, you gotta move on.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">But maybe what you're talking about is something deeper if it makes you question your basic outlook as a photographer. Like, what am I made of? If I was James Nachtwey I'd shoot that bloody corpse without a second thought. But I've known for a while I'm not him</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Yeah, the </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Nachtwey</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> problem. You have to convince yourself that you’re doing something to help, otherwise you’re just a disaster tourist, a succubus of human misery. Albeit I’m operating at wildly different stakes than he is, my injured grandma isn’t in the same league as bringing light to the suffering in Rwanda, for example. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Having kids, that mini-dilemma must happen all the time!</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">My kids are teenagers now but there's a period in a kid's life, like maybe ages 3-12, where they are just a walking, talking photo op. Completely unselfconscious and body positive and doing bizarre chaotic stuff all the time. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">So that’s just the reality of being a parent, for me anyway. For a while there I was surrounded by photo ops 24/7, and I just had to accept that I was going to miss some things, and maybe even put away the camera once in a while. But that was rare.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yeah, for sure. I think I mentioned before I like to shoot first and ask questions later. So I shoot all sorts of stuff that is questionable, or breaks the rules, or follows the tropes too closely, but I want to have everything that strikes me captured so I can decide later how and when, if ever, to use it.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">You talked earlier about printing photos and then writing on them. Which I think is pretty awesome. I also love some of the pictures I've seen by you (can't remember which project) where you hand color the prints. What inspired you to do that? How did you do it? And do you do much of that anymore? </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0LWhuRM3iJM/X3ECJvY3KsI/AAAAAAAAXp4/V_wIgcFhAbI_glIEcnmdZvRlm4DQmWQYgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/Helsinki-Joiner-Girls.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="687" data-original-width="1440" height="306" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0LWhuRM3iJM/X3ECJvY3KsI/AAAAAAAAXp4/V_wIgcFhAbI_glIEcnmdZvRlm4DQmWQYgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h306/Helsinki-Joiner-Girls.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yeah, I still do it! Some of my early inspirations in photography were people who also used writing, collage, and paint on their work. Robert Frank after <i>The Americans</i> is a good example. Then Jim Goldberg's <i>Rich and Poor</i> series and of course <i>Raised by Wolves</i> is possibly my all time fave. I was really into Peter Beard too, and even Allen Ginsberg. Those were people what took the print and made it into something different. In Ginsberg's case the photos are not even that great, but when you read the story of who is in the photo and the mood he was in while shooting, it makes the photo greater than that singular frozen second. I'm a big fan of David Hockney too, and his work as a photographer and also his later criticism of it. He said, "Photography is great if you like seeing the world from the perspective of a paralyzed cyclops" or something like that.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>And he is right, there is no "time" in a photograph. It is such a frozen millisecond, without much depth. But that’s also why I love it.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>So I think it was those artists that pushed me to, if I feel the need, to paint or write on a story on a print. A bit of context can really help a viewer understand where you the photographer are coming from. Ideally the photo works on its own, but sometimes if the meaning isn't as readable, or in cases where the first obvious meaning was not how I saw the photo, then some text can help set that straight, and help the viewer see it from your headspace.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">What do you use to color? Is it watercolor? Or photo oils? Sorry to ask a technical question</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I have no secrets!</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I use acrylic ink, watered down, so it's essentially watercolor, but I think it dries more stable. On a fiber print it’s almost sublimated into the print. I have also colored prints by soaking them and applying the ink while it's wet.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I keep waiting for hand coloring to have a revival. But it keeps staying underground</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Vivianne Sassen has been doing some cool stuff with it. And Boris Mikhailov. And outside of that...??? It's pretty dead now</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I'm a massive Boris Mikhailov fan.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">You ever fuck with prints during the exposure process?</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I mean in the darkroom?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Um, not as much. I mostly make pretty straight prints. I have done some after the fact toning before, blue toner, which I liked. But during the darkroom process, not as much. I tried paint on emulsion once. Would like to do that more. And I have tried to expose a wet paper once. That looked pretty trippy and could possibly be cool if you had the right project for it.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Sometimes I spritz water on areas of the paper before exposure. It can look pretty funky</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Fixer too. But that's way harder to control</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I think if I had the right series, it could be a great thing to do. But I have 20 future series in my head and at only 47 years old I'm starting to think I'll never get to most of them!</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">In the old days they would handwrite the caption directly onto the print before exposure. I'm not sure how. Maybe on the negative, or on a glass covering? Anyway, it looked beautiful. </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>They use a clear film with the writing in opaque ink. Then you lay it over the paper while exposing and you get the white letters burned in.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I tried that too!</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">And?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>It looked exactly like those old photos you see! </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>You could do all sorts of designs in theory. I did it because I love the old look of that on historical photos.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>It's never been in a book or anything, just a few prints in some shows I did.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">So we are talking about experimenting, and printing techniques, and maybe this is a good time to circle back to photobooks. In particular your book <i>Deformer</i>, which I bought in maybe 2010 (?) and was my introduction to your photos (and your life story, etc). </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">That book has a little bit of everything in terms of photo experiments. Plus every other art form</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">Can you tell a little bit about the process of making that book? How did it come together? And how did it reach a publisher?</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CTu5o8lIy4E/X2uhBUupIPI/AAAAAAAAXmQ/ovgVmg_AzfU_b_25kwVe7m2dQEdAN08cgCLcBGAsYHQ/s750/23_Deformer-spread1_v2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="750" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CTu5o8lIy4E/X2uhBUupIPI/AAAAAAAAXmQ/ovgVmg_AzfU_b_25kwVe7m2dQEdAN08cgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/23_Deformer-spread1_v2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>That book along with <i>Wires Crossed</i> were my first ideas when I started. I wanted to document skaters, then quickly after that wanted to do a series about growing up in suburbia and how family life and environment ”deforms" you into who you become. The book was originally supposed be published by Greybull Press who was run by Roman Alonso and Lisa Eisner. (Mike Eisner was the CEO of Disney at the time, and Lisa was married to his brother.) But right before it was about to go into production they ran out of money. Lisa arranged for the book to be shown to Rizzoli, and we started talking and it was going to be published by Rizzoli which in many ways was a massive upgrade, Rizzoli is huge and would have really got that book into more hands. When it came to the "lawyer" phase things got weird. I had a call with the lawyers in NYC, we each had a book dummy in our hands, and we went through image by image and they had me describe the situation for each image. Was it public? Are the people underage? etc. Although most of the book was shot in public, for the lawyers it boiled down to 3 or 4 images that they were worried about. Some young kids smoking a cigarette inside a park was the main one. They thought it wasn't public enough, and that the kids, being underage, would expose them legally. At the exact moment when I had to figure out what I was going to do Aaron Rose came along and said, “Do <i>Deformer</i> with me.” He had a multi-book deal with the Italian publisher Damiani. They had already done a Barry McGee book, a Mike Mills and Ari Marcopolous book. So I was able to walk from the Rizzoli deal, and the Damiani lawyers, if they even have one, never asked me anything.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Haha, that's hilarious. All the crazy stuff in that book and the lawyers get hung up on some kids smoking!</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>The book was in production for a long time, 5 years I think, and it changed a lot over that time. I'm glad I had the time, because at first it was a "kitchen sink" type of book (put everything in!) For many, it probably still seems that way! But believe me it was way bigger and more chaotic at the start. I was really able to focus in and edit out a lot of stuff that was extraneous to the central idea. Even though looking at it now I still see so many photos that probably belong to other projects. Part 1 is me showing ephemeral items from my upbringing, my shitty dad who beat us and left us (he just died recently I found out) and my grandfather’s attempts at fathering me (so lucky to have a father figure from his generation in my life) and my meeting Deanna. Sort of making the case, "This is what I was dealt and dealing with" and the second part is my look at life in the suburbs, and from travels. Sort of "Here's how I see the world" in light of what shaped me. I still can't fathom what made me the person I am considering my upbringing.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">What I love about <i>Deformer</i> is that it’s such an honest book. It's so open and unguarded. In the same way that the best literature is. Like here I am, take it or leave it. And you wind up taking it</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">And most photobooks, frankly, feel pretty mediated in comparison. They tend to feel contrived or have some ulterior motive</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I do these chaotic exhibitions with massive clouds of images, and the book was supposed to be an echo of that. But then I tried to narrow down the scope to what I described above</b>. </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">You said, "I still can't fathom what made me the person I am considering my upbringing." Surely you must have fathomed it...and reached some conclusions?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I have considered it. It really is just a genetic slot machine at birth. Some people are born with different capabilities and understandings. I used to be tortured because I thought my brother who had a similar upbringing turned out so different than I did. I was able to extract so much from my dad leaving and from my grandparents’ influence. It's probably about 90% their presence in my life that put me on the path I am</b>.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">What's your brother doing?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>My brother married a woman pastor, (second wife) and they live wherever the church posts them. He's in Algoma, Wisconsin now. He's a handyman and helps out at a nursing home. Nice guy. I think I understand his life better now so I'm not haunted by the idea that he got some "short end of the stick" or anything. We all have different takes on how the world works based on our particular mix of environment and genetic draw. I watched my nephew in-law turn into a complete fuck up right before my eyes and I still can't figure it out. I think it’s genetics. He was just born stupid and no amount of family love could help it.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">During the period you were making <i>Deformer</i> were you into photobook collecting at that point? </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yeah, I started collecting around 1994, but it only got crazy over the last 10 years when you realize the collection is a bit out of control. I like too many styles and genres, so I want too many books.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I was exposed to Larry Clark’s <i>Teenage Lust</i> by my friend Thomas Campbell. He had a copy that he wanted me to hold for him while he went on a trip. And I had already had some art books, and a few photos books. But I think that book and Nan's Goldin's ‘Ballad’ really pushed me to start looking. I would hit bookstores whenever I could and only pull down books by people whose names I was unfamiliar with. I feel like I was getting a photo education through looking at books.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><i>Teenage Lust</i> and <i>Tulsa </i>probably influenced my work, and <i>Ballad</i> too, because they were shooting their own lives. That made me want to shoot my life and the people around me. No doubt my title <i>Teenage Smokers</i> was influenced by that.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l6Ngdy-9G4M/X2uh51jlsrI/AAAAAAAAXmc/gfrWzl1bP2MIKREUicb6UNQWE23YGmchwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2000/57_1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="2000" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l6Ngdy-9G4M/X2uh51jlsrI/AAAAAAAAXmc/gfrWzl1bP2MIKREUicb6UNQWE23YGmchwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/57_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Teenage Lust, Larry Clark, 1983</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>(This is Friday, September 18, around 4:40 PM...)</i></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Oh shit! Ruth Bader Ginsburg just died. We are so fucked</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">!</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Oh shit.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>My heart just skipped a beat. We ARE SO FUCKED</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Can 2020 get any worse?</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Our country is fucked for a generation.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Yup</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Everyone around the country right now is having that same realization. Holy Shit. It's sinking in right now. The future of the country!</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Fucking McConnell and that whole Merrick Garland thing. Fuck this is major bad news.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I was going to ask about photobooks but all that stuff seems kind of minor now. I dunno. Kinda shaken up</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Me too.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Trumpers rejoicing, the Religious Right jumping in the streets no doubt! ABOLISHING ABORTION is in our grasp.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Things are going to get bad. Just gotta hold on and stay positive. </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I'm shocked by how many of my IG followers fall into this camp of "both sides suck" and they can't see that politics has always been about incremental steps and you have to vote for the best choice out of the two since there’s not a viable 3rd party. My blood boils when people say they can't deal with Biden. The supreme court is EXACTLY why to vote for him.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Well he hasn't made that case very well. Trump has.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>The environment. Abortion rights, Health care.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>RGB’s last words were apparently “Don't replace me until a new president is installed"</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>This generation is so stupid. We shoot ourselves in the foot to prove our wokeness.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">What do you mean?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Look at the case of the governor of Virginia. Northam? A Democrat. He was exposed as doing blackface and the left was screaming for his cancellation. He stuck to his guns and didn't resign, knowing he would be better for the state than any replacement. The black community there agreed and he has already passed so many progressive laws. If the hairtrigger left had cancelled him then the cause would have taken a major step backwards. Al Franken was another case.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9BLE6AMhjTU/X3EC90YAXoI/AAAAAAAAXqA/ea9Itg2Fw2oQSF4M6uhgObO25iA6CWxNACLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/Deanna-London-new-color.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1016" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9BLE6AMhjTU/X3EC90YAXoI/AAAAAAAAXqA/ea9Itg2Fw2oQSF4M6uhgObO25iA6CWxNACLcBGAsYHQ/w452-h640/Deanna-London-new-color.jpg" width="452" /></a></span></div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Cancel culture.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Yeah. </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Obama even called the hyper progressive left a "circular firing squad.”</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>We spend time attacking our allies for not being "pure" enough.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Everyone has warts, and makes mistakes, we need to be practical and pragmatic to win. </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I do a lot of political messaging on my IG. I get shit from both sides when I do. I did a special benefit deck for my company Toy Machine with proceeds going to BLM charities and got SO MUCH shit. The whole gamut from "you're doing it right" to "You're doing it wrong" to "Virtue signaling" to "I'll never buy Toy Machine again" I don't need racists buying Toy Machine. But you’re damned either way. Social Media is the problem.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I post voter registration message every week, and it's very clear where I stand on many issues. I have blocked hundreds of trolls. I block immediately now. I don't need that in my life.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Social media has fostered polarization I think. Everyone finds their community of like-minded people, and so we all tend to live in these bubbles. I'm as guilty as anyone. But what are you gonna do? Be friends with antagonistic trolls? I don't know. My instinct is generally to find common ground. I don't like conflict. But I think the fact we've been bubbled off just helps the country stay divided. It’s less common to interact with people from different viewpoints</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Like I've never met you before last week. But I just assume you're a Trump-hater. Because most people I know are. That signals a potential problem.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>So true. But at this point if you are a Trump supporter after 4 years of his BS, then there's really no common ground. You are either willfully ignorant or straight evil.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>It's pretty easy to assume that anyone with compassion or a brain would hate Trump. </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">My wife's family in Maine are mostly Trumpers. So that's my reality check when I visit with them. I love them dearly. But politically we can't have any real conversation</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">But they aren't evil. Or even ignorant. Just tuned in on a completely different wavelength</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. It’s kind of like talking to a born again Christian. You can connect but only up to a certain level, and once you start talking about humans walking around with dinosaurs, it's like, where do you go from there? </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I see the Trump lawn sigs in my tract. I can't help but think they are either Religious Zealots, Racists, Make over 400K a year and are greedy, or are just plain stupid, (ie: Watch only Fox News, believe all conspiracy theories)</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">None of those labels would fit easily on my wife's family</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">I’d call them semi-Libertarian, anti-regulation types. But their views come from an honest place.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I should have added "Business deregulation nuts!”</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I know these people don't disappear when Biden is elected (IF) and we have to work with them, but the willful ignorance is rough to deal with.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I'm drawn to people with alternative views. I like talking to the guy on the street corner who's been abducted by aliens or tells me 9/11 was an inside job. So Maine is fun for me to be around. It’s like visiting another country or something.</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> Of course t</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">hat's my perspective as a white male with less to fear directly from Trump fascism. If I were on the bottom of society I might view it with less humor</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jDhdPRZ_4ag/X3EDnLozUYI/AAAAAAAAXqM/zimCQWXkJ3wl9hIVDS4e6mltmYccM9-5gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/Kids-fight-HB.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="961" data-original-width="1440" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jDhdPRZ_4ag/X3EDnLozUYI/AAAAAAAAXqM/zimCQWXkJ3wl9hIVDS4e6mltmYccM9-5gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h428/Kids-fight-HB.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Exactly. I tell Deanna, We'll be fine, we just have to wait this out. Speaking from my nice suburban white home in a conservative area. But marginalized people are suffering right now from these policies.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Maybe where it intersects with photography is I could see some major censorship happening in the near future. Books like <i>Deformer</i> or <i>Teenage Lust</i> might be forced underground</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Abortion might become illegal. Nudity illegal? Protesting illegal? Who knows</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> what might be next?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I'm already feeling a sort of growing resistance to street photography. The iPhone and social media has made it too easy to ridicule someone or expose them in ways never dreamed of before. So now even being in public is dangerous. I can see laws like the ones in France coming here, where you can't even post or use a photo even if it was shot in public.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I can definitely see something like that here.</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Maybe within 15-20 years. Or sooner?</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">These might be the glory days of candid public photography</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> (except for the pandemic, haha). </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Not sure how long it will take. But I see people wanting to control their image and wanting recourse if they get abused or used online. </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">I’ve faced some of that shooting BLM protests. For the first time ever I was asked to blur faces or hide identifying features. I think those impulses are the same ones behind the French laws. And now they are turning up here. And I can see where things are going. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I'm not sure if the Supreme Court will bear on that directly. But the general course of public photography seems clear.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Yeah, the BLM stuff (not identifying protesters in your photos/posts) is so police won’t be able to come after the protesters through online snooping. I see that. Sad that we even live in a world where that has to be a concern. But the tech is making everything sketchy. A photo of a couple kissing is innocent when the only place it will be seen is an obscure photobook or a gallery show. But posting that image to thousands of people on social media might expose that kiss as a cheating husband or wife inadvertently. </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>People can't seem to wrap their head around my shots of people on the HB pier on IG. Mostly because so many of my followers come from skating and not the photo world. It's interesting to see how non-photographers see pure street photography.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">My view on all that stuff is pretty biased. I don't give a shit what happens to any public photo of me, so that's my attitude toward the ones I take. Which is a pretty privileged position I realize</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iHsfCUDBfR4/X3Tdz0ojfwI/AAAAAAAAXq8/YR2ngGeMqtUrQlxzgCpycUjizf4idi_7wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/raw-scan-arto-scar-print.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1105" data-original-width="1440" height="492" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iHsfCUDBfR4/X3Tdz0ojfwI/AAAAAAAAXq8/YR2ngGeMqtUrQlxzgCpycUjizf4idi_7wCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h492/raw-scan-arto-scar-print.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Me too, I've been in the public eye as a pro skater, my life is an open book, nothing to hide. I use my real name on Insta, etc. So if I do anything fucked up there's no hiding.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">I think it’s important </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">to keep making public photos. Just to get it out there and show people that it can exist and is ok. The same with photos of kids or nudes or all the material which is slowly being filtered out of social media. It's important to make those photos to keep the drum beating to keep it alive</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Says me the white male guy behind the camera</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">haha</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yes, for sure. Photographers will do it no matter what. You might just have to go to galleries or forums to see it.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Well I see it actually being sifted out of fine art photography, which has taken on a more conceptual bent lately. It's not so much about reality anymore</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. Maybe it never was.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I'm trying to keep it reality based! I'm halfway through listening to a <a href=" https://samharris.org/podcasts/217-new-religion-anti-racism/">podcast with Sam Harris and John McWhorter</a> and they talk about this idea of always seeing ourselves as a certain color and how bad it actually is to live that way. But of course that trend is only getting worse in these political days.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Why is it bad to see yourself as a color? </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Oh man, I'm gonna suck at trying to paraphrase these really smart people…It’s about this new anti-racism movement becoming a “religion” in that these new ideals are turning into a gospel which can never be questioned or discussed without being shunned as a heretic. A simple black or white issue with no gray areas, which racism in America is not. I think they are saying the only way forward is to NOT see race, as opposed to hyper-seeing it, the same way you don't think differently about seeing a blond or brunette person because you know there's no difference.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> But these are really intellectual people talking and I’m never 100% sure I’m following it properly.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I don't agree with that. I’m not sure race and hair color have the same implications. But I should listen to the podcast to learn more. </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yeah, it's very interesting. They joke about getting cancelled for even talking about it. McWhorter who is black, is writing a book on this subject.</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>There's little room for deep nuanced thinking or discussion regarding thorny subjects anymore.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Maybe that's where photography can provide some common ground. It's a non rhetorical language. People of any political stripe can digest things visually. Or maybe that's just me trying to justify the existence of my artsy-fartsy bubble.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>There's a gospel of "this is the correct thinking" and if you stray from that gospel you are a racist, even if you are on the progressive side.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">The circular firing squad you mentioned</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>HA! There is a way photography can work like that. But the firing squad is real. Take the recent case against Martin Parr.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">He kinda got a raw deal. But he has no one to blame but himself. He walked right into that</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> situation. Do you know him?</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yeah, I know Martin. People were trying to cancel Parr for taking part in lending his name to promote a book by an Italian photographer who shot London in the 60s. There's a spread with a photo of a black woman paired with a gorilla in a cage. Some people decided to take one singular reading of that spread, call it racist, and then attack Parr for his involvement in it. Then after Parr denounced it and apologized for it, the photographer’s family came forward saying that his spread was a purposeful critique of British society and the treatment of black people there as he saw it. Now there's another reading. Art is supposed to be used in that way. You can see it as racist if you want to choose the worst possible take, but are there other possible readings? </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Do you really think the Italian artist back in the 60’s was a white supremacist? </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">M<b>artin should have talked to the family first, and then maybe stood by the work instead of caving to the twitter mob.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">I don't think his curation was consciously racist. But he should've foreseen the reaction. To me it’s kind of a generational thing. He’s maybe a bit out of touch with current identity politics. </span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Totally. Even this Kessels case. And I'm not sticking my neck out for him on this one. But there may be another reading if you use his project as a springboard for thought. Although in this case I think he should have "read the room" and considered how easily most people could see that as kinda fucked up. Plus, if Kessels, the Breda festival, and the skatepark are all standing by the project, then it pretty much falls into the category of art I ignore, like most art I see that I don't like. I don't actively look for art I don't like and then spend energy trying tear it down, I just ignore it.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I see why the Kessels project was canceled. But I think the broader idea is awesome. Put some photos down at a skate park and then watch how they morph and evolve over time as they get abused. It could make for some serious abstract art</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. Just use some imagery less culturally loaded.</span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yes, there probably is a project where the skatepark idea would have been great. Maybe if he just added men? Maybe if it was actual photos instead of algorithmically built portraits? Maybe if he was a skateboarder?</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Yes, he should have read that and been ready with a response, or just re-edited it.</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I dig all sorts of art when it's applied in a public realm. Murals, graffiti, skate parks, etc. Art should be out there in the world interacting. Not in some stuffy expensive museum</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">See here we are in our bubble agreeing with each other.</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p>
</p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>And the readers are probably in the same bubble! </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><i>(All photos above by Ed Templeton unless otherwise noted)</i></span></p>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-70284438692910453312020-09-25T15:33:00.015-07:002020-09-30T12:19:04.455-07:00Q & A with Sergio Purtell<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q2TjGsMb-J8/X2ubHrQ-uqI/AAAAAAAAXlY/IoWJBvABETwQ6rDRLuuFKWfwp-4HXXhxgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Edward%2BMapplethorpe.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q2TjGsMb-J8/X2ubHrQ-uqI/AAAAAAAAXlY/IoWJBvABETwQ6rDRLuuFKWfwp-4HXXhxgCLcBGAsYHQ/w300-h400/Edward%2BMapplethorpe.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Photo by Edward Mapplethorpe</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: medium;"><b><br /><a href="http://www.sergiopurtell.com/">Sergio Purtell</a> is a photographer and printer based in Brooklyn, NY.</b></span></span><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span></i></span></p><div class="p1" style="font-family: georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><div style="font-family: times; text-align: center;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium;">•</span></i></span></span></span></i></div><div><i><span style="background-color: white; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">BA: </span><span style="background-color: white;">C</span></i><i style="background-color: white;">an you tell me about growing up in Chile? </i></span></div><div><i style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></div></div>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">SP: I was born in Santiago in 1955. My mother was born in Brazil; her mother was Chilean-German, her father an immigrant from Moldova. The family moved back to Chile when my mother was quite </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">young. She was from a large family....5 siblings. All of them lived in Santiago (the largest city in Chile, with a population of about 3 million when I lived there), and her mother had a small urban farm on the outskirts of the city. Chile had also been hit by the Great Depression, and my grandfather had lost everything. My mother, the youngest, had to pitch in to help the family get by. When I was very young, my mother and I shared a house with one of her sisters and her son. My cousin and I, both only children, grew up like brothers. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What about your father? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">My father was from the U.S., Massachusetts to be exact. His mother was from an old Yankee family, his father born in Boston to parents straight from Ireland. My joke is that my artistic talent is from my dad, as he was a bit of a con-artist! </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Was he an actual artist too? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Not Really. His grandfather was an Irish immigrant, probably escaping famine or poverty to find a better life for himself. His grandfather had married a Yankee woman from Whitman, a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts. Her ancestors go back to the beginning of the US. My father had two sisters. For reasons that are still a mystery, my father was given for adoption when he was two or three — and that is when his troubles began. He ran away many times, and by late adolescence had joined the merchant marines and experienced the world, hopping from one vessel to the next. On one of those stops his ship docked in New Bedford. He met and married a local and thus my half-brother came to be. But he could never stand still —he would sign onto a ship, disappearing for months, traveling the world and leaving his wife and my half-brother to fend for themselves. His wife eventually divorced him. Much later, when I tracked down my father and found out about my half-brother, I realized what a lonely life my father had — constantly on the move, trying to find the unconditional love he never experienced. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">By the time I caught up with him in 1974/75, he had been a globe trotting merchant marine, a tailor, a furrier, an appliances salesman, a baptist minister but more importantly a con artist. In the mid 50’s he came up with a whole new scheme. He found out that Peron, the Argentinian dictator, loved Harley-Davidson motorcycles. So he wrote to Harley-Davidson, pleading with them to donate one of his bikes. He would use it on a trip he had planned, starting in Fairbanks Alaska and culminating at the end of America, arriving in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the red carpet would be rolled out for him by his new buddy Peron. “Wild Bill”, as his friends in the US called him, would become an instant celebrity. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">None of this happened. Harley Davidson would not give him a free motorcycle. They claimed they had given too many that year, or maybe they sniffed a con artist. Nevertheless, he purchased his own bike, only affording the smallest and lightest one. In those days, superhighways didn't exist. The Pan-American highway was a two lane dirt road for the most part, and many times one would have to get into a small vessel to cross the water where the </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">“highway” would abruptly end. There were dense forests in the </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">mato grosso </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">where there was no road whatsoever. He made it as far as the Northern part of Chile, an area called the Atacama Desert, which is the driest desert in the world. I suppose it must have been disappointing to his ego, specially after the Odyssey style journey he had just clocked. He made his way to Santiago by train. His plan was to then travel to Valparaiso to jump on a ship that would take him back home. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In Santiago, he met my mother who was working at a travel agency. They got married, traveled a bit in Chile, and pregnant, ended up in Arica, the farthest northern city in Chile. There he said goodbye, as he would be returning to the US to close his affairs. He never came back. I never actually met my father. </span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wF8WVXV34e4/X25kOTp7ksI/AAAAAAAAXoA/QFbscVhpm8sPPNf7SXJK0jJuKZ5qqJUyQCLcBGAsYHQ/s716/real%2BII.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="716" height="510" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wF8WVXV34e4/X25kOTp7ksI/AAAAAAAAXoA/QFbscVhpm8sPPNf7SXJK0jJuKZ5qqJUyQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h510/real%2BII.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">from <i>Real II</i></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Sounds like an interesting guy. </span></i></span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yeah, an interesting guy with a million stories, but a crappy father! </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">His loss. Were you artistic as a kid? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The first memory I have of my visual interest in the world came from travels with my mother’s brothers. My Uncle Jacobo drove a 1960s Messerschmitt, which looked like a cockpit of a small plane and the passenger sat directly behind the driver. He would drive me through the streets of Santiago, allowing the city to flash past my eyes in what seemed a completely exposed capsule (time, sight, and memory all merged into one creating forms and shapes that were engraved in my cortex). Uncle Guillermo drove a cargo truck that he took on long hauls up and down the PanAmerican Highway which runs north and south on the skinny Chilean geography. He would take me along sometimes. On these trips I started to understand the idea of narrative; the truck was slower and moved through the lonely landscape giving my mind room to stretch and articulate thoughts. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The last of my early visual schooling was when I landed in boarding school at age twelve. My mom, being a single parent, was too busy working to be looking after me, so enrolled me in a boarding school in the city. My trips back and forth from school on the weekends were done on public transportation, buses which careened through the city, creating a daredevil quality about them because of the speed and carelessness at which they traveled. I began to take mental notes of my travels: the shape of houses, the public gestures of the people, the shape of clouds, the quality of light, and all this perfectly framed by the bus window, the tableau changing every second. It was an all boys school fashioned in structure to English public schools, where students remain with the same class (30 students or so) through the 5 years, so I developed friendships that I still maintain through WhatsApp to this day. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Toward the end of my high school years I was ready to break free and go as far as I could. I think because of the restrictions I felt then, I took the opportunity to go to the US the first time in early 1972 as an exchange student with the American Field Service, to the small town of Hamilton, Ohio, near the Kentucky border. I spoke very little English, so I had a lot to learn both the language and the vast cultural differences. When I arrived I had total culture shock. Even though I grew up in a city of 3 million, in a lot of ways Santiago felt provincial, even in </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">comparison to smaller American cities I experienced later, like New Bedford, Providence and New Haven. After one semester there, I went back to Santiago to graduate high school and start college, studying architecture. I left Chile again in 1973. The political situation was very dicey. I got out right before the coup d’état and military took over the government, killing the democratically elected Socialist president. This time I came to stay, as there were few possibilities to be an artist within a military dictatorship. My mother stayed behind, as did her whole family. So I was on my own! </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I returned to Ohio because my exchange program family invited me to stay with them if I ever came back to the US. I took classes at a local community college, paying my way by doing a lot of menial jobs: I pumped gas, washed and waxed cars, did yard work for a landscaper, flipped burgers at McDonalds and worked at a foundry. In the process of filing to claim my citizenship (which I could as the son of an American), I found that I had a half-brother, who was 15 years older (and was as unaware of me as I was of him). Through luck, since he has the same name as my father, he was contacted by the immigration office...he called me, and without further ado, had me hop on a bus and relocate to Mattapoisett, Massachusetts where he lived with his wife, mother, and four young sons. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">As someone who has experienced the threat of an authoritarian regime, do you think there are parallels between the US now under Trump and Chile under Pinochet? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I went through one of my most educational and formative periods while in boarding school. It was the late 60’s, early 70’s. The world was in a political upheaval: the cold war, nuclear threats and conflict in Vietnam, the fight for Civil Rights, the assassinations of JFK and MLK. It was one of the most tumultuous and divisive decades in world history, maybe until now. Riots, protests, and social movements. The youth around the world became increasingly involved in causes such as anti-poverty, anti-war, and anti-censorship to rally behind. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">At school, we would protest by taking over the classroom, locking ourselves in and blocking the teachers or the schools authorities from coming in. We would go out in the streets to demonstrate, and get into fights with the police and sometimes get arrested. At the same time we would help build houses for those in need. We were experiencing radical changes which in turn radicalized us, giving us a world perspective. Salvador Allende, a physician and a Socialist was elected the 28th president of Chile November 1970. He was the first Socialist to be elected president in a liberal democracy in Latin America. He pledged to move Chile to socialism within a constitutional framework; Chile’s workers and the poor were entitled to a better life — not only with economic security but to experience “the joy of living.” He maintained Chile’s right to its own resources. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">These views proved too much for those who held power in the U.S. The CIA, Kissinger and Nixon backed the military dictator Augusto Pinochet, installed on September 11, 1973 (my first 9/11), the day Allende was murdered. It was not until later that we Chileans (and the world) found out that the U.S. had helped the Chilean military stage the coup, with the sole reason to protect their interests. Anaconda, the biggest producer of copper in the world, was fully controlled and owned by U.S. interests at the time. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I left Chile right before the imminent dictatorship (in June of 73) and was young enough to be able to start a new life elsewhere, and lucky to be able to claim citizenship in the US ....but my mother and all my relatives remained. I was able to visit them as the borders were not closed. Life in Chile at that time for anyone that did not support the dictatorship was a nightmare and over 3000 people died or went desaparecidos. Stadiums became almost the equivalent of concentration camps where people were dumped after being arrested, tortured and killed. I have friends that lost their lives, and family members that were harassed. </span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qSP44AWWObY/X25td-tTtiI/AAAAAAAAXoM/JDNgTAtIaJI0uSQHLDqCfXktj1a8nNHWQCLcBGAsYHQ/s715/real%2BIV.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="568" data-original-width="715" height="508" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qSP44AWWObY/X25td-tTtiI/AAAAAAAAXoM/JDNgTAtIaJI0uSQHLDqCfXktj1a8nNHWQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h508/real%2BIV.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">from <i>Real IV</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">On one of my trips I was arrested for making pictures by six heavily armed riot police and put on a bus where several men lay on their stomach, handcuffed, their mouths taped. The police roughed me up, took my camera and camera bag, and proceeded to pull all the film out the cartridge, exposing it to the light. As they were shoving me towards the back of the bus an officer entered the bus and asked who I was. I responded “I am an American citizen” and once he looked at my passport I was quickly removed from the bus. Outside there were many people waiting—crying, asking about the welfare of their loved ones. I realized my sudden freedom was due at that moment to the power of the U.S. I don’t know what happened to those poor men. </span></span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">How worried should we be about America’s current political direction? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Before the 2016 election, for the first time in my 47 years of living in the US, I sensed a shift that started first with rhetoric and then with political actions. If you’ve experienced fascism or totalitarian regime you understand that there is a clear path taken, with predictable steps. Once people are hooked and have embarked in its trajectory it is hard to get off. I started warning acquaintances. I remember warning that Trump was going to win the election, and I got into some heated debates with friends. My wife started calling me Trotsky. During one of those exchanges I was asked to leave a friend’s house because he felt I was being condescending. I tried to explain that I had already experienced what we were about to engage in if Trump was elected (a few people reached out after the election to say “you were right”). </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Early warnings signs of fascism: Powerful and continuing nationalism, disdain for human rights, identification of enemies as a unifying cause, supremacy of the military, rampant sexism, controlled mass media, obsession with national security, religion and government intertwined, corporate power protected, suppression of labor power, disdain for intellectuals & the arts, obsession with crime & punishment, rampant cronyism & corruption, fraudulent elections. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">So yes, there are parallels. A lot of thinkers believe that democracy is in decline in this country, and around the world there is fear that we are heading back to the 1920s and 30s when the US retracted from the world arena and countries all over pursued their own interests. German and Italian fascists began deconstructing legal systems of justice that had been in place for a long time. Our president’s disrespect for the truth, increased acceptance of dehumanizing slander, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and all of this as normal public debate. We may not be there yet but the signposts are familiar to a time when fascism happened faster than anyone could predict. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">My question is, as our country the U.S. isolates itself by building a steel wall to the south — Is it to keep people out or to keep Americans in? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">How did you first get into photography? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">My brother Bill was very keen on education, and encouraged me to attend Southeastern Massachusetts University (now UMASS Dartmouth). I enrolled at SMU with the goal of eventually moving to Boston to study architecture at MIT. My brother encouraged me to take some of the electives at SMU to improve my English skills. I started by taking art history, figure drawing, graphic design and three -dimensional design, but also took a class in photography and quickly realized that was my calling. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">A fellow student transferred to RISD, and encouraged me to do the same. While at RISD I also worked: loading and unloading trucks for UPS (Teamsters local union 57), as a butcher at the meat department at Fernandez supermarkets and a monitor at Benson Hall, the photo building. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">I graduated with a BA in 1980...and then, newly married to a fellow RISDite, went straight to graduate school at Yale. </span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-stO8quG8Ss0/X25t0_ZakaI/AAAAAAAAXoU/wi4QIMftdjc04FOTwm_zaOQpFLDkP9wWgCLcBGAsYHQ/s840/moral%2B1.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="840" height="436" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-stO8quG8Ss0/X25t0_ZakaI/AAAAAAAAXoU/wi4QIMftdjc04FOTwm_zaOQpFLDkP9wWgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h436/moral%2B1.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">from <i>Moral I</i></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">How did you choose Yale for grad school? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Honestly I did not know the significance of RISD, or an Ivy League college like Yale. Most of my life has been dictated by my intuition and not by a preconceived master plan. Otherwise </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">I probably would have never left Chile. My mom did not have deep pockets, she was a CPA and stayed close to home. Education was important to her. She was the only one of her siblings to get a college degree, attending night school and working by day. Of course my father never lifted a finger to help us. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I graduated from Yale in 1982, then taught at a few local colleges, lecturing on the history of photography and teaching darkroom technique. At the same time I exhibited my work throughout Europe, a place that at the time was more interested in my work than here in the U.S. (It was in the summers during college/graduate school/teaching that I took most of the photographs in Moral and Gestures, and hence, Love’s Labour). </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">But I found that I needed more life experience, and frankly, needed to make more money to pay off my student loans. My marriage was short so, newly divorced, I left New Haven for NYC in 1985 or 1986 (can’t remember the exact date!). </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I had started printing for the Walker Evans estate once I graduated from Yale. The estate was run by John Hill, who had been the head of the Graduate photo department at Yale for a couple of years before Tod Papageorge. (Walker Evans having started the Graduate Photo Department at Yale.) Between that and the teaching gigs, I also started assisting John who did work as a commercial photographer doing annual reports. John lived near New Haven but shared a loft with Amos Chan and Philip Lorca DiCorcia. When I relocated to NYC, I moved to a loft with a friend from New Haven in the same area where John, Amos and Phillip had their space. By pure coincidence I ended up living in Tod Papageorge’s loft that was being rented by a classmate from Yale. By then Tod had long moved to New Haven. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">There was a little darkroom in the loft, so it made sense to start up a printing business from there. I also worked for a jewelry maker and an art mover. At the same time I tried my hand at commercial photography, assisting Philip Lorca DiCorcia (who had graduated from Yale in 1979) and eventually having clients of my own — shooting for design studios, advertising campaigns, downtown magazines like Paper, and publishers throughout the late 1980s into the 1990s. But after a time I felt like I had to give up too much of my creative freedom for a financial reward. After a decade of that, I put all my effort into the printing business, now called Black and White on White. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I married my wife Melanie in 1995. We met in 1992 while I was doing the photography for an educational publisher of high school text books (she was one of the designers), at a studio started by a Romanian graphic designer who had been at Yale. We moved from the loft in Tribeca to Brooklyn shortly after 9/11, in November 2001, and moved the business to Bushwick in 2010. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What inspired you to take that first photo class while living with your brother? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">First photo class was an elective...still thinking I would be an architect. But once I picked up a camera that was it. I was hooked. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What do you think it was about photography that hooked you immediately? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It was the immediacy, the ability to capture subtle gestures. The camera is a tool that records, in fractions of seconds, the world as it presents itself. It is a way of preserving segments of time where reality is discovered, not constructed. When I took photography in college as an elective course, and made that first print, it was more than just magic to have a full idea realized in just a few minutes. It was exalting. I have always been interested in the world. I learned from it by being physically planted on it. I can’t explain my curiosity, I just know that was my way of learning by being present and doing. I immediately embraced photography’s exacting, literal description that gives it a life in metaphor. I remember buying my first camera –– a Canon FTb SLR — at a small camera store close to the campus in Massachusetts. My first pictures were probably no different than anyone else’s, but to me each picture felt like a gift, almost like I had not made it, but as if I were the vehicle. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You never shot any photos during your time in Chile? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I started photographing in Chile once I started at RISD, studying photography full time. I had two friends there...we were the “Latin trio"...Laura Cohen was from Mexico and Iraida Icaza from Panama...we took an epic trip together, photographing in all three places. </span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6RVfATp2oIA/X20Ez3FU3HI/AAAAAAAAXnk/GZQowqVLaRQS20Fhf8AsFeNf0WyDkjsJACLcBGAsYHQ/s834/latin.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="834" height="442" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6RVfATp2oIA/X20Ez3FU3HI/AAAAAAAAXnk/GZQowqVLaRQS20Fhf8AsFeNf0WyDkjsJACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h442/latin.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">from <i>Gestures I</i></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Looks like fun. When you went on that trip you were still relatively young as a photographer. Just a few years into it? </span></i></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes, I had really just started to understand what was possible. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Are these the pictures in the Gestures I section of your site? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes...I believe we went on one of our winter breaks. Late 70s... </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Your website is a bit overwhelming. First of all because it has SOOO many photos. And second because there are no captions or supporting information, just a few loosely labeled sections. Maybe that's part of the plan? Anyway, it is helpful for me to tease out some of the projects and piece together where and when they're from. </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Gestures: From 1978 trough 2008 with probably a gap of 10 to 12 years </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Moral: From 1980 through 2008 with probably a gap of 15 years</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Real: From 2008 to the present. </span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"></span></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I suppose I haven't added captions or supporting information on the website as I was more more interested in getting my work out there. There was no real commercial interest in my work. Not many books, few exhibitions and even fewer sales and I don’t think its been because I didn’t have the provenance or dates in my web site. It’s funny, because once I finished building it around 2000, I sent the link to a few colleagues and got mostly very positive responses (Mark Steinmetz said wow so many pictures). It may be because I’m a photographer’s photographer. I am not trying to be the latest flavor of the month, or chasing the art market. I make pictures the way I do because I respect the medium, I know its history and appreciate the fact that I get to roam around and see things that most people either take for granted or never see. Like Robert Adams says in his book <i>Beauty in Photography</i>, his ideas are not fashionable and post structuralists and post modernists might think of his work as antiquated but to him 'the job of the photographer ... is not to catalogue indisputable fact but to try to be coherent about intuition and hope.’' A picture without form doesn’t have foundation and without foundation one can not expect to build life upon it. There is a larger order in the world — call it spirituality, mindfulness or just sheer luck, and one has just to stand still long enough to see. </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cYA5X8kb3Ao/X25v0bdtmUI/AAAAAAAAXpE/WjtPfRFq1N4nGSKK8VYOPH36IxJqj4vhQCLcBGAsYHQ/s763/moral%2BII%2Bc.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="524" data-original-width="763" height="440" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cYA5X8kb3Ao/X25v0bdtmUI/AAAAAAAAXpE/WjtPfRFq1N4nGSKK8VYOPH36IxJqj4vhQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h440/moral%2BII%2Bc.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">from <i>Moral II</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Do you remember who your photographic influences were in those early years? Either teachers or books or general inspirations? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I’m trying to think back to that time. Once I was at Yale for graduate studies, I would say Atget, Brassai, Evans, Kertesz, Bresson, Frank, Koudelka, Freedlander, Winogrand, Wessel, Papageorge. I think any good photographer, or for that matter any artist has to know the history of their medium — and then go through the motions of influence until one finds one’s unique voice. If left to my own devices, and with money not being an issue, and if the love of my life — my wife — was not in my life, I would just disappear in the word and make pictures 24/7 365 days a year. I am more interested in the making and the doing in the physical world, what I call reality, than anything else. Unfortunately not all of us get to do exactly what we want to in life. On the other hand we do what we can. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I can also say it is hard to pinpoint if my making pictures of the world with discernment illustrates fact or artifice. It is the beauty of how a photographer can create doubt or persuade us of a compelling new set of clues and symbols bearing on the argument of who we are. Specific places, and a bit of luck are the pivotal creative forces in the universe, that is why we have to collaborate since life will always outsmart us. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You’ve mentioned luck a few times. What do you think luck is? What role does it play for you in photography? And in life in general? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Luck is when our expectations of something materializes, or comes true. My personal belief is that by being mindful and in the moment, all the possibilities that life offers are possible — or at least by presenting themselves, it is up to us to decide what to do with them. If we go into the world with preconceived ideas (putting the carriage in front of the horse) or notions, one most likely ends up disappointed. At the time I was making the pictures for <i>Love’s Labour </i>there was no large conceptual plan —- I have always operated from an instinctual place, and physically I have learned to move in an elliptical lyrical style, allowing fate or destiny to guide me and put me mindfully were I needed to be. I’ve tried working conceptually and most of the time I’ve been disappointed with the results, although a lot of artists work that way and are perfectly happy with that process. If we choose the world as our narrative canvas we’ll never be disappointed because life’s flux never stops changing, especially for us humans on this planet. As much as we try to control it, we live with the illusion that we can — especially those that control large amounts of wealth or have political superiority, who act like they have all the answers to life's important questions or problems, and constantly feel that their ego is personally responsible for how the world is shaped — until the guillotine arrives to town. </span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">For instance, I am lucky that my father was a gambler — not in the literal sense, but that he came up with some crazy idea and a narrative for it and with all the odds against him, he still made that trip and met my mother. So I am lucky that they met and had me, otherwise there wouldn’t be the book <i>Love’s Labour</i>, which to me encompasses the struggles of my ancestors who moved around the world to find a better opportunity than the one they faced. Or were men like my father trying to escape the choices they had been given, spending life wandering the world to find happiness? </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6UBeA50c0So/X25uPL5BihI/AAAAAAAAXoc/a_rESJaN1OQC7oBs0s3j_68YBQxUs9AfgCLcBGAsYHQ/s840/moral%2BII.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="571" data-original-width="840" height="436" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6UBeA50c0So/X25uPL5BihI/AAAAAAAAXoc/a_rESJaN1OQC7oBs0s3j_68YBQxUs9AfgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h436/moral%2BII.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">from <i>Moral II</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br />I am incredibly lucky that I found my wife Melanie. I met her eldest sister Debbie at SMU. She was an Illustration Major, but we were in different crowds. Melanie started RISD the year I graduated. RISD had a wild Halloween party where all the students tried to outdo each other with their costumes, it made for a perfect life theater that I loved to photograph. So although at Yale. I travelled back to Providence to make pictures of the party. More than a decade later, Melanie and I were dating in NYC and somehow we started to talk about those Halloween parties, and realized we had RISD friends in common — so I brought out my contact sheets and a magnifying glass and passed them to her. She quickly found pictures of her and friends. I had been just a few feet from her, yet we were not supposed to meet yet. When she brought me home to see her parents, she said “I am bringing my boyfriend Sergio” and her sister Debbie said, “I knew someone named Sergio at SMU”. Sheer luck, or master plan? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Did you have any teachers or fellow students at RISD who were especially memorable or influential? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I would say that in the late ’70s the RISD photo department was trying to reinvent itself. A bit of RISD history: in 1961, RISD decided to establish a degree program in photography and hired photographer Harry Callahan from the Institute of Design in Chicago where he had taught from 1946–61. In 1971, Callahan hired his former Chicago ID colleague, Aaron Siskind, and the two men taught together for five years until Siskind retired. Harry Callahan had trained and taught under the New Bauhaus influence of Moholy-Nagy. Callahan served as the department head from 1970 to 1971, (retiring altogether in 1976). He was followed by Bert Beaver (1972-1980) and later Gary Metz who was hired from the University of Colorado. When I attended RISD, Callahan would receive selected students at his house, and I was lucky enough to be one of them. Mark Cohen was one of my instructors for one semester, and Wendy MacNeil, who taught graduate students at that time, opened her door to me. I was friendly with Francesca Woodman. Gary Metz was in charge of the graduate students. Some well known photographers that have graduated from RISD: Emmet Gowin, Bill Burke (who is my client), Linda Connor, Jim Dow, Francesca Woodman, David Benjamin Sherry, Deana Lawson. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Coincidentally, the department was housed in Benson Hall, which was named after one of Richard Benson’s ancestors (not sure which one!). Richard later became one of my mentors. He showed me all I know about printing. His intelligence, optimism, brilliance, generosity of spirit and just an all around terrific man, was a gift to have had. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Did you ever explore some of the darker corners of Providence while at RISD? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I have a lot of pictures from my days at RISD. A good portion of the work on my website under GESTURE comes from my days in Providence. Because I photographed downtown and around the school, I was approached by the team doing the yearbook to use pictures I had made to illustrate the student life in and around campus. I think most of Providence was dark in those days, it was the 70’s so the city was seedier and unkept; age gave it not necessarily a sense of mystery but an unsettling tone. </span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DI_qaHkimc0/X25upqKVwNI/AAAAAAAAXoo/4-60rtQ7ACsaXqMCRx-oKqhy3MRy3yUkwCLcBGAsYHQ/s719/Real%2BIII.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="571" data-original-width="719" height="508" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DI_qaHkimc0/X25upqKVwNI/AAAAAAAAXoo/4-60rtQ7ACsaXqMCRx-oKqhy3MRy3yUkwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h508/Real%2BIII.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">from <i>Real III</i></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Was RISD worthwhile? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">My experiences at RISD and Yale were life changing. One day in my senior year at RISD, I walked into Benson Hall to fulfill my duties as a monitor (checking students ID’s, having them sign in-sign out, etc) when a new poster grabbed my attention. There was a striking picture of Greece. Underneath it said “Study photography in Greece with Tod Papageorge”. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I had been introduced to the photographer Constantine Manos by his book <i>A Greek Portfolio. </i>Manos was born in South Carolina, lived in the Boston area and was a Magnum Photographer. In his pictures, shot with a Leica camera and printed with a black border in the style of Cartier Bresson, there was a sense of stillness. Not the circus wire act of Bresson — people were still, a lot were older with a few pictures of children sprinkled throughout, not many of strong, healthy, working people, as if they all had left for better jobs in other more wealthy European countries. It looked like a hard life, but there is no anger on their faces — resignation perhaps, but more so </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">acceptance, exhaustion. That sense of serious responsibility hit a nerve with me and put me back in touch with the country I had recently left — a country that fought so hard for its Democracy, and its democratically elected socialist president, only to have it chopped at the knees. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Tod’s picture in the poster looked totally the opposite. An Island in the Mediterranean, an abundance of light, everything sparkled. The people were the same as in Manos book, yet the Manos plates were printed dark and heavy. In them life’s weight was palpable and unbearable. After going to the library and seeing a few more of Tod’s pictures, I found them intelligent, eloquent, literary, poetic; their form graceful. It was then that I realized I wanted to study with him if I could, so I applied to the workshop in Greece, but it was cancelled at the last minute. Somehow, and don’t ask me how since there was not internet at the time and I had no academic connections, I found that Tod taught at the Yale graduate program, I applied and got in. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Was Yale worthwhile? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Absolutely. Who doesn’t want full attention to ones work for two years with a small class of 5 to 6 students per year? </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What did you learn there? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">When I was accepted to Yale I was told that I had an unusually strong portfolio, but RISD’s way of talking about photography (art talk) did not apply at Yale. My skills on how to discuss the medium during crits were not up to par, and Tod wasted no time in letting me know this. If I remember correctly, he straight out said “Was I trying to say it in Spanish or English, and what do feelings have to do with photography?” For me that became the area where I put most of my effort. </span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3_iuUcW-H3g/X2UY1kdsJXI/AAAAAAAAXlM/WFdqSahQH5wXmkSI0uzRq3kYI_y0rMA6ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1656/Unknown-3.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1656" data-original-width="1276" height="738" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3_iuUcW-H3g/X2UY1kdsJXI/AAAAAAAAXlM/WFdqSahQH5wXmkSI0uzRq3kYI_y0rMA6ACLcBGAsYHQ/w570-h738/Unknown-3.jpeg" width="570" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The teachers with the most influence on my career are Tod Papageorge, Richard Benson and Frank Gohlke. We had invited guests like Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, Robert Adams, Joseph Koudelka, Larry Fink, Henry Wessel, Lee Friedlander — and they all left quite an impression on me. And to give you a chronological history, Philip Lorca DiCorcia graduated in 1979, I graduated in 1982, Mark Steinmetz,1986 and Gregory Crewdson in 1988. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What did you learn from Mark Steinmetz? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Mark was accepted to Yale as I was graduating, and he then decided to take a couple of years off to go to the west coast and hang out with Garry Winograd. Although we were roommates briefly (after my divorce I needed a roommate, and he hadn't left for the coast yet), other than us both studying from the same teachers at Yale, we didn't overlap as colleagues. I remember running into him at Central Park and in Paris, after that I might have seen him after an opening, or at Susan Lipper’s home at a party, but I lost contact with him once he moved down South, and then much later we reconnected and he started having BWonW print his larger prints.. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Your style of printing shares some similarities with both Steinmetz and Papageorge. How much did you influence or teach each other? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I had that magical experience, when at SMU, of putting the exposed white sheet of paper into chemicals and having that latent image appear. It was mind-boggling — as much as it was explained to me beforehand, it still felt mystical. My professors at SMU realized that I had been bitten by the photographic bug and couldn’t get enough. I would spend 8 hours straight in the darkroom. Fortunately the graduate darkroom had 3 enlargers and lots of privacy and I was given a key so I could go in and print any time I wanted. Then I would go to load and unload trucks for UPS (how I paid for tuition and living expenses). </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Printing came easy to me and I was never criticized for it — if anything Richard constantly praised my skill, as did Tod. I think the style of printing for mid-tones was a little bit of that time. I remember that Richard gave me a piece of material used in offset printing that was the equivalent of a double 00 filter that I would use to flash the print as a final touch to fill in any potential too bright highlight. Also I would split filter my prints. I can tell you that all this was incredibly tedious and time consuming, but in the end it would yield these beautifully open prints, with every possible midtown and a touch of black in the shadow areas and compressed highlights. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In earlier emails you expressed some ambivalence about the value of photographic education. “We have too many photographers with too many degrees.” Can you expound on that thought? Do you think MFAs are overvalued? Do you think it was valuable for yourself personally? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I now quote Harry Callahan: “I really didn’t have much to teach. I didn’t even believe in it. I felt so strongly that everybody had to find their own way. And nobody can teach you your own way......In terms of art, the only real answer that I know of is to do it. If you don’t do it, you don’t know what might happen.” </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I don’t see photography getting better because of MFAs or doctorates. When I hire employees to work at BWonW I now ask them, if they don’t already have one, will you be going back to school to get an MFA? if they say to me yes, then I ask them why, and 100% of the time the answer is “because I want to teach.” There is over a trillion in student debt and the best anyone can get for a teaching job presently is as an adjunct, with no serious possibility for a full time job, no benefits. Forget tenure, and after 6 years you are asked to move on. </span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K4kyeIaf3HM/X25vEbtWnGI/AAAAAAAAXow/_WZQcQO-_EofG_vvG1ZjJHF7JZSFk7D2QCLcBGAsYHQ/s836/moral%2B1%2Bb.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="836" height="436" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K4kyeIaf3HM/X25vEbtWnGI/AAAAAAAAXow/_WZQcQO-_EofG_vvG1ZjJHF7JZSFk7D2QCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h436/moral%2B1%2Bb.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">from <i>Moral I</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br />For me, I can’t say if it was valuable or not, because if I made any decision differently than the one I made, we would not be having this conversation. I would not be married to my lovely wife, I would not have made a book titled <i>Love’s Labour. </i>When I fell in love with photography I was not thinking about fame, notoriety, success, money, and that if I got a degree from Yale I surely would have it all, or I could drop it as I met people at a party “I went to Yale, what about you”. I just don’t think like that, yet that is all around us and people work so hard to try to get those things — and when they do, a lot of the time they feel as empty as when they started. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In a capitalist model the carrot is always dangling in front of us and some will do anything to get it. No wonder we are in the state we are in. I am grateful everyday for what I have, but I know that in the end I can’t take it with me. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">There is a large gap in your gallery record between the mid-1980s and mid-2010s, which I think overlaps with getting your printing business up and running. Were you making photos for yourself during that time, and just not sharing them? Or did you take a break from photography? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I did take a break from trying to get my work shown and published. I found it difficult to juggle the printing business and working on my own personal projects, especially in the early years when I was still establishing the business...and then having to move it several times due to the crazy real estate situation of NYC. It helped when I finally moved to a large space out in Bushwick, where it has been for over ten years. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I thought I would outgrow wanting to photograph, but the world was there, beckoning. So I realized I had to re-create a world in which I could make the kind of photographs I wanted to make. At this same time three people came to me with printing projects that propelled me to action. The first was Tod Papageorge, who was back in the game after many years of teaching. (Interestingly enough, in an interview Tod was asked why he had not shown work in galleries since the 80’s, and he answered “Because nobody asked.”) </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Haha, that’s always been my excuse. </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It was such an honor to print his masterpiece <i>A Passage Through Eden </i>(exhibited at PaceMacGill with a book printed by Steidl) and then <i>American Sports,1970 or, How We Spent the War in Vietnam </i>(Aperture) and more recently <i>On the Acropolis</i>. Then Larry Clark needed prints because he was having a second edition of <i>Tulsa </i>printed and finally, Richard Benson recommended me to reprint some of Paul Strand’s Mexican Portfolio for Aperture. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">With these projects I was forcefully reminded of my love of photography. At the same time I became immersed in the writings of the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. His obsessive narrative and literary rebelliousness, dense with violence and despair, struck a chord with me. With these influences I started working on <i>Real. </i></span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You’ve printed for a variety of photographers using both darkroom methods and modern inkjet. I think I might know the answer to this question but I’ll ask it anyway. Which method do you personally prefer and why? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I still print my own work as silver gelatin prints, optically (or analog as some photographers like to refer to it.) Fortunately, through the years I have been accumulating equipment that allows us to make silver gelatin prints as large as 56X120” which is quite the luxury, and pigment prints up to 60X120”. We mount and frame as well. All this allows us to produce complete exhibitions for fine art photographers. Some current and past clients I have had a the pleasure to work with, in no particular order: LaToya Ruby Frazier, Fazal Sheik, Wendy Ewald, Dayanita Singh, Susan Lipper, Larry Clark, An-My Le, Bill Burke, Collier Schorr, the estates of Ansel Adams, Paul Strand, and George Platt Lynes, David Benjamin Sherry, Sage Sohier, Sihirin Neshat, Zoe Leonard, Dana Lawson, Justine Kurland, Tod Papageorge, and Mark Steinmetz. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It turns out I have an old Aperture with some of your pictures from your European adventures. They’re all great but only one wound up in the Love’s Labour book. I’m curious why the others weren’t included, and what your selection process was for the book. </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes, <i>Aperture 101 </i>from 1985. I attended an opening for Tod Papageorge of his work in Central Park at the Daniel Wolf Gallery (DW was the originator of the Getty Museum’s acquisition of some of the most important photographic collections in the world). A friend whom I had met in Paris was there, and introduced me to Mark Holborn, who was the editor of Aperture at the time. She forgot to mention who he was, just said “this is Mark” (and I am glad she didn’t as I would have been too nervous to have had a normal conversation with him). I remember we spoke about Peru and Latin America. Mark wanted to travel to that part of the world and I had been to some of those places. After a friendly conversation we shook hands and said good bye. Next day my friend called me and said “Mark wants to look at your work”. I said why, who is he? and then she revealed who he was. I called him and dropped some prints at <i>Aperture</i>... next thing I knew I had pictures in the magazine, and with good company if I may say so. </span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BtUUrCmcSLU/X25jmxDVZ8I/AAAAAAAAXn0/2wWCphMc_f8S8xeAKvq3pS7JhfZtoMorQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BtUUrCmcSLU/X25jmxDVZ8I/AAAAAAAAXn0/2wWCphMc_f8S8xeAKvq3pS7JhfZtoMorQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">spread from <i>Aperture 101</i>, 1985</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Wonderful story! I think your anecdote may hint at the broader changes in Aperture’s style since 1985. Something like that would be impossible today. </span></i></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">True! Now to answer the second part of the question. There were 4 pictures published in the magazine under the title <i>Public Postures</i>. One of those pictures is in the book (page 25, the girl at the edge of the fountain mimicking the gesture of a statue behind her, a dog seen from behind drinking the fountains water.) The topless woman laying on the grass, stretching one leg over her head, roller blades behind her and a man laying not too far from her — Gregory wanted that picture included but I thought, I am an old white guy and the state of politics today would get me into trouble, so we took it out. I wanted the one of a man and two women laying on the beach, with a black dog lurking in the background, but Gregory kept on taking it out for some reason so we left it out. Gregory never saw the one of the young girl on her hands and knees, wearing one black glove and black underwear at the edge of a fountain, with her mother’s leg coming in from the right edge of the frame. This photograph is not on the website as it now seems inappropriate. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Gregory first saw my work on the website. He made his selection from <i>Moral </i>and wanted to call the book <i>Moral: Europe</i>. Because my site doesn’t state the locations/dates, he started including images from the US and Latin America. When I told Gregory he’d selected images that were not made in Europe, he said it doesn’t matter, so I thought I should come up with a different title, things are too political right now and <i>Moral </i>might be misconstrued. Eventually the selection of images was indeed all from Europe, but I started working with the idea of love, and remembered Shakespeare’s play, one of his first, with love in the title. Hence, <i>Love’s Labour. </i>A labor of love, as well! </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The two of us had about 19 rounds of layouts, trying to agree on the selection of images and their sequencing. Tod Papageorge saw one of the rounds and said, “this looks like the classic tale of a young man’s journey”, and that helped shape it a bit. Gregory also picked up on the water and the literary threads, and in the middle of the back and forth I added 2 or 3 sculptures....after that it was about fine tuning and final compromise. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What sort of photos have you been shooting lately? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I began photographing Melanie’s family when I met her in 1992. It’s a project loosely base on “The Snap Shot” an Aperture book published in 1974 (with work from Emmet Gowin, Gus Kayafas, Garry Winogrand, Henry Wessel, Nancy Rexroth, Bill Zupo-Dane, Tod Papageorge, Wendy Snyder MacNeil, Lee Friedlander, Joel Meyerowitz, Richard Albertine and Robert Frank.) Tod Papageorge has a great essay in there. He makes a strong argument for what we know vernacularly as the family photo album, where he coins or brings up the word snapshot, a new form which many photographers use presently without even knowing it. Most of these images make the picture subject its center, the pictures slightly off kilter. I quote Tod “The eye which created the family album was the heart’s eye, and by its innocence its very love blindness.” </span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Az4orfW9qi0/X25vgJT292I/AAAAAAAAXo4/afAYOKwVHHEolviOjRn-2r8Bu_Qez6_JACLcBGAsYHQ/s990/Real1.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="990" height="254" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Az4orfW9qi0/X25vgJT292I/AAAAAAAAXo4/afAYOKwVHHEolviOjRn-2r8Bu_Qez6_JACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h254/Real1.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">from <i>Real I</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br />My family project is all color, shot with point-and-shoot cameras. I started with film that I would take to the drugstore to get the film developed, with two sets of 4X6” quick prints — one set I would distribute to the family, and the second I would keep to see what I was doing. All this work would end up in a large trunk neatly cataloged by Melanie. Eventually I moved to digital. That is a 28 year on-going project. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Starting around 2005 or 2006 I started shooting black and white film again. I went out into the streets of NYC when the weather was good, but it wasn’t until after Obama got elected and the housing crisis of 2008 (one good thing, one bad), that I started shooting again regularly. I shoot with a 4X5” William Littman Polaroid conversion range finder film camera. I call this project <i>Real</i>, you can view a lot of it on the website. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">How has the pandemic affected your process? </span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I didn't shoot at all during the pandemic’s start. I had a heart attack in 2017 that almost killed me (no warnings), with emergency quadruple bypass surgery, and I just turned 65, so I am among the vulnerable and have been playing it safe. Also, I’ve been working hard at not losing the printing business, so like the cobbler’s son my work always comes second. These last few weeks, with NYC being lower risk, and the weather being conducive to photographing, I have ventured out again. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I continue expanding on the <i>Real </i>project that has been going on for 12 years now and of course my wife Melanie’s family, in where her nephews and nieces are getting married and having children so I continue to make pictures of them (once we get to see them again!). </span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>All photos above by Sergio Purtell unless otherwise noted.</b></span></span></p><div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-3820313608620025982020-08-07T09:14:00.006-07:002020-08-07T11:01:30.328-07:00Matt Stuart: Into The Fire<p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><i></i></font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia"><i><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tgEaqcm-5CQ/XyriiJd8pAI/AAAAAAAAXjg/OmgS_9x-wMQd-EfbnLIC0Idorf5rDDwMQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/IMG_5242.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="246" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tgEaqcm-5CQ/XyriiJd8pAI/AAAAAAAAXjg/OmgS_9x-wMQd-EfbnLIC0Idorf5rDDwMQCLcBGAsYHQ/w328-h246/IMG_5242.jpg" width="328" /></a></i></font></div><font face="georgia"><i>Matt Stuart's book <a href="https://www.setantabooks.com/product/into-the-fire-cover-2/">Into The Fire</a> was recently published by Setanta Books. </i></font><p></p><div class="p1" style="font-family: georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><div style="font-family: times; text-align: center;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />•</span></i></span></span></span></i></div></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">BA: How did you discover Slab City?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">MS: I discovered Slab City through the advice of a friend <a href="https://www.instagram.com/aboyandhisdad/">Jared Iorio</a>. He lives in Inglewood, LA and I was desperately looking for a project that I could really get my teeth into in America. He lent me his VW T3 camper van and sent me off to Salton Sea with a rough idea of how to find Slab City. So off I went on this adventure.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Did Jared go with you?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><b></b><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">He kept on threatening to, but never actually made it. He had a weekend job at the time and various commitments with his kid, it was a little too far to travel for his timetable.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Wasn't that the van he was living in? (Didn’t it get stolen later?). What did he live in while you borrowed his van?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Jared has lived in a boat, a van, a tent... but at this time he had and still has an apartment in Inglewood so he was cool letting me use the van. It did eventually get stolen (on his watch) but was returned a month or two later by the police.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">When did you go?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">I went from February to June 2018. I made 5 trips in total I think. Staying in the van or nearby motels to freshen up once in a while.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">What did you expect to find in Slab City before going?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">I had no idea about Slab City at all. I didn’t Google it. I just went. Jared said I should and I really trust him, so off I went with no preconceptions. He said it can be a little eerie at night but he wasn’t worried about me. (At least that’s what he said.)</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">You knew nothing at all?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">I mean, I knew about Salton Sea and Salvation Mountain but nothing about Slab City.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">What was your first impression?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Hot & dusty, really dusty...The first place I went to was Salvation Mountain and a guy there suggested I go to a place called the Ponderosa which is a hang out in Slab City. It’s a good first stop as it is run by a friendly couple called Shannon and Spyder. I had a few beers there, met a few locals and also got to meet their kids who feature in the book. Spyder wasn’t his real name. I realized that people who didn’t have normal names usually changed their names as they didn’t want to be found for various reasons. I was given a Slab name "London”.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">"London", as in <a href="https://www.samueljohnson.com/tiredlon.html">"When a man is tired of London..."</a> Do any photos in the book show Shannon and Spyder?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">They aren’t in the book, but their kids are. Timmy and Kasey are their kids and Daniel is Spyder’s kid from another relationship. Timmy is the boy in the canal with ginger hair and Kasey is the blond girl that I think appears three times in the book. Daniel is the kid smoking in the Ponderosa photo. There is a poster of Spyder on the wall in that photo, also a painting of George who appears later in the book.</font></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mhe1LXwvdVk/Xyrj43PSeYI/AAAAAAAAXjs/FShfhLJb3qQPxTWZY5Z3EsjPHC5d8aCXQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2000/into-the-fire-11.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="2000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mhe1LXwvdVk/Xyrj43PSeYI/AAAAAAAAXjs/FShfhLJb3qQPxTWZY5Z3EsjPHC5d8aCXQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/into-the-fire-11.JPG" width="640" /></a></b></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Did you explain right off at Ponderosa that you wanted to make a photo project? Or take a little while to immerse in the scene first?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">I turned up with a camera and told them I was a photographer and I was going to make a project, straight away. I think it’s pretty important to be upfront about your reasons for being somewhere, especially when you have a camera.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">How did they react initially? I mean, it's this place where people go to escape and change their name, and lay low. A photographer might seem to intrude on those things.</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><b>They liked my accent. I think they thought I was quite exotic. I was something different and people were keen and kind to oblige. </b><span class="s1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">😉</span></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Your accent branded you an outsider too in a way.</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">To be honest the accent has been extremely useful in America and the Netherlands (where I now live). It disarms people. I have been in some quite sticky situations in America because of my curiosity, for instance walking into a man’s driveway in Texas to photograph his car that I liked... He wasn’t too happy until I spoke and told him that we don’t have vans like that where I come from. He told me it was a truck not a van. Perhaps if I had been American he would have been less forgiving!</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Yes, I think travel allows some flexibility. Sometimes in other countries I play the clueless tourist card. If someone wants to know why I'm photographing, I just act like a dumb sightseer. And I can't speak the language so it's not worth their bother.</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">You see not knowing the language has its benefits!</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">How did you get power and water while living there?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">I had a solar/rechargeable battery pack for my phone and the van to pick up water and supplies. There is no sanitation or electricity in Slab City. Everything is run off solar or generators. Water is usually these big plastic cubes that people fill up from the nearest town and bring in by van (truck…)</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Where did you live exactly?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">I lived in the VW van, which had a broken lock on the slider door, so security in the van was pretty poor. I bought a padlock and chain in order to keep it more secure, Jared also gave me a pick axe just in case, although I think I would have been pretty useless... and then some days I would stay at the roach infested motel 5 miles away.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Is there a sense of property boundaries at Slab City?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">People do make boundaries, you can see in the book there are bottles or sticks that people use to show their territory. Security and theft can be an issue there. Luckily it was never an issue for me, although after my first stay I met a guy who almost became my fixer/security which was super nice. I would park my van near his camp at night and had the extra benefit of his dog's bark as security.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">What was a typical day like for you there?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">I’d wake up super early, especially in the van as I usually slept quite light. It was quite surreal as obviously people are up at all times of night so some nights you might hear dogs, or fights, or music/dancing or even the US military bombing the site next door!……seeing the early morning sun come through the van window was always really memorable. Then I would drink some coffee and go and see who is around, awake... and work out what to do about breakfast, then just go about my day with the camera in hand looking for old and new friends. It was great to live in a city where you could get to know all the inhabitants!</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">All of them?</font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mQertiBOSGQ/Xy19vKrY4nI/AAAAAAAAXkg/HonwNgdZYSMi1Hj-g5l7XFf8EtboVufQACLcBGAsYHQ/s2000/into-the-fire-45.JPG" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="2000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mQertiBOSGQ/Xy19vKrY4nI/AAAAAAAAXkg/HonwNgdZYSMi1Hj-g5l7XFf8EtboVufQACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/into-the-fire-45.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Not all but lots of the Slabbers who lived there all year round. The place is quite transient. People come and go, lots leave and a few stay during the heat of summer.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Do Slabbers feel like they're part of a community? It’s been called "The Last Free Place in America” so I'm imagining a lot of residents are pretty independent-minded. But perhaps there is also a sense of common cause?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">I think there is a group of elders who keep an eye on the running of the place, all strong characters in their own right and people who had spent enough time there and done enough things to be respected. If there is a particularly troublesome person they may get asked to leave by the community. However everyone really just does their own thing and minds their own business. I think the common cause is to drop out of normal society, for various reasons and try to live their lives the best they can.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">It’s like real life "Survivor". With people getting voted off the island.</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><b></b><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Yes, some people literally got run out of the Slabs. That happened rarely though. In general it is a very welcoming open minded community.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">I noticed in the pictures a huge amount of public art and public visual expression. With graffiti, tattoos, signs, ceremonial sites. Did you notice people spending a lot of time on those activities compared to "normal" society?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Some of the graffiti and art was absolutely stunning there. People would travel from far and wide to make art and express themselves on the concrete. East Jesus which is next to Slab City has constantly evolving art work on display. East Jesus is a colloquialism for “the middle of nowhere beyond the edge of services”…The photo of the crashed plane is from East Jesus.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">And there was some sort of open mic night with public talks and performances and music?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Yes, open mic music at the Range on Fridays and Saturdays and a Karaoke night on Monday.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">I'm assuming there was no typical 9-5 or structured labor. So perhaps it allowed more time for creative arts?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">There is no 9-5 in Slab City...</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">9-5 is probably the exact hours you stay inside. Because it's too hot then.</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">It gets extremely hot there in the summer, can reach 120 degrees F.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Was there some part of you which was tempted to drop out and just stay there forever?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">I like the idea of Slab City tremendously. I found that people were very kind and generous there, far more so than in conventional society. I think the heat would have got to me though, so dropping out yes, but not when it got over 100 degrees!</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Did you basically have your camera 24/7 while there? Or did you set aside some time to interact non-photographically?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><b></b><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">I had my camera with me the whole time. I took a bashed up SLR with me and it got dusty and had things spilled on it. It even got puked on by someone once... and survived. To be honest though the dodgy lock on the van was the main reason to always have my camera and valuables with me.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">There are a few photos in the book of people brandishing guns. What's going on there?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><b></b><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">The pirate looking chap lived in a camp called "Pirate Camp" this was a group of guys and girls who dressed like pirates and drank lots of rum amongst other things. He is wielding a musket which I don't think was active. The lady with the mohawk hair was brandishing a starter pistol the gun was a 357 snub replica pellet gun Co2 propelled, she used it as a visual deterrent. She contacted me recently and mentioned the gun had been confiscated by the Sheriff.</font></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-41ew-V2TM4c/XyrmHmG-34I/AAAAAAAAXj4/uqiv8kX3essBlCmrc870KoM1XmqaPlW2wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2000/into-the-fire-35.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="2000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-41ew-V2TM4c/XyrmHmG-34I/AAAAAAAAXj4/uqiv8kX3essBlCmrc870KoM1XmqaPlW2wCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/into-the-fire-35.JPG" width="640" /></a></b></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">You're still in touch with people there?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Yes, I try to keep in touch with people.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">What do they think of the book?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">They haven't seen the book yet as they don’t have addresses as such, although I'm planning on sending a few copies to a PO box.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">How aware are Slabbers of current events in the outside world?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">They have patchy internet so they are well up on the news. Coronavirus is obviously an issue there as it is all over the US at the moment and recently there was a huge fire in Niland, the adjoining town to Slab City. Mainly I would say Slab news is the most important thing. If there is a fire, is it a safe fire or does everyone need to run with buckets and sand to put it out? Etc etc. Slab news takes priority over most stuff that we worry about from the real world… whatever that is.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><b></b><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Where did the title <i>Into The Fire</i> come from?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">The title comes from 3 different inspirations.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">1.)"Out of the frying pan into the fire", (to do with the heat)</font></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">2.)"Into the Wild" Christopher McCandless —aka Alexander Supertramp— travelled through Slab City before heading to Alaska,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">and of course...<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">3.)Duran Duran..."Dance into the fire”.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><b></b><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">How did you wind up connecting with <a href="https://www.setantabooks.com/">Setantabooks</a>?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><b></b><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">My friend photographer <a href="https://www.niallmcdiarmid.com/">Niall McDiarmid</a> kept on telling me there was this bloke called Keith who would like to publish my Slab City work. During the beginning of lock down I had nothing better to do so Keith and his designer Tom and I got to work. It was fun to make a book remotely. I’ve never actually met Tom in real life! I really like Keith. He is a doer, and we made the book from start to finish in ten weeks.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">So they found you, not vice versa. I wonder how they knew of your Slab City pictures. From <a href="http://www.mattstuart.com/">your website</a>? Or <a href="https://www.instagram.com/mattu1/">Instagram</a>?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">I think Instagram. Instagram has been a very useful tool for me this past year. I’ve had a few jobs from it and now a book published.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Instagram can sometimes seem trivial and and silly. But you can’t argue with real-world results.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Yes, and a really positive experience as far as the publishing is concerned. It was also great to have Tom who put a great initial edit together which we worked from. Editing your own work/book can often be a bit daunting, so having a kick up the arse from these two was really liberating. </font></b><b><font face="georgia">What cover did you choose, btw?</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">I chose the sunglasses. I think almost all of UP group chose that one. Or else both covers.</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">The sunglasses is selling mildly better than the dolls.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"></font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5K_B8E1q-cA/XyrnhN0LSxI/AAAAAAAAXkE/LXi5wXKeq8oIkZk0t4vWzpXAuO-3gpjwgCLcBGAsYHQ/s499/414ikR8DVtL._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="319" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5K_B8E1q-cA/XyrnhN0LSxI/AAAAAAAAXkE/LXi5wXKeq8oIkZk0t4vWzpXAuO-3gpjwgCLcBGAsYHQ/w213-h319/414ikR8DVtL._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="213" /></a></font></div><font face="georgia">You might think this is funny. I was Googling your book this morning to see what had been written about it. And I found this title on Amazon.</font><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Wow! Great minds and all that...</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Here's a review. I think it's cover blurb material, typos and all!</font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><i><br /></i></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><font face="georgia"><i>"One of the worst books I ever read tempted with good revews. A lot of bad written porn, poor detective line, characters like going dolls. In the end you din't get the answer. I wonder what was the point of all of this? I'd like to have my money bak."</i></font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Haha! great review... Nasty and abominable! lol</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">And it mentions dolls.</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><b></b><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Indeed... I don't do refunds!</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">The photo of the snake, did the snake drink the IPA?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">That’s the snake that almost killed me... Dan (my fixer/security) took its head off with a spade, I drunk the IPA and almost trod on the …poor thing.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><b></b><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Oh, and you can ask me about the cave photo...A guy called caveman lived in there...Ex military, had decided to become a caveman...Lived in a cave for 4 years in Slab City. Still lives like a Caveman. He’s currently in Portland, with his dog Buddy.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Wait, he’s living in Portland? Doing what?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Being a caveman.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">He found a cave in Portland?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">No he's living rough, I think he's found a squat for the time being. He doesn’t have an email, but he is on Facebook.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Do you know the book <i><a href="https://alecsoth.com/photography/projects/broken-manual">Broken Manual</a></i>?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Alec Soth.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Yes. That was about men living in caves and getting away from society. I think there's maybe a part of Alec Soth which secretly envies that lifestyle. That’s what I was getting at with my earlier question. I was curious if there was some part of you which maybe wanted to drop out and join the cavemen.</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">I think Alec is more adventurous than he lets on, or at least he has ambitions to be more adventurous than he lets on!</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Definitely he's adventurous. But I think he's essentially an introvert. So a cave might suit him.</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Ask me about the exposed boards on the back cover.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">OK, what about the exposed boards on the back cover?</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">It was Tom’s idea. He wanted to keep them exposed so that when you are holding the back of the book it felt like a slab of concrete, exposing what was beneath the gloss, but also to have a rough fragility to the book. I quite like it, or at least it feels different and I think trying to add any form of extra sensory activity to a book is a good thing.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">I like it too but didn't really think much about it. I have a few other photo books with exposed cardboard covers where the pages run flush with the edge. Not a huge fan of that style, so I'm glad you didn't do that.</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">The sequencing was pretty ocd... There is a horn/tooth section, there is a high as a kite section, there is the nightmare section...</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">I noticed a primary color section too.</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Yes, the high as a kite section…</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">It goes Blue Red Green Yellow... and then there's the Shit In a Cardboard Box section.</font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RiWWJ4C6bts/Xyrow_yk_cI/AAAAAAAAXkQ/sNih26N1H0U0S96gxvseKnEMPknRMGJLgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2000/into-the-fire-7.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="2000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RiWWJ4C6bts/Xyrow_yk_cI/AAAAAAAAXkQ/sNih26N1H0U0S96gxvseKnEMPknRMGJLgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/into-the-fire-7.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Ah yes... that was just to remind the viewer that that is a reality... Shit in a box. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">I know there must be long stories behind each of your photos. But that's kind of the beauty of photography, right? All I know as a viewer is what I see, and I have to guess at the rest of it. But I think for you these photos probably trigger deeper memories and feelings. Since you know the personal histories and context, etc.</font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><b style="font-family: times;"><font face="georgia">The guy on the page before that was a serious fellow.</font></b></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">I'm guessing addiction issues might be a problem there. And petty violence, theft, etc. And you mentioned coronavirus. All of which is to say that you can't really separate out your paradise from society and all's well. The basic problems of living follow culture into every corner. So utopian experiments always fail, I think. But it's still fun trying. That's sort of what the world is facing now, in a nutshell. Everyone has been forced by COVID to retreat into their homes and small social circles. It's a globalized version of Slab City. And I think it's driving us all crazy!</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Addiction issues and mental health issues are amongst some of the problems there, but I think the same happens in all societies. Its just so much more condensed and the proximity to everyone living there is so much closer than a normal town or city. It was certainly an amazing learning experience for me. I expect the Slabbers will have Covid under control far quicker than most other small towns or cities. It probably isn’t the last free place in America but I expect it will be Covid free far quicker than most!</font></b></p>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-7295280620529858082020-08-01T13:19:00.009-07:002020-08-02T11:05:58.075-07:00Q & A with Peter Brown Leighton<p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DkzuYvuanx4/XyNFXcBLLWI/AAAAAAAAXgk/XhzWAOubZ88sn6Q3pwgExus6v2KXckXZgCLcBGAsYHQ/s800/selfportrait1973.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><font face="georgia"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="547" height="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DkzuYvuanx4/XyNFXcBLLWI/AAAAAAAAXgk/XhzWAOubZ88sn6Q3pwgExus6v2KXckXZgCLcBGAsYHQ/w343-h500/selfportrait1973.jpg" width="343" /></font></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font face="georgia"><i>Self Portrait, 1973</i><br /></font></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><i><a href="http://www.pbleighton.com/">Peter Brown Leighton</a> is a photographer based in Lampasas, TX.</i></font></p><div class="p1" style="font-family: georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><div style="font-family: times; text-align: center;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />•</span></i></span></span></span></i></div></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">PBL: I had no idea you were so visible on the web. How is it that the Internet is supposed to somehow bring information we really need and want closer to hand, but in reality makes it so much harder to find?</font></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">BA: Haha, mixed blessings. I'm sort of a half breed. Half my life was before the internet, half after. I remember how difficult it used to be just to locate a song you wanted to hear. Or to find a tattered old Playboy. After years and years struggling to track down information, now everything is suddenly available. Everything! But it's sometimes too much. Hard to wade through. But since you're doing just that I should take a moment to say thanks for looking through all those old IG photos. I think basically every photographer has the same root desire. Just someone to look at their photos. From Cartier-Bresson to Joe Schmoe it's the same desire. So thanks for doing that.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">IG’s not nearly as good as a hard copy print or book in the hand, but I starve for good photography and finding a concentration of it in one spot has been inspirational. And I agree, we want someone to look at, and "get” our work, but I also look for inspiration.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">"I starve for good photography". Hmmm. Where do you normally feed the hunger? What are some reliable places? Or reliable photographers? </font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Yeah, I’m not sure what “good” photography is anymore. At my age, 72, I’ve seen hundreds of thousands of more images across a broader cultural spectrum than, say, when I was still in my twenties. I’m not claiming that I can better identify what’s worth glomming onto because I’m older, only that what inspires me now is often different from when I was much younger. I’m certainly more ecumenical now. As you say, there’s a lot of stuff out there.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Where did you look for good photography when you were younger? How has your taste in photo consumption changed since then?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Most of my life has been spent outside of creative communities. So there’s that. For me, the input has come from museums, brick and mortar galleries, and online. To a lesser extent, events like Fotofest in Houston. Not books so much because I can’t afford them.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Do you have access to a good photo library. A university or something?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><b><span>The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas has one of the largest photography archives in the world. Early 19th century work</span></b><b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to Magnum. Soup to nuts. On occasion, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has something going on. Anne Tucker, who’s retired now, assembled one of the very best twentieth century photography collections there.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></font></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">One of the quirkiest archives around is in San Marcos, not far from Austin. The Wittliff Collection. Bill Wittliff wrote the screenplay and directed the miniseries Lonesome Dove back in the day. He was also a photographer and over time assembled an eclectic collection of mostly southwestern photographers that Texas State University acquired a few years ago. The space allocated to it is intimate and really amenable to viewing.</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">There’s also a decades old photography gallery still operating in Austin. The Stephen Clark Gallery. It’s tiny and ramshackle, occupying an old house on some of the priciest real estate still left un-highrised in the downtown area. Stephen and Witliff were partners. Witliff died last year. So I don’t know how much longer Stephen will stay in operation. He has an established collector base and doesn’t really show new artists. Visiting him is like stepping into the past. He has stories to tell.</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Also, Austin has one of the best independent book stores left standing, Book People downtown. They don’t have a great selection of photo books, but I’ve been known to stop by there and spend an afternoon with what they do have. Browsing is encouraged. I love the vibe.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">I also<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>have a friend, Jace Graf, who makes these elegant presentation boxes for artist’s editions and rare books for people who can afford them. He’s also a book maker, so he teams up occasionally with photographers to do limited edition books. There’s also a traditional print maker and letter press operator in the same little complex. All of these older arts-centric businesses are under fire by real estate speculators and the COVID now. I’m afraid many of them won’t be around much longer.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Finally, in terms of inspiration, when I was twenty, just getting into photography, the Time-Life photography series was my holy bible. Also, photography mags, back then, especially “Creative Camera”. Its issues featuring Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, Duane Michals, and Ralph Gibson are ones I still vividly remember. I was shooting all the time in those days, and when I wasn’t shooting, I was in the darkroom. But those days are long gone.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Haha, that’s been my life since the late 1990s.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o02b1yq881Q/XyW3xocyLvI/AAAAAAAAXhY/gn0RbC46KRsRLaAX795WVrT_OzlxrR7GQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/014_paired_live-snakes.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o02b1yq881Q/XyW3xocyLvI/AAAAAAAAXhY/gn0RbC46KRsRLaAX795WVrT_OzlxrR7GQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/014_paired_live-snakes.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Count your blessings. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">The Southwest Craft Center in San Antonio (now the Southwest School of Art) where I worked and lived in the early 70s had previously been a nunnery, built in the 1850s. I slept in a nun’s cell, and lived like a monk there for a couple of years. When I married, my wife lived there too. The school was just getting off the ground, things were very fluid and the creative vibe was intense. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">Since then I haven’t had many interactions, say, like the ones you’ve had the good fortune to have. There’s just nothing grass roots like the photo culture in Eugene and Portland in my area and no one I’m aware of around who approaches photography the same way I do. I’ve lived most of my adult life in and around Austin and San Antonio (excepting a short stint in Santa Fe, NM, eight years in Corpus Christi, 5 years in Ecuador). Sometimes shooting, sometimes not. Always taking photos in my head though.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">As far as photo consumption, my primary tastes haven’t changed from the 1960s and ’70s. Arrested development maybe. The trend in photography toward mannerism and self-absorption that took hold later on in the ’70s and seems to have held the high ground ever since, doesn’t interest me that much. Cindy Sherman’s work, for example, the first time I saw it, I was baffled in terms of how much influence her work has had on the medium. </font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Has your opinion on it changed at all?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I believe that when the eye, the camera and the execution of the print all come together that’s when photography happens. If the results require some sort of academic treatise to support them in order to be understood, or if they’re primarily serving as ballast for a book design, I’m open to it, but you have to work harder to capture my interest. There’s an old phrase: Don’t trust the teller, trust the tale. If one’s work is so far removed from the average viewer’s capacity to engage, I have to wonder what’s the point, and once that happens, for me, the party’s usually over. Craft is important. Admittedly, I’ve only seen a couple of Sherman’s prints on the wall. How should I say it: They weren’t masterfully executed. The same with a Chuck Close exhibit I saw in Austin several years ago. Considering who they were, I was expecting greater attention being paid to the quality of their finished work. </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">I’m not sure the high end of contemporary photography is aimed at the average viewer. I think it’s aimed at collectors.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Yeah, whoever they are. So much conceptual work comes across as too holy, clever and trendy, or self-referential. The beauty of photography lies in its power to communicate in a way that hadn’t existed before its invention. It’s the only art form, where we can instantaneously turn our minds inside out and save that instant visually to share with others later on. Anyone can do it. Not everyone can do it well. Some minds are more interesting than others. But the visual conversations we have all tap into the same wiring in our brains. Once the conversation begins mutating into something requiring an interpreter, I stop listening. Probably why I never went to graduate school.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I did a Google search on categories of photography recently and turned up over 380 million links. Picking a site at random, it listed 50 photographic categories. Back in the day, Beaumont Newhall’s four categories were like the 10 commandments.</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">What were the four categories?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Straight (Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, etc.), formalistic (my interpretation: all form and no content-think Man Ray’s solarized images), documentary (only the facts, ma’am), and equivalent (charged with emotional content and inner meanings, Stieglitz Cloud series).</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">My point is that, whatever the labels, photography is a medium communicating in a common language whose reason for being is defined in the eye of the beholder. It’s truly a democratic art form, perhaps, the most democratic next to drawing with pencil and paper. And, like every good democracy, it has evolved into something chaotic and unruly. I get that.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Dave Hickey wrote that “Bad taste is the only real taste.” What he means is that “good taste” is defined by our culture’s gatekeepers. They calculate its value which then trickles down for the rest of us to deal with. This has proven difficult with “fine art” photography because its underpinnings are still young and evolving, its practices and permutations are so disparate and widespread, and the bandwidth for filtering out and funneling the best of it through the zeitgeist, much less categorizing it, is so narrow. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">John Szarkowski’s job was simple compared to what curators are faced with today and will be in the future. There’s no there there. It’s everywhere.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here other than if there is a “there” there, it exists in the land of vernacular photography. I would submit that if millions of people hadn’t adopted the brownie camera back in the day, folks wouldn’t be using cell phones as cameras now. It’s also plausible that “street” photographers like you wouldn’t have evolved the same way, however you want to define what street is. You and others of like mind, in my opinion, are direct descendants of one of history’s first mass adoptions of a highly complex, transformational technology.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">I'm not comfortable with the label "street photographer". I don’t feel it fits me very well.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I don’t think it fits you or anyone else today who’s committed to shooting and interpreting reality unfolding at an organic level–and elevating that exercise to artistic practice. Calling that “street” is a disservice to the work.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b></b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X_JMtiDONo0/XyXIu1RMImI/AAAAAAAAXh0/LjlTN04Cl0sdopRegN4qX1OgMQP8xAzAQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/history-repeating_10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="978" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X_JMtiDONo0/XyXIu1RMImI/AAAAAAAAXh0/LjlTN04Cl0sdopRegN4qX1OgMQP8xAzAQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/history-repeating_10.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">The great thing about the Internet is that location doesn’t matter so much anymore. You can access creative community from anywhere.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">“Creative community” is an idealistic term and a fleeting reality. And I don’t mean that negatively. And I don’t think the way you’re using it is the way I’m reacting to it. To be sure, we all yearn to share with others who “get” us and challenge us on some level or another. There is a maze of options a mile wide and an inch deep available on the web to address that need. I prefer the Mariana Trench though. The only creative content-related websites, aside from your blog, that I’ve returned to repeatedly have been Tumblr and IG, but they both have their limitations. Among them time. I’d rather be working on a problem I’m having with an image than spending an hour looking at stuff that doesn’t inspire me, just to find one or two things that do. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Still, the web is essential. Without it I wouldn’t have been able to sustain what little visibility my work does have. And that’s a positive. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">On the other hand, as cultural consumers we’ve, also, grown increasingly accustomed to thinking of “online art” as somehow surfacing from a separate gene pool from art in the real world. In the real world, we can see the actual artifact and study it, and might even purchase a limited edition print that validates its rarity and value. Online a ubiquitous, “just good enough” digital copy of the same image, accrues value only if it’s “liked”, after being viewed only for a few seconds on Pinterest or IG or wherever.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">It serves only as social currency, not only viewed as art but as a quick and dirty trigger for human contact. This notion begs the much larger question of how art in general will be valued in society in the future: How will the concepts of art for art’s sake, art for the engagement of community and shared values, and/or art for the sake of making a living resolve themselves into something sustainable for the artist–and for society in general? I don’t know the answers other than I know they aren’t going to all be found on the internet.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Let's go back to square one. Japan?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">My father was stationed there after the war. I was born in California and shipped over with my mother and older brother at 6 months. We arrived in 1949. It seemed odd to me later in life that neither of my parents talked about the impact the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on them. I seriously wondered about this after they passed. It was one of the things motivating me to do the “Man Lives Through Plutonium Blast” Series.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MEB_hi9EOPI/XyXH-MArtXI/AAAAAAAAXhk/NGxwjRF2_wsnwQ6ZcbjqdJKyUPn60uBGgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/peter-brown-leighton-man-lives-through-plutonium-blast-01-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="1200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MEB_hi9EOPI/XyXH-MArtXI/AAAAAAAAXhk/NGxwjRF2_wsnwQ6ZcbjqdJKyUPn60uBGgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/peter-brown-leighton-man-lives-through-plutonium-blast-01-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Anyway, by the time I was 6 years old, my brother, who's into spreadsheets, had tallied that we'd lived in 26 different places till we finally settled down: us being military brats and our mother eventually being a single mom with kids in tow.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"> </font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">26 different countries?</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">No, houses.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">There was some mention in an interview that your parents had a less artistic path charted for you? </font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">My mother offered medicine, architecture, law, or accounting as career possibilities. She didn't want me to turn out like my father. A writer who tried and failed to make a living from writing early on. He wound up later becoming a (m)ad man in NYC, to my mother’s way of thinking a less than savory occupation. So any artistic inclinations emerging in me were registered with some concern. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">From age 7 until I was 18 I lived in a small, very conservative Texas town. Mary Martin, who played Peter Pan on Broadway in the ’50s was born there. When I was in grade school, the Peter Pan Peanut Butter people donated a huge fiberglass statue of their logo to our city park. The only other statue in the city at that time was one of a Civil War soldier on the town square. We didn’t desegregate until 1965. We were so whitbread that until then I’d never met an African American. Or a Hispanic. I didn’t know anyone who was catholic or jewish. I didn’t understand what being queer meant. I’d never heard of the Pill. There were 90 people in my 1966 senior class. By my calculation, 25% wound up getting pregnant or marrying someone they had gotten pregnant. I left town the day after graduating to enter the larger world, as John Fowles wrote, “handsomely equipped to fail.”</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">I thought your father was in the service? He was a writer too?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">My father was a WW2 vet, tank commander. European theater, then Japan, Germany, Korea, the Middle East. When WW2 ended, he left the military for a couple of years to write. When my brother was born he re-upped to make ends meet and made the Army a career. He was stationed at the UN building in the late 1950’s in NYC, and got into trouble off-hours with a waitress, a trans couple and some heroin. A perfect storm of bad choices. He was given the option of retiring honorably or facing a court-martial. Thus, his shift to civilian life and advertising. My dad was a piece of work, but a smart, charming guy. First time I ever spent any real time with him I was 21.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">The waitress thing was while he was married?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">No, he and my mom split in the early 50s. He remarried a couple of times more, but could never stick the landing. He had a roving eye.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Roving eye makes life interesting. But acting on it leads to trouble. I think if there were no beautiful women in the world, life would be more boring. </font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Yeah, I inherited that inclination from one of the best. </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Haha, young men look at young women. Or young men. Or trans. Or whatever turns them on. And vice versa. </font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">I agree although I think I would have been more productive as a young man without that notion as a guiding principle.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">How'd your family wind up in Texas? </font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">My mother was from Brownwood, TX, so when she split from my dad, in Germany at the time, we moved back to Brownwood, then to Ft. Worth. Then to Weatherford, TX, where she married my stepdad. Total opposite of my father.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">How so?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">He was a country doctor. Very respected in the community, but stern and depressive. Uncommunicative. No curiosity. Not a good match. </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Not a good match with you, or with the marriage?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Certainly not with me. Being the son of a country doc then was like being the son of a small-town preacher. We had to project a certain image that we didn’t really own. The marriage itself lasted 30 plus years, but eventually, my mom divorced him. She was a trooper putting up with him for as long as she did. </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">What was your mom like?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">She was an only child. Beautiful. Intelligent. Extraverted. Driven to succeed as a woman in a man's world. If she were twenty today, I doubt she would have children. She'd have a career instead. When she divorced my stepdad, she opened a successful real estate agency. She’d been a good mother, but not a great mom, meaning that my friends all called their mothers: Mom. I never called mine that. “Mother” was the moniker. More formal. Less intimate. She wasn’t the touchy-feely type. That said, she never complained, shouldered the responsibility over the long haul for both my brother and I, and made choices against her grain she wouldn’t have made had we not been around. </font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">And she imagined a more respectable path for you? What did your mom think of the path you chose? How did/does she react to your photos?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Yes, she definitely imagined a more respectable path. At the same time, once I left the nest and she’d done her job, she became very hands-off, sink or swim, and rarely commented on my career choices or any of the problems I created for myself. When she died I found several of my early prints stored in a box in her closet. I came to realize that my work must have meant something to her, even if she never mentioned it. Parents are a strange breed of cat. I cringe when I think back now about how naive I was before becoming one.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I take note that you just gave me permission to stop editing and just write. I appreciate that. Editing is a force of habit.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JR3KWc4opvc/XyXJ1dEXwNI/AAAAAAAAXiA/2nhDqcjpOgwba4cVOG8CBdJH9WganRf1QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1404/ss.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="986" data-original-width="1404" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JR3KWc4opvc/XyXJ1dEXwNI/AAAAAAAAXiA/2nhDqcjpOgwba4cVOG8CBdJH9WganRf1QCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/ss.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Stream of consciousness...Go...</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Whoa!</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Fuck editing. I mean it has a place. But not in the creative act. Banished!</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I saw the original typewritten <i>On the Road</i> roll of manuscript at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin once. Talk about not editing.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Were there a lot of typos?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Literal cut and paste all over the place. It was fascinating and all the pages were glued together to make one long sheet. I’m too lazy for that. I was made for the computer. </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">I wonder what Kerouac would do with a word processor. Probably "fix" all the good parts. </font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">That's an interesting thought. My feelings about computing are that a technology designed to simulate perfection is counter-intuitive to the way I naturally do things. So, for example, I've never tried to use a computer to make art according to software developers like Adobe or Apple. My goal instead has been to forge a process that I could use intuitively and without thinking. Like typing. So, I put aside reading how-tos early on in my practice and found my own way. Kerouac would have done the same I reckon. We both would have made terrible teachers.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Have you used a typewriter much? I mean back before computers?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">I had an old manual Royal for years. Cast Iron. Beautiful touch. Lost it somewhere along the way. Losing things along the way. That's how I wound up giving up photography back in the day: left my Leica and 3 months worth of undeveloped film on a Greyhound bus. I wasn't in a very good mental state when that happened and went fuck it. I'm done.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Tell me more...</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Complicated. I was living in Austin in the warehouse district in an art gallery with a couple of potters, before buying up abandoned warehouses there and turning them into bars became a thing. Unexpectedly I came into some money, so I bought an Ameripass, a 3 month, go-anywhere-in-the-US Greyhound bus ticket, aiming to document the shit out of America. Things didn't go as expected. Drugs might have been involved. </font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Which drugs?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Let's see: There were Black Mollies back then, which were a potent form of amphetamine. Often mixed with coke, and the folks I ran with were just those kinds of guys. The downsides were brutal. I proved I wasn't Neal Cassidy on that journey.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">No psychedelics?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Not then, but peyote and mescaline, mostly, when I did mind-altering drugs. I never did acid…that I know of. Pot, of course. PCP once, Qualuudes. White Crosses. No hard drugs like heroin. Alcohol to balance everything out. Like today, I guess, when one went through a Rimbaud phase back then there was a lot to choose from. Especially if you were a waiter, which is the way I was making my living then. For the most part, I was an equal opportunity user.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Rimbaud. Wasn't he into Absinthe?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Ha. Yeah, mostly. I think he dabbled in other things too. But Absinthe stand-alone would have been enough. Have you ever had a sip?</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Can't remember, possibly. Wormwood? Is that the same stuff?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Yup, eats your brain. Frenchman in a little town tried to get me to do a shot back in the day. Scared me. I was never comfortable with drugs actually. I tended to fight their effects rather than give into them. Not a good formula for sustaining long term creativity.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">OK, back to the lost film. Kids let this be a lesson. Don't do drugs or you'll lose 3 months of film. </font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Yeah, I’d echo that.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">That's a huge bummer about losing it. So you just said fuck it and walked away? What about all those photos?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Gone. I’ve lost all of my negatives from my earliest years actually. I have no record of that part of my photo past–except for this photograph (attached to this email, selfportrait.jpg) and a couple of others. Maybe that's why I'm so obsessed with leaving a record now. It's more than just wanting people to look, it’s also about leaving a coherent body of work behind. </font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Where'd the earlier negs go?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">They were left with a friend at his apartment when I took off on a road trip, again back in the day. He moved in the meantime and didn’t bother to take any of my stuff with him. </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Oh shit, how many negs? </font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Tons. Interestingly, my "teacher/mentor" in photography, whose archive is in the Dolph Briscoe Archive of American History at U of Texas, probably put some of my negs in with his stuff at one point. So I might have something out there, just not with my name on it.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">I had a similar situation in college. I stored a bunch of stuff in the attic of an apartment we were going to rent for the upcoming year. But over the summer one of my roommates thought it was old trash and tossed everything. My snowboard, a bunch of clothes. But the worst loss was a huge stash of homemade cassettes. Irreplaceable. </font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><b><span>Ah, those cassette mixtapes. Another creative pastime whose technological underpinnings are no longer widely supported. I loved the process. I lot of good stuff has been left behind in the wake of the tech tsunami. As to your assessment about losing one’s work. </span></b><b>Losing mine <i>was</i> a bummer. This was a period when both my mother <i>and </i>I believed I was going to hell in a handbasket. One of her favorite phrases.</b></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"> </font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Well you did go the dark side with all the artists and weirdos. So she was right in a way. I just Googled Brownwood, Texas. It's right in the dead center of the state. You couldn't put a pin on a map any more centered.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Brownwood claims to be the beating heart of Texas. My grandfather owned a marina on Lake Brownwood. He produced one of the first water ski shows in the state there, if not in the country. This would have been the early 1950’s. My brother and I were on skis waving at strangers when we were still in kindergarten. In March this year, Brownwood had one of the highest per capita COVID fatality rates in Texas. All hail DT. Which they, in fact, do there. It’s weird. </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Tell me where your writing gene, by the way, comes from. It seems to flow naturally from you.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">The gene? It’s the old nature or nurture question. </font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">What do you think? One or other or both?</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">I think it's both. I think writing is a bit like photography in that it's hard to be a writer unless you're a reader. Same with photography. It's tough to make photos unless you're consuming art and images and creative material. So that's the nurture side. The nature side? Very tough to get a handle on. Where I was going with that is that I've always been an obsessive reader. So I think that feeds my writing "gene”.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><b><span>I agree. And it’s hard to parse where it all comes from when it just flows out of you. Culturally we tend to promote the idea that if you follow your “bliss” you’ll even</span><span>tually find a proper fit for talents like yours. What I’ve experienced instead is that a lot of us want to become something we’re not really suited for, but go for it anyway, </span></b><b><i>a la</i> American Idol. Or, even if we’re naturally endowed with a talent, many still struggle to find a suitable economic fit for exercising it. I think artists are the canaries in the cultural coal mine in this regard.</b></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><b><br /></b></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"></font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YgkuqNxmq-o/XyXIV8ykuCI/AAAAAAAAXhs/HqyCUlubLF0Ti2NrDpcOjGq2atkbTDXhQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/peter-brown-leighton-man-lives-through-plutonium-blast-04.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="911" data-original-width="1200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YgkuqNxmq-o/XyXIV8ykuCI/AAAAAAAAXhs/HqyCUlubLF0Ti2NrDpcOjGq2atkbTDXhQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/peter-brown-leighton-man-lives-through-plutonium-blast-04.jpg" width="640" /></a></font></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br />I’ve never seen American Idol but my kids watch AGT, which is similar. I think most of the acts are talented in technical terms. But their taste is just godawful. It’s saccharine, unadventurous, restrained. I think there’s a comparison somewhere in there to photography. But I’m not sure how to express it without sounding like a dick.</font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">And the ones who make it on the show are only a small minority who’ve made it past the myriad auditions and gatekeepers. Hundreds, if not thousands of applicants never make it. The celebrity aspect of our media culture is so seductive. Constant exposure to it seems to lead many of us to believe we have to become famous somehow in order to exist.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Do you think you've found what you're suited for?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Not sure. I've always felt like an outsider. I manage that pretty well. I like being me. I haven’t always. Progress is being made. </font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">My favorite photographers are all "outsiders". Without exception.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Mine too. What’s that about? To photograph what we see and not<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>necessarily what other people are used to seeing or want to see doesn’t necessarily make for a robust economic model-if you want to make a living doing it.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">You're saying there's no way make money doing what you love? I agree that it's very difficult but not impossible. Maybe there are 30,000 people in the world who could fit in that box? You’ve got professional athletes, writers, actors, a few stray creatives, maybe 200 photographers in the mix. </font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Ha! Yeah, it can be done! Let’s see 8 billion people on the planet. 30,000 creatives and athletes actually making a living. That’s .000040 of the population who have a shot. </font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">And yet, art, I think, is one of those contradictory things that separates humanity from, say, the chimpanzees. Never would our primate cousins commit calories to engage in an activity that provided so little in terms of survival. Humans, on the other hand, rely on the written and visual arts, theater, dance, music, and philosophy, none obviously essential to the basic survival of the species, to symbolize our superiority and dominion over everything else on the planet. Go figure. </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Anyway, back to outsiders. I've tended to sell work mostly by accident. I have no marketing plan. One of your previous interviews was with Chris Shaw. He had no problem selling. For me, marketing and selling are excruciating. I’ve always made my way blending in, observing, and then synthesizing what I’ve seen. The fine art photography “game” isn’t played that way. I’ve been suiting up since 2011 and still don’t get how its rules are in any way compatible with the making of art. It seems to me that they’re rigged so that the least likely player to score any points is always going to be the artist. </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I would figure, btw, there have to be only a handful of fine art photography collectors in the world. Whoever and wherever they are, I have no idea.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">I don't know who the collectors are either. But it's hard to devote much mental energy there. I don't know who buys pork belly options or high-tech futures either. It's the same game. They exist in their own world. Better to worry about this one.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">What do you mean "playing the fine art photography game"? What does that look like in practice?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">This is what I’ve observed: The 2008 recession put the final nail in the careers of not only a lot of photographers but also of all the ancillaries in the industry. Suddenly, many of these folks started marketing workshops, became photography app developers, opened consultancies and online galleries (charging fees for submissions), and became festival reviewers. Brick and mortar galleries closed. And the few remaining rarely offered stipends or developmental support-while still taking 50% of everyone’s sales. Blue Sky in your neck of the woods being one of those rare exceptions.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Meanwhile, MFA programs have been churning out more and more art photographer wannabes who in the past at least have seemed to have the wherewithal to invest in all of the above. Some of them have talent or business acumen, or both, who are mixed in with many others who don’t. Festival and seminar groupies abound. Without exception, though, anyone who wants to play the “game” today will undoubtedly hit more than one paywall along the way. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">In short, what I’m describing is really a massive, antiquated house (currently on fire) in which artists/photographers, who want to make art a career, are expected to live and pay rent in order to receive recognition. At this point, my thinking is that their concerns should shift from, say, strategizing about ways to survive a series of vacuous 20-minute portfolio reviews (which they’ve paid to endure) to instead finding a way out of the building they’re in before it burns to the ground.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">If 2008 was a nail, 2020 is shaping up to be a fucking missile.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Until the coronavirus hit, the model I’ve just described has, at least, seemed to pay the bills for a lot of folks who aren’t artists. Inefficient and misaligned as that seems to me. In doing so, the model’s gatekeepers have too often passed over some of the most interesting work out there in favor of maintaining a self-perpetuating mediocracy willing and able to pay the costs of entry. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">This is just an observation. Not an accusation. There’s an old Latin saying: “The senators are all good men, but the senate is a beast.” Such is the case here. Fundamentally, the situation in the arts is the same as it ever was, I think. Except, given our current political climate, perhaps not the same.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">We pay 20-30 bucks for two of us to get past security in a museum these days, more if we want to see the touring exhibits too. And the experience is rarely worth it, too crowded (or was before COVID) and not conducive to contemplative viewing. I visit some favorite venues, when I can, aside from the Ransom Center (free admission), smaller ones and more out of the way: the Menil in Houston (free admission) and the McNay in San Antonio come to mind. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"> </font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Most of your work I'm familiar with involves composite imagery. I'm curious if you devoted much time to so-called "straight" photography. And if so, when you evolved to your current practice.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Back in the 70s of course I was analog all the way: All the usual heavyweights in photography being models back then. Most of my digital work until 2005 or so was graphics-based though. Digital photo tech wasn’t mature enough till the mid-aughts for its components (cameras, printers, inks, software) to compete in the same ballpark with their analog competitors. I’m not enough of a connoisseur to debate the particulars of digital versus analog, so I have nothing provocative to offer about which is superior. If the work is well done, and exists in the physical world, i.e., on paper, then I’ll most likely appreciate it no matter how it came about. I’m pretty easy that way. That said, I rarely see much overtly digital work that I find appealing. The image is everything. If the digital process gets in the way, I’m not a fan. Even though I’ve been guilty of crossing that line myself on more than one occasion. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I bought my first digital camera in 2006. I'd been photographing occasionally over the years (I even had a small darkroom for a while in the late-eighties) but didn’t begin practicing seriously again till the aughts. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">The digital composites I did in the mid-’90s were photography-based for the most part, but rendered to look more like traditional art prints. To that end, I used to reserve a viewing room at the Ransom Center, checking out traditional prints from their collection to study. I knew I’d never be able to equal traditional print quality, but I wanted to try to get as close as I could digitally. Some of my early work is interesting because I didn’t have a printer then that could print those images the way I’d rendered them to file. I had to wait until the early aughts when I bought a 6-color Epson to find out whether or not what I’d conceived on screen was viable.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia"><span></span></font></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-26eCE9E9ZX4/XyNFM_bRDvI/AAAAAAAAXgg/0SyPS5P4_Ncg8_zqAR1bn2NyvLK1oCXzQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/earlywork.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><font face="georgia"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-26eCE9E9ZX4/XyNFM_bRDvI/AAAAAAAAXgg/0SyPS5P4_Ncg8_zqAR1bn2NyvLK1oCXzQCLcBGAsYHQ/w625-h426/earlywork.jpg" width="625" /></font></a></span></b></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">As far as straight, vernacular-related photography: I knew picking it back up after so many years that I wasn’t going to be pushing any boundaries. I was too far behind the curve to express anything even close to what was already being much better said. For me, shooting straight has been for pleasure, putting my head in a different space, and to justify, at least in my mind, the composite work I do. I think of that work as, not photography, but about photography. I feel like I do have something to say in that space so that’s where I’ve concentrated my efforts.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">By 2006, I had acquired a decent digital skillset, had a lifelong reverence for photography, and possessed a large collection of snapshots. I wanted to do a project that would include all of the above elements, but I was stuck on the particulars.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">In 2007, I read about a collection of snapshots being exhibited at the National Gallery in Washington. That exhibition, I thought, marked the end of an era. The Kodak Moment was over. So much so that the National Gallery was mounting an exhibit of found anonymous snapshots and elevating them to the level of art. A few years later, Kodak declared chapter 11.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">There was a lot of churn in the photo world at the time. The shift from analog to digital was well underway. Some pros and serious amateurs weren’t about to switch and were being really vocal and hardline about it online. The equivalent, I suppose, of ranting about why you’re not going to wear a mask in the middle of a pandemic. In the midst of that is when the idea occurred to me of deconstructing found snapshots depicting mundane, 20th-century life, and creating fake photographs from the pieces and parts to comment on the widespread disruptions happening in the 21st century. That, I thought, would be a challenge, technically and conceptually, and worth my while.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">The result was a series of imaginary snapshots, hopefully seamless, that the viewer wouldn’t recognize as digitally constructed at first. I intended for the prints to be modest in appearance and close to snapshot size instead of huge like so much photographic work shown in galleries today. And I wanted them to be accessible and entertaining, while operating on a deeper and more ambiguous level if someone wanted to go there. Along the way, I wrote a fictional back story as a guide to account for the collection’s existence. </font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">All of this transpired over a ten year period of back and forth, this and that, and one thing and another.</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">It would be amazing to print them on old paper as “authentic” snapshots, dogeared and dirty, maybe 4 x 6 or smallish? Have you ever considered something like that?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I’ve certainly thought about experimenting with alternative approaches. The costs of moving in those directions are just too great for me to take on. That said, a few years ago, I did a 3 day workshop on photogravure. I really dug the idea of taking digitally assembled photomontages based on analog snapshots, exposing them to contemporary polymer film, and printing the result on a traditional intaglio press. Back to the future.</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I loved the process, and managed to walk away with one decent print. I would’ve liked to do more but again, the trial and error learning curve was pretty steep and the costs too rich for my blood.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">And now you’ve started shooting the streets again? No composites?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Right, no composites: I posted 3 on IG today. They’re not analog though. I use a little fixed lens Fuji. Less than $500. Point and shoot. Nothing special, but it does the job.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Those were straight? No captions. No info. On IG it's hard to tell. But maybe that's the point?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Yes. And true. Which begs the question: What are the rules governing a body of work these days when former boundaries, dictated as much by technical limitations as anything else, no longer exist? And what about sequencing? There are folks willing to leg wrestle over that one. Or book design? Should the photography book be about its design, how it’s put together, or about the quality and reproduction of its contents? And what the fuck does narrative even mean today when I’ve seen it deployed in more different ways than the word “fuck”? How do you curate an avalanche? How will curators and archivists in the future even begin to parse our time period so that what they’re looking at makes some kind of sense? </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Today's photography curators haven’t done so well on that account. Not their fault. They’ve been overwhelmed and underprepared–given that so much has changed in their lifetimes–and continues to change. Not to mention, curatorial training seems to require a label and category for everything. How do you attach labels to a cultural stream of consciousness as extended as ours has become?</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Good questions. I have no idea.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Ha! Who does? No one I know. A curator once told me I needed to refer to my images as “reconstructed photography”. Look that one up on Google and you’ll find out way more about nipple and breast reconstruction than anything I’m doing.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">"How will people curate this in the future?" Perhaps that question has been bypassed? Creativity has been funneled into the present. Then gone. Instagram seems the embodiment of this outlook. Streaming images exist for a second then gone. Perhaps the entire idea of historic summation is kaput? Museums kaput? Collections kaput? Curators kaput?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I think our species’ impulse to curate is too strong to be completely sublimated. IG is for today, something will replace it sooner or later and history will out. Years from now excavating our time period will provide boundless opportunities for digital archivists and curators, not to mention their counterparts on the hard copy side. That is if we’re able to keep the threads of civilization intact.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Yes, of course Instagram will fade away at some point. But the idea of instantaneous sharing, and living in a moment with little historical context or anchor, I think is here to stay. Maybe Ram Dass would approve?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Yes, he would. In that sense, in the hands of someone with focus and intention, an IG account could become like a Buddhist sand painting always in the process of becoming, never completed. Interesting thought that.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s5bxwsS_4yo/XyXLKUWWHbI/AAAAAAAAXiM/t03mlwnaUJYPZkh_zB9JvWHJW3unc7mfQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/PB_30.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="697" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s5bxwsS_4yo/XyXLKUWWHbI/AAAAAAAAXiM/t03mlwnaUJYPZkh_zB9JvWHJW3unc7mfQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/PB_30.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">I believe the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/plutoniumblast/">Plutonium Blast IG</a> is fairly new. What motivated you to begin that account? </font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">It is new. I had another one that got shut down along with my FB account, because I had, according to someone, or some algorithm, at FB, “violated community standards” on both platforms. A blessing as far as I'm concerned because I’ve encountered several serious photographers this time around on IG who I hadn’t known existed before. Had no idea photographers like you were out there. </font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uL4Uv_MF1wM/XyXLQeRg6WI/AAAAAAAAXiQ/bthextcFLnUfjpwK--jrvdMpDjZHLM2xQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/PB_30-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="697" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uL4Uv_MF1wM/XyXLQeRg6WI/AAAAAAAAXiQ/bthextcFLnUfjpwK--jrvdMpDjZHLM2xQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/PB_30-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Please don't label me a "serious" photographer. I reject that label. I'll accept "Committed" or "Photofreak" or "Driven". But "serious"? It reeks of orthodoxy.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I also hate the word "strong" in relation to creative work. Again, what the fuck does that even mean? So, okay, to your point, I’ll go with committed rather than, say, compulsive. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BDR3PVFjQB4/XyXLWKIDA4I/AAAAAAAAXiU/o7D1_A9YuqogxmrjjqPCjhmFNI5mh7XEACLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/PB_30-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="697" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BDR3PVFjQB4/XyXLWKIDA4I/AAAAAAAAXiU/o7D1_A9YuqogxmrjjqPCjhmFNI5mh7XEACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/PB_30-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Hmm. Do you really expect yours or anyone's photos to survive in 1,000 years?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Anything is possible. Archeologists are finding paper-based work today more than 1k years old. My work probably won’t survive but why not your archive a thousand years from now? The Blake Andrews Codex. It’s got legs. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uac_nYE7_XQ/XyXLeb2UnQI/AAAAAAAAXiY/_EXvVcdq__4b2eoRmnPuAgTQ7ClEUnBpACLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/PB_30-3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="697" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uac_nYE7_XQ/XyXLeb2UnQI/AAAAAAAAXiY/_EXvVcdq__4b2eoRmnPuAgTQ7ClEUnBpACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/PB_30-3.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">This thread of our conversation does raise the question: Why do we even do what we do, all things considered. Winogrand apparently left thousands of rolls of film undeveloped at the end. He wasn’t curating his work, he wasn’t printing. Talk about “committed” to something: He was shooting obsessively, seeming not to care about any end result. Camus called activity like this fishing in a bathtub. What's the point if you’re not going to catch any fish? The point, to me, is that, given all of the things I could be doing, practicing the one vocation I’m passionate about is the most rational thing I could be doing at this time in my life. No matter what.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">For whatever the reasons, folks are always going to be making art of some kind, and, in tandem, others at some point are going to be curating and critiquing their output. My belief is that some of what survives the disruption of our time will be preserved somehow, and in the future what remains will be carefully studied. The past 100 years or so have been among the most critical in humanity’s history. There’s no way the work of folks like the ones you’ve been interviewing is going to be ignored if it survives. It’s too much of our time to be dismissed. The best “street” images are like popular music that bubbles up from the churn below and not from the top down. They’re inextricably embedded in the culture. On the other hand, having done a few portfolio events now, I would bet most of the work reviewed at them won’t stand up as well to historical scrutiny. </font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Which portfolio reviews? And why? Your impressions? Surely after attending a few and sharing your work here and there, you must realize no one gives a shit? Not about your work specifically but about photos as photos. I mean, those reviews are based on developing a collector base and climbing the ladder to photography as ART. They don't have much of an inner life. It's about building audience. Networking. Collectors. Gatekeepers, etc. Fuck all of em. That's the only decision that makes sense really, for me anyway.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i5DooHMHods/XyW3DIK4O4I/AAAAAAAAXhI/pNn6m3maARMQNKPJZzRYRJKkp_hyWteOgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/IMG_5034.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i5DooHMHods/XyW3DIK4O4I/AAAAAAAAXhI/pNn6m3maARMQNKPJZzRYRJKkp_hyWteOgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/IMG_5034.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">I've done Fotofest twice. And Center in Santa Fe once. Then the random review here and there. I've gotten a few exhibits from those experiences to be sure. But I’ve certainly questioned the motivations, enthusiasm, and expertise of some of my reviewers, along with the efficacy of a 20-minute review. It's like speed dating. And, for me, engaging at that level of artificiality is about as satisfying as eating styrofoam peanuts. </font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I went to my first Fotofest in 2014 because my wife made me. It didn't make sense to her that I had all this work and no outlet. I relented because I was curious about the contemporary photo world and how my work might measure up. I had no idea what I was doing or what to expect. I took 5 portfolios, mostly straight. I was advised by a curator at the beginning though to only show Man Lives Through Plutonium Blast, which I wasn't planning on showing at all. It was work that I didn’t think photography reviewers would relate to. To say I was surprised that it was well-received would be an understatement. Received well enough for me to think, naively, that maybe if I continued signing up for events like Fotofest, I could eventually sell enough work to at least cover my digital darkroom costs. That would have been a huge win in my book. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iG-vk3pSlz8/XyW3Kgfi4gI/AAAAAAAAXhM/N2BCVUMPH0InCKUSCfoPYcz2m6OoRSRUgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1130/IMG_5035.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="1130" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iG-vk3pSlz8/XyW3Kgfi4gI/AAAAAAAAXhM/N2BCVUMPH0InCKUSCfoPYcz2m6OoRSRUgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/IMG_5035.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">So, initially, that was the plan: Try to get more exposure, work the crowd, do exhibitions, spend some dough on a high priced consultant, and the sales and collectors would come. Don’t laugh.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">What’s actually happened is that the handful of collectors I’ve attracted haven’t provided near enough support to cover the additional exhibition costs I’ve incurred, much less covered my normal day-to-day expenses. Instead, I’ve earned some recognition, I’ve learned a hell of a lot about how the cards are stacked against young artists in the art trade, I’ve spent less than I would have on an MFA, and in the process have more confidence in my own work. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Now we’ve circled back around to where we began: As you’ve already said, at the most basic level, all I’ve really wanted is to do well crafted work that someone somewhere might appreciate. George Saunders, a short fiction writer, describes his stories as black boxes that he hopes people will enter in one frame of mind and leave in another. That's an apt description of how I felt when I ran across your work. The individual images were captivating and the cohesiveness of the work in total, your command of voice over all has never wavered. It’s brilliant stuff. </font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">One positive to come out of your 2014 Fotofest experience is that it did get the work I out there. At Blue Sky, for example, which is where I first encountered it. Great show! Give your wife a pat on the back for making you do Fotofest, which led you to me. What does she think of your photos?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">My wife has been a supporter of mine for 45 years, and consistently overestimates my brilliance. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I think, for a photograph to work, it has to provoke some kind of emotional response that starts at the brain stem and works its way up. I sat with Gerhard Steidl a couple of years ago. He was in Houston setting up the Robert Frank newsprint show at the Houston Center for Photography. I was one of twelve in the seminar. The topic was photo book publishing. The first thing he said was none of you will ever publish with anyone of my caliber. He then spent less than 5 minutes per person looking at our portfolios. My maquette was one of the last ones he looked at. Everyone else’s had been pretty much the same sort of work and he’d been pretty dismissive of what he'd seen up to that point. When he got to mine, he immediately perked up, and said, “Brilliant. I haven't seen work like this before. You will never find a publisher for it.” </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">His response was visceral. I caught him at the right time in the right place. Best left-handed compliment I’ve ever received.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">I saw that Frank show at Blue Sky. It was great. The best part was that they burned the whole thing after. No collectors. No money. Just gone. I think there was some sort of dance ritual involved?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Exactly, but, as I recall, it was also a great way to promote Steidl's reissue of The Americans. So there's always an angle. Yeah, I think from Houston the next stop was Portland.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Anyway, that's Robert Frank. He can do whatever the fuck he wants. He doesn't have to worry about how his photos fit into this or that genre or collector base. That's good guidance in my book, even if we aren't in his position.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">I didn't stick around for the ritual dance. The crowd was pretty hoity-toity. So the dance probably was too.</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">I just Googled Lampasas, TX and it seems very close to Brownwood. After all your travels you've come back to the nest.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Not intentionally. We’re close to Austin where my wife and I have children. Austin is unaffordable these days. But yeah, small town Texas isn't a stretch for us. We can talk the talk and walk the walk. Small town folks are nicer than big city dwellers on the whole, as long as you don't ruffle their cultural feathers. Lampasas is the kind of town where the first question they ask when they meet you is "Do you have a church home?" There’s also still a hanging tree here that everyone knows about but no one mentions in polite conversation. </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Alright, I'll ask. Do you have a church home?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Nope. But, again, I grew up in a small town with a church on every corner, so bring it on. </font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Tell me a little bit about your vernacular snapshot collection.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Really started collecting in my twenties. I still have some of those. Then you could pick up a snapshot in junk shop for a nickel. Now not so much. Although I've found some cheaper shops around Lampasas that are starting to keep a watch out for me. </font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I typically won’t mess with an already great snap. I save those in a separate archive. When I started working on the Plutonium Blast series I looked for pieces and parts in images that weren’t otherwise exceptional, backgrounds, faces, body language. I’d digitally remove those elements and catalog them for compositing later. I have no idea how many snapshots I have. Thousands? I prefer to randomly access them when I work so that I’m engaged more intuitively rather than with some idea and specific imagery in mind. So, while my digital storage is more orderly, I keep all my hard copy source images mixed up loose leaf in boxes.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">How do you decide which ones to alter? And how to you decide which images to add? </font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I don't know. Typically, what I’m looking for are a very few ordinary elements that when combined, completely transform into something interesting.</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">The best ones just happen. They’re the ones that are more ambiguous and tend to operate on more than one level. I’m not consciously trying to make that happen. It just does. Much like your work, in a way. I’m just taking a different route to get there.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dxBo7VzEFZs/XyXLpyG4s8I/AAAAAAAAXig/5VbQ9NtaigMwv694xWtUr076GcZafk4JQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1546/yy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1546" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dxBo7VzEFZs/XyXLpyG4s8I/AAAAAAAAXig/5VbQ9NtaigMwv694xWtUr076GcZafk4JQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/yy.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">When I started using Photoshop, I wanted to reach a point where I wasn't thinking about what I was doing, I was just doing. The learning curve at first was pretty steep and unforgiving. I screwed up a lot. Early versions of Photoshop didn’t have an “undo” function. And I had to use a mouse and trackballs for editing. So instead of undoing, I did a lot of starting over. Now the software is much more flexible, the equipment is better and I’ve progressed to the point where I can focus on the image and not the software. One step leads to another. </font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">You say you start with flawed images. And it seems you revel in the flaws. The little dog ears and scratches and minor defects which makes photos look "real". I too am attracted to imperfection. I can't really describe why. But perfection seems the enemy.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">No question. Again, my approach to Photoshop was to aim for imperfection, not perfection. That's been my mantra: “Aim, Grasshopper, for perfect imperfection.”</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Do you know the Daido Moriyama book <i>Bye Bye Photography</i>? </font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><i>Bye Bye Photography</i>? No, but my photobook knowledge and collection pales in comparison to yours. I've always put my money into supplies and keeping up with the technology. I’ll check out <i>Bye Bye Photography</i>. Maybe the answer lies there.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">How to make work perfectly imperfect? What's the answer?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia">Om.</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">When I was around ten most of my community outings began with a big Om circle, everyone joining hands and chanting for maybe 10-15 minutes? It seemed normal at the time but looking back, hmm. Buncha California hippies on a different plane. Haha, I wish I had photos.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Wow! Hopefully, that was a positive for you.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Yeah, it was great. I have fond memories. But at the time I didn't know what was happening. Kids will go with whatever adults lay on them. Very accepting.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I can understand that. The resilience of childhood. The further away from it, I get the more I appreciate the childhood I had.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Summers we used to swim naked every day in a muddy pond, kids, grownups, frogs, everyone. I didn’t think much of it at the time. But if that same scene happened today it would probably generate a different reaction.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I did a 10 day Vipassana meditation course in 1988. Literally changed my life. I'm a big believer in the power of the well-disciplined mind. While not necessarily a disciplined practitioner.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">What changed after your Vipassana course?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Having experienced a plane of existence beyond what I had previously known as consciousness, probably sounds trite, but somehow I physically and mentally shifted to a less frantic lifestyle after that. I’d never experienced anything like it, not even on drugs. It wasn’t a religious awakening, but spiritual maybe. I don't know. It's like ghosts. You can tell me all about them but I'll only believe in them when I see one. I experienced something during that course that was comparable.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">I've never seen a ghost but several close trustworthy friends have. Not sure what to do with that info.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I've had the same experience with a friend who disappeared for several weeks and claimed to be abducted by aliens. </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Who can say what really happened?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">These days that's a pretty critical question and right now some of the answers are pretty scary.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">I try to remain open to the experience of everyone, and myself also. Even if the cumulative account is absurd.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">My conclusion is that the cumulative account by definition will always be absurd. </font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Do you ever shoot photos around where you live in Lampasas? </font></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">I try to do special events here where they'll be a crowd. They have a festival in the summer called Spring Ho! I kid you not. I’m mean, first, it’s not spring and hot as hell, and second, Ho?</font></b></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><span><b>It's great for shooting though. Pet parade, beauty pageant (Seriously, how would you like your daughter to be crowned Miss Spring Ho), floats, beer and barbecue.</b></span><b> </b><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I also shoot in Austin when I can. It's been awhile because of covid. Lately, our conversations have inspired me to look back at some old 80s/90s work.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span class="Apple-converted-space"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><b><font face="georgia"></font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Why do you need a crowd? What is there about people that attracts you?</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Invisibility. People are less uptight about someone carrying a camera around in a crowd when everyone else is taking pictures with their cell phones. Although that phenomenon poses its own set of issues in terms of capturing anything without a cellphone in it.</font></b></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><span><b>I really like bearing witness to the oddities of human behavior that most of the time most of us don’t notice. </b></span><b> </b><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I think like anybody attempting to do vernacular work at a higher level, it’s all about capturing something intriguing only you can see and everybody else has missed.</b></span><b> </b></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">I've never felt like people are uptight about my camera, and I pretty much carry it always. But I think maybe people are now more uptight about being photographed. But I haven't been shooting as long as you. Do you think it was different back in the 1970s. Less awareness/suspicion of being photographed?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">There's a difference, I think, depending on location and circumstance. Everybody is shooting in Europe. I didn't feel out of place doing the same. Photographing in the rural southwest, I've been challenged a few times. Some of these folks seem to feel like they're being spied on through their TVs. They see a guy with a camera who doesn't look like them and they get their backs up. It was easier in the 70s and 80s when people weren’t quite as paranoid about Big Brother.</font></b></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I remember a critique of Winogrand’s later work, many years ago now, claiming that when he left NYC and moved to Austin to teach at the University of Texas, the quality of his work dropped off. The reasoning was that not only did he leave a milieu he was familiar with in the urban east but that it was just more difficult to shoot in wide open spaces. I think, now that more of his later work is out there, that argument doesn’t hold water. But, personally, I do find shooting in a denser space, whether more congested with people or architecture or whatever, is better for me.</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">You don't "look like them"?</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><span><b>I’m sure I’m projecting, but I imagine that</b></span><b> </b><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I look to them like a liberal with a camera.</b></span><b> Stealing conservative souls.</b></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><b><br /></b></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"></font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UmxY-TViq3I/XyXMIWPFFSI/AAAAAAAAXis/Jfl6jpdGlaEfjcm4ZXQdm-E6liCdXXCVgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/001_paired_in_my_mnd.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UmxY-TViq3I/XyXMIWPFFSI/AAAAAAAAXis/Jfl6jpdGlaEfjcm4ZXQdm-E6liCdXXCVgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/001_paired_in_my_mnd.jpg" width="640" /></a></font></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">Haha, what's a liberal look like? I guess that's a loaded question. </span></span>T<span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">he more people I see out in the world, the less sure I am of my ability to sight-judge anyone</span>. Even liberals.</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><span><b>Here again, we’re stuck using binary labels. </b></span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I’ve never considered myself a liberal or a conservative and only in the past few years have become more politically aware. Fault me for not paying attention. If I were to label myself, I’d say I was a lapsed idealist. Political party of one. I wear horn rimmed glasses though and don't wear boots or starch my Wranglers. Rural Texas fashion is pretty uniform, considering how libertarian and independent everyone claims to be. If you don’t look MAGA, you must be from the city. I try to tone it down by just wearing t-shirts and jeans. But the horn rims are a tip off.</b></span></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">People with glasses are liberal? But what about the spare neo-con who happens to be myopic?</span></span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">Never mind. Just playing devil's advocate.</span> <span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">I know that there are visual cues which everyone displays, sometimes unconsciously. And if you are a photographer you're probably tuned in to those things more than most people. Because little details like glasses and boots and maybe an odd UFO in the corner are often what makes a photo.</span></font></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Again, I may read way too much into my invasion of someone’s privacy when I’m taking their picture. It’s definitely something I’m sensitive to. I’m much less concerned about it when I’m shooting in an urban setting. Rural folk, at least in the Texas heartland, are typically more private, and more suspicious of a camera toting stranger these days, especially one who’s taking pictures of things that don’t make sense to them.</font></b></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><span><b>We have relatives who live in far west Texas, who literally only get their news from Fox, Drudge, and Rush. Imagine what their mental map of the outside world must look like, how that configures their brains and their understanding of how the world works. The term myopic neo-cons is a redundancy. </b></span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>In Texas</b></span><b>, we might as well change the state’s name to Myopia</b><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>. Many here still believe the covid can be explained away as a hoax. They believe the numbers are rigged. Plus, only minorities and the elderly are dying anyway. Right? It’s a culling of the herd. Darwin at his best. More lately, it’s been the optimistic line: “Children aren’t contagious, open the schools” or the fatalistic: “I’d rather die than wear a mask”.</b></span></font></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Three weeks ago, we had 10 Covid cases in Lampasas. We're now up to 57 and counting, including the mayor.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">57 cases just in Lampasas?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Yep.</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">How worried are you about your health?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">I vacillate. Mostly I feel like we're doing due diligence and not taking any chances. I didn't do Spring Ho! this year. I have a close friend in her late 40s in San Antonio, who came down with it early on. Kicked her ass. She's okay now as far as I know, but she definitely confirms that just because most of us will survive it if we get it, it’s still going to be a painful and scary ride.</font></b></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">The uncertainty of it all is what's starting to eat at everyone, I think. At least, the ones taking it seriously. The population of the county our west Texas relatives live in is around 1000 people. Lots of square miles, few people. They’ve had 70 cases. They thought the covid was a hoax until their 80 year old doctor, the only one around, and his wife, came down with it. Now they’re starting to come to grips with the idea that it’s for real, but at this point what are you going to do? Their way of life is contingent on everything opening back up. They simply aren’t able to wrap their minds around any other option.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">"<i>The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most ,that we are told to trust. I think it's all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I'm sick of it</i>." This was a quote by Chuck Woolery retweeted by Trump recently. Speaking of hoaxes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Yeah, and Trump can kiss my ass. Just finished my first beer. And crushed the can against my forehead.</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">I’m trying to form a mental image now. It’s not very liberal, lol.</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">MAGA!</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">People believe what they want to believe. I think the current situation, where truth is amorphous and everything feels unsure, plays right into the hands of whoever is in power. It happens to be Trump but it's the same situation fostered by authoritarians throughout history. It's difficult to control firmly established truths, but much easier to control a fluid situation with conflicting ideas.</font></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Trump is certainly a master, not at controlling the truth, but at muddying the waters so much that, while the truth may be out there, no one can agree on exactly where or what it is, much less base rational decisions on it.</font></b></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">As photographers, we manipulate truth, of course. Just in the way we frame things. You do that in your work. Commenters often want to know what’s going in your images. You raise questions, not only about what reality is, but you also encourage the viewer to reframe their notions of reality, to step outside of routine thought processes and think differently about the environments they’re occupying. Or not. Maybe I’m just making shit up after beer number two. </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Hmm. Do you think of your collages as "fake"</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Yes, I do, but I also think of them as putting a reverse spin on a cue ball to get the nine ball in the pocket without scratching. Creating photographs, even if they’re fake, that make ordinary people, who are inundated by pictures on a daily basis, stop and wonder and, maybe, even think a little more deeply these days, seems like a decent thing to do. Can something be authentic and still be "fake". There's a question.</font></b></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">What's your answer?</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">I think authenticity is something to aspire to in the kind of work I do. Tricky that. To not manipulate just for the sake of manipulation. "Oh, look what I did. That's cool."</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Here's what I think your pictures play with. When a person looks at a photo, the natural instinct is to figure it out. What's happening? What was the original scene? Everyone does that, from people looking at family albums to curators at MoMA. You are directly intervening in that process, and cutting out the connection to the original scene, but not in an obvious way. So it creates this sense of absurdity or confusion, or ??? Just sends the brain off into another place.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">I agree. That's the general idea. Scrambling reality and putting the pieces and parts in a photograph in a way to not only emotionally provoke the viewer but to nudge them to think a little bit about </font></b></span><font face="georgia"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>wh</b></span><b>at it was in the image that triggered their reaction. Sometimes I’m more obvious about my interventions than others. It depends.</b></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">It almost goes back to the Trumpian worldview. When facts are uncertain and everything is questionable, it opens some space up for interpretation. And maybe for Art?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Art, in some form, is what's often provoked or encouraged us out of jams before-or at least has given us cautionary tales to look back on. So, yes, uncertain times generate huge creative/destructive yins and yangs that make it really difficult to rationally account for what’s going on. It’s disorienting to suddenly have to consider so many new ways of looking at what was once the same old thing. At the very least, as artists, or whatever we are, we should take advantage of this embarrassment of riches and make the work we do be accessible and mean something.</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Does that tie into the Tom Wright experience with auto-destructive art? On your site you talk about destroying guitars and a path to creation.</font></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Good question about Tom and the Metzger ethos. Metzger identified with destruction. He was Jewish, came of age in WW2, and knew something about destruction. Pete Townsend and Tom were one step removed from his generation-and not Jewish. They absorbed what they wanted from him and transformed it into something else. Pre-punk nihilism that sold millions of records. One might say Metzger was more truthful and authentic than Townsend or Tom. There's a lot of mythology around all of that-about the truth of how authentically these two really embraced Metzger’s ethos. Tom certainly did at a visceral level. You’re born, you rock and roll, then die young. There was nothing intellectual about his take on what Metzger was doing. Townsend on the other hand, recognized in auto-destruction a hook when he saw it, along with a way to dramatize and package his ambitions. And he was smart enough to find his way to the marketplace with it. And that's really what rock and roll, and popular culture, have always been about.</font></b></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">But that was then and this is now. I'm not sure rock and roll really matters that much anymore or how the music industry works these days. Or how most musicians today are able to survive for that matter.</font></b></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">What is rock about? The hook? Or death?</font></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Hormones.</font></b></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">It's interesting you refer to Tom in terms of rock. But he was basically a photographer, right? But maybe he approached photography with a rock attitude?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">In his mind, he was a rocker who happened to carry a camera around and knew how to use it. Always a bridesmaid never a bride. He was okay with that. He knew he wasn’t going to be a bona fide guitar slinging member of the emerging 60s rock pantheon; just like growing up, I knew I wouldn’t be be a football hero like my older brother. At the time, though, at the high school crossroads, I would have traded a couple of pints of soul for a shot of football glory and cheerleader love.</font></b></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Tom, in fact, had a great eye and when he was relatively sober, his work, I thought, was exceptional. And considerable. But, he was a much more complicated person than I was willing or able at that age to comprehend. He was ten years older, and I was pretty naive, and looking for uncomplicated answers to complicated questions.</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><b><span>In Tom, I believed I’d found a guru. But like the old saying goes: If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. I had to get past that stage in our relationship, before I could look back and really appreciate what a value add he had been. </span></b><b><span>The moral to the story is that</span></b><b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>were it not for Tom I would never have exposed a roll of film and developed it myself or taken photographs and made prints that opened up a whole new world for me. He was a catalyst if nothing else. People be complex. And when personal histories intertwine, there's a lot of room for contradiction and interpretation. I’ll leave it at that.</b></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">"He would never be a bride." What clarify that more?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Never being a bride just means that Tom really would have preferred to be Pete Townsend, not just the anonymous guy who would introduce Townsend to the blues<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>back in the early 60s.</font></b></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">I went to a party in 1981 in Santa Fe right after the Eagles had broken up. Glenn Frey was there. At the time I didn’t know the names of any of the Eagles’ band members and no one at the party had identified him as such. Anyway, we were running out of beer and Frey and I volunteered to go get some more. During our drive to the store, he casually mentioned he’d been making his living in a successful band without naming it, but that what he’d really wished he’d done with his life was be a professional baseball player. I just assumed by “successful band” he meant some popular, local bar band. Later, when I learned who he was, I thought what the fuck? If this guy isn’t content with the direction his life took, what’s the point?</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">You mean Tom was more of a teacher/mentor figure? He wanted to be in the background. And did not push his own photos out there?</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">No, if he'd had his choice, he would have been on stage performing not taking pictures of the performance. According to him, he went to art school in England as a lark. Got into the photography department at Ealing College because the plastic arts folks wouldn’t accept him. He saw photography as his way into the music scene evolving in England in the early 60’s. He wasn't passionate about photography per se, other than as a means to an end. And that's not the way I felt about what I was doing. He did give me encouragement and permission to be an artist and a photographer, </font></b><font face="georgia"><b>but </b><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I wouldn’t go so far as to say he had been a mentor. He was more like a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>force of nature. A jaded rock and roll Zorba, maybe.</b></span><b> </b></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Photography as a means to an end. I feel like that phrase could describe a lot of what's happened to photography over the past 20 years or so. </font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RfU27gxz--w/XyXMeKQUg4I/AAAAAAAAXi0/hjLKgWctyxgHTbTWVoef0ItjeCb3edqfgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1546/ee.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1074" data-original-width="1546" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RfU27gxz--w/XyXMeKQUg4I/AAAAAAAAXi0/hjLKgWctyxgHTbTWVoef0ItjeCb3edqfgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/ee.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">I wouldn't disagree. Annie Leibovitz would be a role model for that idea.</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">What was it like shooting in Ecuador?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Ecuadorians in popular tourist locations don't like having their pictures taken. Usually that means by tourists with big honking cameras around their necks, looking for the same shot a million other people have already taken. I never had a problem shooting because I always carried my camera unobtrusively in my hand and treated the Ecuadorians with respect.</font></b></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">From a photographic standpoint, on the equator, the sun follows the same trajectory, year round. That was a little disorienting at first. I’ve always liked shooting in the spring and fall because the light is more mellow. In Ecuador the light never changed. Always the same and pretty harsh.</font></b></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">I lived in a small town about 20 minutes from Quito. We were at 7500 feet. Quito at 9000 altitude. When we built our casa, I was able to plan a studio for me to work in for the first time. Most of “Man Lives Through Plutonium Blast" came together there. Simple life. No car. Every day in the Ecuadorian highlands is pretty much a perfect day, 65 to 75 degrees. No need for AC, or heat. You could call it a 5 year artist's residency. We’d never planned on staying there forever, and when the government started getting shaky around 2016, we left.</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">You built a house there? From scratch?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span>Live and learn. </span></b></span><b>We built in a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>3 story house in new complex where the footprint was fixed but the floor plans could be anything you wanted. My studio was on the third floor with an with incredible of the highlands. The building process wasn't easy. We were still young and adventurous enough then to take something like that on. Wouldn't do it again today.</b></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12px;"><br /></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">What year was </font></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">that?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">2011.</font></b></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">I was there in 2014. I spent a week there with my father in law. Mostly in Quito but we rented a car and made some side trips. And also Galapagos.</font></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">We would have been there then. Wish we'd already been connected. We could have shown you guys some really good stuff. We never did Galapagos. Since we were permanent residents, we could have travelled there at half price, but we kept putting it off until it was too late. We did, though, manage to visit several places off the tourist map that I would deem “authentic”. Most of my photos from there are more geared toward daily life though. Not much exotic or scenic. </font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Haha, we were just tourists. No hope of being authentic, which maybe took some pressure off. But I still very much enjoyed it, although I can't say I got any truly great photos there. My father in law was fun to travel with. I think maybe he was a bit like Tom Wright (just speculation, never met him). He had kind of a rock and roll attitude toward life. Not in an art sense. But in just an everyday, face the world sense. There was no bullshit with him. He was 100% himself. Which sometimes came across as foolish, especially in a foreign country. But he absolutely didn’t care, which made it fine. Anyway we survived. </font></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">I went on a few long trips with him and it was always the same. No plans. No reservations. No guidebook. Just show up and see what happens. So we showed up in Quito at like 11 pm, with no map, no cellphones, no idea where we were. No Spanish. Just drove around until we bumped into a hotel by chance, then sign-languaged our way into a room for the night. The whole trip was like that</span>.</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">I've taken note of your father-in-law just from your photos of him and your approach to shooting him. He seemed like that kind of guy. I guess, there are good Zorbas and not so good Zorbas. Your father in law seems like he was one of the good ones.</font></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia"><br /></font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="665" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mLGSdyQmArY/XyWz5MD0aUI/AAAAAAAAXg0/pMt0wSesaNkEVNYfsbDvn-EEsxs7bUD2wCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/shadows02.jpg" width="640" /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">He did have some Zorba traits</font></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Zorbas are Zorbas. </font></b></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">How did you choose Ecuador to move to?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Ecuador was inexpensive: low cost of living, their currency was the US dollar, so no confusion over conversions, and, at the time, it had a relatively high level of economic growth and prosperity. We didn't want to live with a bunch of Americans though. That's why we picked the town where we finally settled. More locals there and Europeans. Very few Americanos to speak of.</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">How's your Spanish?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia"><i>Espanol es muy malo</i>. We were fluent in what we called "taxi" Spanish. </font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Who's We. You and your wife? Did your kids live there?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Just me and Sjanna, my wife. Kids came to visit. I may have already mentioned that we have 8 between us. Ay yi yi.</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Any photographers in the bunch?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Not a one. No footsteps following in mine.</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Sjanna was the wife you remarried?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Yes, Sjanna is my first and last wife. 35 years or so separating the two marriages. We didn't have any children together. </font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">How did you guys get back together?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">The internet. Where else these days? We were both going through divorces. She looked me up on Google, found my website, where I'd recently posted a portrait of her I'd done decades before, and she contacted me. We discovered that 35 years did not a difference make. Relationships can be delicate, fragile and enduring. All at the same time. Enough of our hard edges had been worn off for us to realize we had actually been right for each other all along. Such is life.</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Wow. Marriage is complicated</font></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Fools rush in, and so forth... </font></b></span><b><font face="georgia">I think committing to an intimate relationship is the hardest thing anyone can do. No question. Especially in a world where the options are infinite. Googling “mail order brides” turns up almost 14 million links.</font></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">There's this myth that gets floated in popular culture about soulmates and a sort of completist theory of relationships. A lot of movies have that structure. But, I just dunno. I think life is less formulaic</font></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Agreed. I grew up believing in 30 minute episodes of Leave It To Beaver and Father Knows Best. A linear path through life and finding enduring true love along the way were givens. Turned out that growing up was really nothing but one rude awakening after another.</font></b></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Life has only gotten more complicated since then. I wouldn’t want to be young today, no matter what the “Okay Boomers” say. And I t seems to me branding young people as “entitled” is just another way of saying that we've failed them as a society.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Wait, we've failed the youth?</font></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Ah, yes, for the young the chaos theory is nothing but a butterfly launching from a beautiful flower. Let them live in 2nd Life and eat Soylent Green. Tastes just like a hamburger.</font></b></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">What was it like reuniting with someone after such a long time? </font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">As if it were yesterday with a lot more nuanced, experiential baggage to sort through. We’d both traveled some roads with potholes and it had been decades since we'd even known where the other other one was.</font></b></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Weird. Is she in any of your photos?</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d2z8drz3P8Q/XycAcrA9hqI/AAAAAAAAXjI/HpBd9JvS1g0YWGjO5-m0JNj3DLi9bLSngCLcBGAsYHQ/s1048/01_early.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1048" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d2z8drz3P8Q/XycAcrA9hqI/AAAAAAAAXjI/HpBd9JvS1g0YWGjO5-m0JNj3DLi9bLSngCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/01_early.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">A few contemporary straight ones. I also have two portraits of her when we were young that I've always thought were among my best and that I’ve always kept safe. </font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">What does she think of those photos? Or of your photography in general?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">She's a beautiful woman and someone who has, in some respects, never been completely comfortable with that aspect of who she is. The camera loves her but she’s never been terribly enamored of the images of her the camera produces. Of my photography in general? She very much believes in my work. And isn’t happy that the world hasn’t fallen in line for me like it has for Annie Leibovitz.</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">To which you reply?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">I don’t know if I could do the things Annie Leibovitz has done in order to be as successful. I mean, if your goal in life is to speak what's in your heart and mind in a way that consistently reveals itself in the work you do, then self-promotion becomes a slippery slope, especially in a marketplace glutted with content that sells primarily on the basis of how well one promotes oneself. All I’ve ever hoped for is that I might sell a certain number of prints commensurate with the amount of recognition I receive, based, not on me, but on the quality of my work.</font></b></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">If I were a band, and a thousand people came to one of my shows and liked my music, in theory, some percentage of the crowd would wind up buying a CD before they left. Right? In the visual arts, the shows are free and rarely does anyone purchase anything before they leave. I know that’s comparing apples to oranges, but still...</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Hmmm, I’m thinking this is probably the first time anyone has ever tried to make the case that even musicians have it better than they do.</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">We met a guy in Ecuador, a ceramicist, via a friend. He was from NYC. And, coincidentally, knew the Woodman’s, parents of Francesca. His commitment to his work was fanatical. Over the years, he struggled and sacrificed to make ends meet. His work was large in scale and avant-garde, not mainstream. He managed to get by on teaching, the occasional commission, and grants. The work itself, while critically admired, never sold enough to sustain him and his family. In the early 1980s, he had purchased a bare bones warehouse in Brooklyn as a studio for 60 grand. Just before we met him, he’d sold the building for $6 million and was building a new studio and home in Hudson Valley. Today, you can buy one of his coffee cups online for $75. I begrudge him not.</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Everybody’s got a story. </b></span></span><b>I’m not the only one who walks a tightrope everyday. It is what it is, as they say. I’ll shut up now other than to say you did tell me earlier to just go with it.</b></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><b><br /></b></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"></font></p><div style="text-align: center;"><font face="georgia"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G-ePVREP8f0/XyW02UXpE0I/AAAAAAAAXg8/0ETjCDgLxhA_q5D995hyDQzWLobN5GhVACLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/paired007.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G-ePVREP8f0/XyW02UXpE0I/AAAAAAAAXg8/0ETjCDgLxhA_q5D995hyDQzWLobN5GhVACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/paired007.jpg" width="640" /></a></font></div><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Your basic challenge, the Annie Leibovitz challenge, is how or if to promote one's work. I guess this goes back to Tom Wright and the destructive impulse. I mean, not everyone can be Annie Liebovitz. The question is, (maybe for your wife) why anyone would want to be her. That's probably a nihilist answer. I mean, I've basically given up on anyone caring about my photos, and on promotion, shows, etc. Which is maybe a form of submission. Or else freedom? </font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">I choose freedom! Another tightrope strung between two tall buildings. Don't get me started on the “crowd sourcerers” gathered down below. </font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Well democracy has nothing to do with art. Nor does money. All three should be kept at arm's length. Art is not a popularity contest. Seems pretty obvious. But democracy is, literally.</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">The Korean government spends a billion $ a year on the arts. Last time I looked we spent around 360 million in the U.S.. Our society exists in a cultural paradox. I suspect, for the most part, most societies probably always have. We approach nurturing the arts in about the same fashion as we've managed the covid pandemic. The Koreans, on the other hand, seem to have done pretty well with managing covid and their cultural exports too. I don't know the answers, but I know Guggenhiem Fellowships and MacArthur Genius Grants aren't </font></b><b><font face="georgia">the solutions when it comes to nurturing popular culture.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">There’s a lot of churn in the world right now. We’re living in a serious transitional moment, I think. Like the Cambrian Explosion, 500 million years ago. Dominant species evolved, flourished, died out and were replaced by others more quickly than they ever had before. From that, the foundation for every animal species today was laid. I think we’re witnessing a similar thing currently happening across the arts landscape. Art forms and their supporting infrastructures over the past 125 years have been popping up and dying out with increasing frequency, only to be replaced by new paradigms, which isn’t to say something better. The circle of life spins ever faster. Round and round she goes. And where she stops nobody knows.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Hmm, that's an interesting view. Artistic fitness and evolution. But what makes art fit for survival? and (maybe the more important question) what about all the the art which has value but weaker adaptive fitness?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>As Chance the Gardner said In Being There: </b></span></span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>“</b></span><b>As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.”</b></font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">You're basically advocating more public funds into the arts. Would that actually change anything in terms of content? I'm not so sure</font></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Not necessarily. I certainly wouldn't be opposed to more top down financial support for the arts funneled into local communities. But I'm more of an advocate for the funding and promotion of zero cost liberal arts education and the training of life skills in young people. That will never happen, so not to worry. I agree, neither public funding or the promotion of liberal arts educations would necessarily change the amount, kinds of, or quality of the content being created, but, to my way of thinking, right now we’re severing and digging up roots and not taking care of the garden at all. </font></b></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">South Korea has lots of public arts funds. What photos have been generated? I guess I'm generally skeptical of public arts, and commissions, and MFAs, and training programs, and all the bullshit. I think it amounts to not much. Art comes up from below. I think topdown programming and funding is less effective.</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><span><b>Photography is popular in Korea, but not one of its popular exports. That said, when I was in a group show there, they flew me over, put me up in a nice hotel, paid for my meals, and took me on cultural tours in a fine automobile. I don't know if that's the right way to go. All I'm saying is that it beats paying for everything myself in the states. </b></span><b>Gravy train? Perhaps…but I’d rather ride the train occasionally rather than hitchhike all the time.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><b><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></b></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XQJ1tbIZkP0/XyXNDpLhsII/AAAAAAAAXi8/a_2lWJEArwoWXvkjxkhADdm0BSAsmHW9QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/history-repeating_03.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XQJ1tbIZkP0/XyXNDpLhsII/AAAAAAAAXi8/a_2lWJEArwoWXvkjxkhADdm0BSAsmHW9QCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/history-repeating_03.jpg" /></a></b></font></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">What did you think of Korea. In 5 words?</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Would love to go again.</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Did you meet any interesting photographers?</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Hmmm. The most interesting was John Chervinsky, who was in the show.</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">Oh yeah, He had a show in Portland about 10 years ago which was great. Stuck in my head, amid all the other shows. It's interesting he's not Korean.</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><font face="georgia">As I reread your question, I realized you were asking about Korean photographers in general. </font></b><font face="georgia"><b>O</b><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>nly one of the participants in the exhibit was. And she was living in NYC at the time.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></font></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Since the COVID, she and her husband, a Guatemalan photographer, have moved to Seoul. As far as Korean photographers, no, I can’t say anyone stuck out. What did stick was how deeply photography practice has penetrated the creative zeitgeist there. Reservations had to be made to attend our artist’s talks because of the demand. Even so, the audience was made up of regular folks, only a few peacocks, and none of the art snob vibe I usually encounter when I go to an art opening here. People were very respectful and intent on the work.</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">Each attendee got a raffle number when they arrived. Each artist had contributed a print or one of their books as a prize. When the drawings were held and the winners were announced, they would scream and jump around and literally run up to the podium. Then, they would insist on getting a picture with their artist. I was dumbfounded. It all felt so genuine and unpretentious. And fun.</font></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">I asked because I am trying to get a sense what's happening in Korea. Who knows? It’s a blank for me. When I was in Japan a few years ago I got a private glimpse of this tiny but very active photo world which is exploding in Japan. But it’s very ingrown and hard to penetrate from outside its borders. </font></span><font face="georgia"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">So I guess even the Internet has limits</span>. <span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">I think many cities are probably like that. Unless you're there it's hard to tap in</span>.</font></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">Yeah, I get that sense from your interview with John Sypal. VERY intense photo culture in Japan. In Korea, the intensity is all in terms of popular commitment, interest, and practice but less deep and rich, maybe, as, say, Japan. At least from what I saw there (and I really didn’t see that much). I was only in Busan and didn’t make it to Seoul, where there was probably a much larger contingent of creative practitioners showing work.</font></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><font face="georgia">If it makes you feel any better there's no intense photo culture anywhere, outside of a few major cities...I thought it was funny you mentioned Eugene and Portland earlier as photo meccas.</font></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><font face="georgia">I get that. NYC would like to lay claim to being the world’s photo mecca, right? Maybe it is. I don’t know. As I’ve already observed, viewed through my lens: your description of Eugene and the grid project and the camaraderie generated certainly exceeds anything that's happening in Austin. There are some pros around </font></b></span><b><font face="georgia">shooting stuff but grassroots practitioners are so far underground as to be invisible.</font><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px;"> </span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">The University of Texas a few years back purged most of its photography faculty and shifted away from craft to a more conceptual approach, which I think really crippled the local photography community. There are still some of the old guard around, but again, you have to dig to find them. An ex-professor named Mark Goodman comes to mind. Good guy, doing yeoman’s work back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I just tried to access his website. It’s no longer live.</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">You interviewed Scott Hurst in San Antonio not too long ago. He might disagree, but my take is that the culture there is also virtually nonexistent. Houston: All hat, no cattle. Dallas: Comatose. I mean very few practitioners are around that I’m aware of to offer hope, inspire, or nurture. That said, Precision Camera in Austin is perhaps the most successful camera store in the state and is packed with gear heads every time I go in there. So, commercially, the medium seems to be alive and kicking. As an art form, though, not so much.</font></span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span><font face="georgia"><b></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia">On the other hand, France, Spain, Germany, England: There seems to be some spark in those countries. Maybe? At least that’s been my take. But, of course, at my age and given the covid and my country of origin, the chances of my being allowed back into Europe or anywhere else outside of the U.S. of A. these day are pretty slim. For that matter, given the rate of infection in Texas now, I would imagine I would be viewed with considerable suspicion even in NYC.</font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><i>All photos above @Peter Brown Leighton</i></font></p>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-73808573183687585442020-07-02T12:10:00.059-07:002020-07-03T13:46:22.253-07:00Chopped<div class="separator"><br /></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Alas, Seattle's </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/us/seattle-protest-zone-CHOP-CHAZ-unrest.html" style="font-family: georgia;">CHAZ is dead</a><span style="font-family: georgia;">. It was always a precarious endeavor, but the nail in the coffin, literally, was a string of recent shootings, two of them fatal. That proved too much for authorities to take, even in anything-goes Seattle. So on Wednesday they shut it down.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For the few weeks it existed, CHAZ was a source of intrigue for me. Here it was, a real life </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Autonomous_Zone" style="font-family: georgia;">Temporary Autonomous Zone,</a><span style="font-family: georgia;"> exactly as Hakim Bey had predicted all those years ago in those weird books I plowed through at 1 am on the dorm roof. And this particular T.A.Z. wasn't all that far away, just a few hours north on I-5. But of course T.A.Z.s are by definition temporary, so my clock was ticking to get up there. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">After weeks of hemming and hawing, I finally managed to squeeze in a visit last Sunday, which was just under the wire as it turned out. A Seattle airport run provided the perfect opportunity. <span>After dropping Zane off at Sea-Tac I hustled over to Capitol Hill, an old Bohemian/Hipster neighborhood propped on the eastern shoulder of downtown. I parked near Madison and Boren, and began walking with my cameras. </span></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="469" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JUBwrFwZ99I/Xv4gcQgldaI/AAAAAAAAXbE/I1MxeaOXFhwVtTaASiuDthZHe-wQBd0kwCK4BGAsYHg/w625-h469/IMG_3881.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="625" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><font face="georgia"><br />But first a bit of background on Seattle. The entire city is growing like a cancer. I mean, I know it's like that everywhere. But Seattle is next level. Developers are in a mad rush to tear down the old shiny things and put up new shiny things. And Capitol Hill is no exception. The pace of development is maybe a <i>little</i> bit less frantic there than downtown, but still. It's enough to freak everyone out. Seattle's hopped up like an ant hill that just got peed on, digging new tunnels everywhere, and I suspect the general sense of disruption played a role in the creation of CHAZ.</font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">By the time of my visit CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) was no longer CHAZ. It had been renamed CHOP <span>(Capitol Hill Organized Protest). Regardless of label it amounted to the same thing. A</span> six block section of Seattle had been taken over by protestors during the BLM demonstrations in early June. The initial impetus was created by police evacuating their Capitol Hill satellite office. Protestors filled the vacuum immediately, then gradually expanded their territory to include a nearby park and surrounding neighborhood. </font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Large<span> concrete barricades in the streets marked the approximate boundaries of the autonomous zone. Their girth was impressive. Someone must've had some serious power equipment to put those things into place. Looking around at the forlorn squalor of the nearby tent villages, such motivation was hard to imagine. But the barriers were physical proof. Someone in the recent past had been energized.</span></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GbYDj4vaNFI/Xv4e9PTcDXI/AAAAAAAAXaQ/W3E0GmmhJ_8bnBivrbOkEY20w8TwtpdXQCK4BGAsYHg/s4032/IMG_3851.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="469" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GbYDj4vaNFI/Xv4e9PTcDXI/AAAAAAAAXaQ/W3E0GmmhJ_8bnBivrbOkEY20w8TwtpdXQCK4BGAsYHg/w625-h469/IMG_3851.jpeg" width="625" /></a><font face="georgia" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></font></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">That was weeks ago. But what did CHOP look like now? Take a tagged up subway car from 1970s New York, add an extra layer of graffiti for good measure, mix in one part rainbow gathering, one part BLM, one part Occupy, and a steady parade of gawking tourists (like yours truly) and you'd be in the ballpark. </font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">As in many U.S. cities (Eugene included), the words "BLACK LIVES MATTER" was painted in huge letters across one street (Pine, I think?). Seattle's version was prettier than most, painted in patterned colors rather than straight yellow. </font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tD2T74hkKAQ/Xv4aF9DWS-I/AAAAAAAAXZE/tpJMlUsNFxo7hoxOAN0_khy3exfR9uZDQCK4BGAsYHg/s4032/IMG_3832.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="469" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tD2T74hkKAQ/Xv4aF9DWS-I/AAAAAAAAXZE/tpJMlUsNFxo7hoxOAN0_khy3exfR9uZDQCK4BGAsYHg/w625-h469/IMG_3832.jpeg" width="625" /></a><font face="georgia" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></font></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Taking these words as a cue, CHOP residents had gone on to paint things on other nearby surfaces. Pretty much all of them actually, by my unscientific count. Virtually every bare wall and street within a quarter mile radius was plastered with spray paint, murals, wheatpaste signs, and plywood placards. The opinions expressed ranged from general unease to outright ACAB fried bacon anti-police rebellion. Many of the businesses along Pike and Pine were boarded up. Tents were scattered along the sidewalk, clustered in small encampments. Someone had set up a </font><span style="font-family: georgia;">kiosk near the mural selling </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">BLACK LIVES MATTER T-shirts. There was a bubble machine. The vibe was friendly and peaceful.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yHbGYJK6xzE/Xv4eXMX2WMI/AAAAAAAAXZ0/JwXaALkGAnM_apkfAl10yTixZhRWbnjWgCK4BGAsYHg/s4032/IMG_3847.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="469" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yHbGYJK6xzE/Xv4eXMX2WMI/AAAAAAAAXZ0/JwXaALkGAnM_apkfAl10yTixZhRWbnjWgCK4BGAsYHg/w625-h469/IMG_3847.jpeg" width="625" /></a><font face="georgia" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></font></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">CHOP was roughly centered around a large park covering a few blocks, half sports fields and half natural area. A large section of this area was taken up with various encampments. This is definitely the part I would've staked out had I been camping. I mean, who wants to sleep on pavement when trees and grass are nearby? But I don't know how it worked. Maybe there was some strange territorial arrangement about who got to stay where? First come first served, as in the pioneer days? (But without the imperialist pioneer statues.)</font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"> </font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia"></font><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CBByaRtLav8/Xv4d0Un1itI/AAAAAAAAXZg/RZa6vz-hAKQhOTm1MuaZ1AlDM2urKfqQQCK4BGAsYHg/s4032/IMG_3866.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="469" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CBByaRtLav8/Xv4d0Un1itI/AAAAAAAAXZg/RZa6vz-hAKQhOTm1MuaZ1AlDM2urKfqQQCK4BGAsYHg/w625-h469/IMG_3866.jpeg" width="625" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">I made a rough circuit of the entire area, shooting occasional photos but mostly keeping my camera at bay. CHOP seemed almost a private space, like someone's back yard, so shooting photos felt sometimes invasive. Plus there were signs everywhere like this one:</font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="469" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6_28HMrK8bE/Xv4Yi2fp9qI/AAAAAAAAXYo/LxZur81GJWU3Jk_VvOJ8LFQFI8mf-H6qACK4BGAsYHg/w625-h469/IMG_3834.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="625" /></font></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Why are you photographing? Ack, I never know how to answer that question. But as a Non-Black photographer, I felt obligated to think about it. Was I photographing for personal gain or to help the movement? Hmm. I wasn't quite sure. Why was I photographing? Because it's there? For <i>Art</i>? Compulsion? Ack!</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Another sign reminded me that, as a white person THIS ISN'T A FUCKING SUMMER CAMP. Good wake up call.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="469" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jhs25Dtejio/Xv4hJ1_TahI/AAAAAAAAXbw/qiLrD61Emfka34AadB1Dx8mfX7m4jrJkwCK4BGAsYHg/w625-h469/IMG_3843.jpeg" width="625" /></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></div><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">The why-are-you-photographing-summer-camp issue came up again when I saw this BLACK LIVES MATTER sign in a restaurant window. </font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="469" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U3dxkc9ILPM/Xv4rb3a9HEI/AAAAAAAAXdI/xGu3WvijeJwN82qIccod9T5Bm4S7EnsrwCK4BGAsYHg/w625-h469/IMG_3878.jpeg" width="625" /></font></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Combining it with SUM formed the type of visual pun that I really enjoy photographing. But hmmm. Should I take a photo that poked fun at such a grave matter? By now </font><span style="font-family: georgia;">you know the answer. Hey, settle down. It's just a photo. I stand fully with the BLM cause. I mean, duh. But I'm still a humorist, and if I see a sign pairing like this I cannot resist. Privileged white dude, I know. Moving on...</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Up on the back field, taggers had spray painted the reservoir cap with various messages. One said COPS NEED LSD. A pretty blunt statement, but one which I could get behind if the LSD were somehow applied methodically. You wouldn't just dose any cop willy nilly without asking. That's a recipe for crazy armed SWAT teams. But if some segment of the openminded ones could be teased out, then shown a more expansive thought process, well, who knows where it might lead? It's very hard to see anyone applying a knee to someone's neck post LSD-awareness. I mean, after you realize you're one with everything, you'd basically be choking yourself, right? So there's that.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">But cops might be just a starting point. Once they were onboard, perhaps we could introduce LSD to congress or the court system? Or the CEO class? Or what about developers? Could we create a skyline inspired by Antoni Gaudi instead of Mies Van Der Boring? Just thinking out loud here. Or is that the voices in my head which are <i>yelling out loud</i>? </font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /><span></span></font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="469" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xcD5ihSLTTE/Xv4iKthf71I/AAAAAAAAXcQ/kzpc6-3o2g8oJNtTv0AOEoC3SWN4ODQfgCK4BGAsYHg/w625-h469/IMG_3869.jpeg" width="625" /></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></font></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">I guess the main idea behind CHOP is self-governance. It's <i>Don't Tread On Me</i>, an outlook which is very American, and connects the back ends of libertarianism and peace loving flower power. Less regulation, less police, less societal oppression, more autonomy. The freedom to do what you want when you want. You might encounter the same prerogatives in backwoods Idaho or inner city Baltimore. <span>And I think in each person's heart of hearts there's a part which desires this basic degree of liberty. When you think about it this way, is our nation </span><span>really so divided, after all? </span></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><span><br /></span></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><span>Well, yes. Maybe. Don't answer that.</span></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">I could definitely sense a libertarian streak in the pickup basketball game which soon got going in one corner of the park. It was street ball with flashy moves, trash talk, not much passing, 3s jacked up every minute, and hard knocks D. This was every man for himself, and the players seemed to relish their independence. </font><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bodies and sweat were flying. Nary a mask in sight. </span><font face="georgia">I thought of </font><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jefferson: <i>That government is best which governs least, because its people discipline themselves</i>. But this game hewed closer to another code: <i>no blood no foul</i>. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I watched for a little while, making mental comparisons to my middle aged white, gravity-laden pickup game at the Eugene Y (now suspended due to coronavirus). The Y game was definitely more team-oriented and structured. But the crew I was watching would steamroll any picayune Y team. So who's to say which strategy was best?</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia">Near the basketball court was best sign I saw at CHOP:</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="469" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Nh94cjLnEdo/Xv4qWKUVdNI/AAAAAAAAXcw/8v-J5EaO9VE1kW6mLZ8HouEpQDTMRHg6ACK4BGAsYHg/w625-h469/IMG_3876.jpeg" width="625" /></font></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">On that note I eventually circled back to the main thoroughfare on Pine Street (BLM mural), where a sign declared that protesters would meet at 5 pm in the nearby baseball field every day for speeches and a march. It was 5 pm and I didn't see much activity. Were those people laying on the grass in centerfield waiting for a speech? Or just lounging in the sun? Hmmm, hard to say. I walked some more, came back in 15 minutes, and the scene was the same. No sign of any gathering, and looking out at the field of sunbathers and campsites it was hard to imagine anyone stirring into action. I gave the scene one more round, coming back around 5:30. Still nothing, so I ditched CHOP to walk Broadway, Pike, and downtown Seattle. The afternoon light was perfect, but very few pedestrians were out. </font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Walking toward the bay from Capitol Hill I was reminded of another trip to Seattle back in 1999, when I'd parked in almost the same spot and walked downtown to photograph the WTO protests. I'd spent that day wandering the core in a state of disbelief as the protests grew larger and larger, and then finally tipped over into outright anarchy as dusk arrived. That evening Seattle become a citywide CHOP beyond the reach of any authority.</font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RjzuV3usDuA/Xv9exYjn1VI/AAAAAAAAXdk/c9GLfDx9QKUskSvQC57W32Z8J6yECseoQCK4BGAsYHg/s1000/seattle.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="673" data-original-width="1000" height="420" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RjzuV3usDuA/Xv9exYjn1VI/AAAAAAAAXdk/c9GLfDx9QKUskSvQC57W32Z8J6yECseoQCK4BGAsYHg/w625-h420/seattle.jpg" width="625" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Before that point I thought I might enjoy anarchism as a societal structure. But walking Seattle's streets of chaos, tear gas, burning dumpsters, and leaders in full retreat convinced me that I was a wimp when it came to governance. </font><span style="font-family: georgia;">And that was more than twenty years ago. I've grown even more mild lately in middle age. Just give me a simple government that works efficiently to keep order and collectivize infrastructure and I'm good, thanks. Maybe national health care too, while you're at it.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><font face="georgia">Three days after my visit CHOP was gone, erased in a pre-dawn raid. Where everyone went I don't know. I think the graffiti, photos, and memories will be harder to wash away.</font></p>Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-24699677484318107632020-06-08T09:54:00.001-07:002020-06-09T10:52:10.489-07:0014 Pictures & A Secret<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For the latest round of <i>Fourteen Pictures And A Secret </i>just completed, I used small black notebooks for the main body. These are made by Borden and Riley. Each one holds 40 pages of 100 lb watercolor paper. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I get mine from Jerry's Artarama but </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">they're available online in a variety of places. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The cover label usually peels off easily, although it can sometimes pull bits of the surface with it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For the interior photos I use 5 x 7 RC darkroom prints, which I accumulate gradually over months of printing. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">These are test prints made on the way to my final versions. They are photos I like but for various reasons the prints are not quite perfect. Nevertheless they're good enough to be usable in books. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Every 1000 prints or so, I take a stack of them...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">...and winnow them down to 350 favorites, ditching photos with obvious marring or defects. I then divide them into 25 piles of 14 pictures each. The groupings can follow all types of logic, but most often they follow none, and are intentionally sequenced as non sequiturs. The only general rule (broken a few times) is that no photograph is repeated in any book. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Since the pages are slightly narrower than 5 x 7, I trim a bit from the sides to fit the book. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I use a waterbased paste called Nori to cement the photos into the book. It's nontoxic, archival, and easy to clean up. Newspaper laid out under the whole project helps contain the mess.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I use a flat putty knife to spread a thin layer on the back of the photo (much thinner than shown here)...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Pressing the photo onto the page, I'm careful to align top, bottom, and right side flush with the edges. If it's off a bit, the photo can be adjusted slightly before the paste dries.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I learned the hard way that it's best for pasted photos to be pressed flat as they dry. Otherwise the page tends to curl from water absorption. Luckily I have the perfect tool for this, a large bronze <b>B</b> which my mom gave me long ago. I don't know exactly what it weighs but let's just say it's quite heavy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">While one photo is being pressed I work on the next one, trimming, pasting, and prepping. If I feel a photo requires it, or even if not, I sometimes hand color accents using sharpies.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I space the pictures every few pages throughout the book until all fourteen are placed. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Next I paste a colored envelope inside the back cover, following the same steps as the photos. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Inside the envelope I place the titular secret. I'm not at liberty to reveal it here. But I will say it comes with a purple baby and some highlighter marks. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I seal the secret inside the envelope. Then I press the entire book under the B where it dries flat for a few hours.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When the book is dry, I run through the whole thing to make sure no pages are stuck together. I remove the blanks, leaving a couple pages at the start and finish. The blanks make good scraps for grocery lists and daydreams. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Next I handwrite the title page with blue fine point sharpie and yellow highlighter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On one of the back pages I handwrite the colophon and stamp it with a red seal which means something in Chinese. I'm not sure what it says but it looks cool. Hopefully it doesn't say <i>Pigfucker</i> or something like that, which would be embarrassing. <i>"1 of 25 such books pigfucker edited shot..."</i> Yikes. But no, I'm pretty confident it doesn't.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Next comes the exterior. For the first two editions, I taped Instax photos with silver duct tape to form a cover. For this edition I switched to books with a heavier cover, and I thought I'd mix it up. I trimmed the borders off Instax prints.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Without the protection of the white border, the Instax print can be peeled into its constituent layers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Instax photo layers can be combined into collage, to which the pink layer can be added as a translucent overlay.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You can find more samples of these on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/swerdnaekalb/?hl=en">my Instagram page</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Each book is unique. I've made 3 editions now of 25 books, 14 photos in each. That's 1050 images so far plus covers, and I've barely scratched the surface of my archive. I have a lot of theories on books which I won't go into here. But let's just say I'm partial to unique objects, and handwriting, and DIY, and that sort of thing. And these books scratch all those itches for me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When I'm done enjoying a book I slip it into a clear pouch with the recipient's name, then ship it off to some far corner of the world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I like to imagine that collectively they form the components of a sprawling global museum. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Only 8 billion more to go...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I guess my current plan is to keep making these every few months as I build up batches of darkroom prints. They're fun to make, and it's a good reuse of photos. I would like to leave behind a trail of 50,000 different photos tucked in 50,000 corners of the world, avoiding any style or connection between any of them. I'd like them to follow the old folktale about elephant parts and blind people. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">That's my ideal. But who knows, things may change. They always do.</span></div>
Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-86751553261391433572020-05-26T10:13:00.003-07:002020-05-28T10:55:14.328-07:00Dogshit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've been struggling in recent weeks to come up with a good metaphor for social interactions during the pandemic. I'm happy to report I've finally got one: dog shit. If everyone rubbed themselves in dog shit before heading out the door, public interactions would be roughly comparable to what I've experienced under coronavirus: pedestrians crossing the street to avoid me, turning their bodies away from me while passing, face coverings, gloves, no attempt at engagement whatsoever. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dog shit or coronavirus, it all amounts to the same thing: isolationism.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Amid the societal wreckage there is one small flicker of hope. My community darkroom in Portland has opened up again, so I've been making regular trips there the past few weeks to print. Before plunging into darkness I usually spend an hour walking around some part of Portland. These are photo outings primarily since I'm looking to make pictures. But I also view them as a quick temperature check. What's the lay of the land? How is Portland faring under the shutdown? The s</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">hort answer: n</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ot well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My last walk a few days ago was around lower east Burnside between the bridge and Sandy. Before the pandemic this area might've been considered up and coming, or gentrifying, or vibrant, or maybe a more pejorative term depending on your degree of class consciousness. The area was in transition and still a bit gritty, but there were all sorts of interesting shops and people and a feeling of untapped potential in the air. The whiff of optimism? The future in action? Maybe that's why I always found it a good place to photograph. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After 2 months of pandemic all the polish has worn off of lower Burnside. What's left is just grit. It's still rather interesting from a photographic point of view, maybe even more so. But from an urban studies perspective, I find the changes extremely depressing. The neighborhood has fallen off a cliff. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Most stores are closed, many for good. Some are boarded up with plywood, and a lot of that plywood is defaced with graffiti. There are <i>For Lease</i> signs on many buildings. Not many pedestrians or street activity of any kind, and most people out in public seem</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> to be living on the streets or down on their luck in some way. Anyone I got close to </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">treated me like I'd rubbed myself in dog shit. Oy vey.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've visited downtown Portland a few times recently and it isn't much better.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Empty. Dead. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The main difference between the core and east Burnside is the many s</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">mall encampments which have sprung up along the sidewalks in old town. Summer weather is here, and there is a moratorium on disbanding the street camps. So parts of downtown have basically become tent cities. It looks like something out of a Dorothea Lange photo.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This description won't come as a surprise to anyone. We know it's bad out there. But I think it's worth eyewitnessing for those who've been sheltered-in-place or unable or unwilling for whatever reason to venture out. Fair warning, when you eventually come out of your bomb shelters, be prepared. Chances are your city is a wreck. Or your suburb or small town or wherever you live. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of course, for a lot of places this may not feel too different. For example, downtown Eugene has been hit just as hard as Portland. But it was mostly a ghost town even before the pandemic. So the change there is less noticeable. The same might be said for many other places, perhaps even most of them. If you live in the rust best, for example, or the northeast corridor, or any post-industrial region infected with urban blight the description above will sound familiar. Walk downtown in Springfield, Mass or Augusta, Maine or Detroit or Baltimore. The heart was sucked out of these places long ago. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But Portland? Holy fuck. Three months ago Portland probably had the most vibrant mid-sized downtown in America. There were no chinks in the armor. I have walked every block in the city and never felt unsafe or weird or lost. Every part of it felt cared for. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In just a few weeks, Zap! </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All of that has evaporated, replaced with</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> dog shit. T</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">he contrast is dizzying. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm sure it will recover eventually. But it will be a looooong road, and probably not a very enjoyable one. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the meantime, perhaps there's an upside. Artists thrive in low rent wastelands. The more down and out a place gets, the better it sets up for creativity. So maybe this pandemic is the financial bust that will allow Portland a rebirth. We'll see. For now the rapid decline is tough to watch, and I fear the downward cycle is only beginning. So maybe I'll just hole up in the darkroom a while...</span></span></div>
Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-29280326452511895862020-05-03T10:17:00.006-07:002021-04-27T14:33:26.150-07:00Q & A with Jon Laytner<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://www.instagram.com/normalandboring/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="928" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EZm6ynvhONc/XrA-ADMdDII/AAAAAAAAXSo/uw-9QoL5LKEQZ2c0BF6fkSVA1Ij0bzCjgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/CD7D8D98-F6F2-42FD-B019-59A16D270B0E.JPG" width="257" /></a></div>
<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><i><span id="goog_325745762"></span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/normalandboring/">Jon L<span id="goog_325745763"></span>aytner</a> is a photographer based in Toronto. </i></span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>JS: I have no idea why it took this long but I finally have decoded your handle</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">BA: It's a Serbian term describing a small squirrel native to that region</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">At least that's what Google tells me</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>W</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>hat a coincidence. It’s your name spelled backwards as well</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Oh wait, is it?</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">HOLY CRAP!!!</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>H</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>aha</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">How's the pandemic in Toronto?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>t is what it is I guess</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. C</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ollectively we're handling it well</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. F</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>lattening the curve as they say</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>but still it’s pushing forward and times are troubling</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. H</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ow’s Eugene?</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Same as ever. It's a pretty quiet city in normal times</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">But even quieter now</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">How is the pandemic affecting your photo routine?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>It’s affecting it significantly. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I haven't left my house in about 6 weeks</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. No</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> new pictures</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> in that time. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I’m excited to make more once things become less worrisome</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Is 6 weeks a big gap for you?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Yes, quite a big gap actually. I typically make pictures on a regular basis. Whenever I feel like going outside.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Do you ever shoot photos in your house? </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> have in the past but I haven’t had the urge to make any lately. I rely a lot on chance encounters and those just don’t happen at home</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> often. T</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>he rest of my "photo routine" has stayed relatively consistent</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I’</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>m processing a lot of film and catching up on printmaking</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I think there's a certain level of raw familiarity which is tough to overcome at home. That said, chance moments are everywhere. Everywhere! Including home. So there is material if approached with the right mindset. But I think this pandemic is fucking with everyone's heads. Me included.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Y</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>es definitely</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I’m sort of treating this period like </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>abstinence</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Abstinence sounds too much like celibacy to me. Depressing!</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Hahaha</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">If not at home where do you find most of your photos?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Very</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> close to home actually. Mostly around my neighbourhood in the west end of Toronto</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Have you traveled to other cities or countries to make photos? Or just Toronto?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I don’t travel much so the vast majority of my pictures are made in Toronto. However when I do travel I make it a priority to photograph as much as I can. Photography alone has never brought me anywhere. It’s always something like a destination wedding, visiting relatives or road trips for a deal on equipment that will provide me with opportunities to make pictures abroad.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I don't know Toronto at all. I was there once for a day like 30 years ago. What is the west end of Toronto where you shoot? How would you describe that area?</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>The areas are very dense as well as culturally segregated. The side streets are all visually similar, up until lately it’s been all mid-century semidetached housing. Recently a lot of property has sold and new homes are popping up. The main streets are basically just strips of coffee shops and clothing boutiques. There are 5 coffee shops on my block and it’s not a particularly coffee driven neighbourhood</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> wish I had something exciting to say about it but I don’t. Toronto is supposed to be the New York City of Canada but to me it’s fairly slow and unexciting</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6HoK616ueB0/XrBAVSQAalI/AAAAAAAAXS8/7rZQWjG6_Xwqqp2Z4-735UcaEU8eFcbHQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0899.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="994" data-original-width="1200" height="528" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6HoK616ueB0/XrBAVSQAalI/AAAAAAAAXS8/7rZQWjG6_Xwqqp2Z4-735UcaEU8eFcbHQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/IMG_0899.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">The photos you currently have on Instagram. Were most of them shot in that neighborhood?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>O</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>h yes, a stone’s throw from my apartment actually</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">How long have you lived there?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I’</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ve lived in this area of Toronto for a little over 10 years</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Where are you from originally?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>A</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> small suburb of the city</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>About a 5 minute walk from the sign that welcomes you to Toronto actually</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>got into skateboarding pretty young and would spend most of my free time coming downtown to skate and hang with friends. I was already well accustomed to downtown living before i made the move down here myself</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Skateboarding was a gateway into photography for some others like Matt Stuart and Ed Templeton. </span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Do you there’s any overlap in the skillsets between skateboarding and photography?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>It’s not uncommon for skateboarders to get hooked on other creative practices, but that could be anything from music, painting, sewing, wood working etc so long as its repetitive in nature. Photography is just one of them.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">How'd you first get into photography?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>There is no romantic beginning to this story. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I was pretty much just looking for something to do with my time. I had other creative pastimes but I lacked control</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> over them. After a while I stopped enjoying the process and more or less quit. When I was in my teens I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> made skate videos with my friends and through that got accustomed the optics of the camera. At that time I didn’t have an interest in still photography</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. O</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ne day I just decided to give it a go. I’m not really sure what propelled the decision, but I did have an instinct that I could trust my eye or learn to develop it. It’s been a long and bumpy road</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. At the time I really underestimated how difficult it is to make a good picture.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">When was this? What year and what age?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>T</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>his would’ve been around 2014 at age 25</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I’</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>m not sure what was driving me for the first year or so of making pictures to be honest. It was just something I thought I could try and was interested in learning.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">You said with other hobbies you were "lacking control". Do you think photography gives you a feeling of control?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>T</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>o some degree, yes</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. B</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ut not complete control. </b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I like pictures that are taken from real life moments and there is little control over those, but I feel comfortable behind the camera. It’s familiar and interesting to me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XVYVcdJWnLA/XrBBXyOYJdI/AAAAAAAAXTc/OZmVyNVlBH8zTxl_QqMU0tf_T8LkOwQRACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0903.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="994" data-original-width="1200" height="528" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XVYVcdJWnLA/XrBBXyOYJdI/AAAAAAAAXTc/OZmVyNVlBH8zTxl_QqMU0tf_T8LkOwQRACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/IMG_0903.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Do you generally interact with the people in your photos? Or how do you navigate the real-world relationships? </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> interact with them in the sense that I am photographing in a shared space, but other than that not so much</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. A</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>n odd thumbs up or a smile, but I typically keep to myself</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I really enjoy the mathematics of it all</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">What do you mean the mathematics?</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Just the calculations for flash lighting relative to ambient light</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>t’s like a puzzle which I enjoy trying to solve on the fly</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> as opportunities present themselves. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">That flash stuff can become heavy math if you get into it. I tend to let the camera do my thinking. But I'm only using simple on-camera flash. Your flash is like Zeus level! I can see it bounce off people 50 feet away. Not to get too much into gear talk but what's your basic setup?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>H</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ahaha, well I have 5 different flash units which I use for different applications</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">It's already getting mathy...</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>’ve built a variety of diffusers for them for different types of situations. I even wear a white t-shirt so I can use myself as a giant reflector</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> The most powerful strobe I use can get f/4 exposure on 400 speed film over 500 ft away</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. It’s fun to experiment with the possibilities.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">So when walk out the door you're carrying 5 flash units?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> pick and choose depending on what I feel I might encounter</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. A</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> slimmed down version is one camera and one thyristor flash like a Metz 40 mz or Sunpak auto 124</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. B</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ut when I feel I will need a lot more juice I use a battery pack powered studio light. The ones with a dish</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. S</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ometimes I leave the house with two cameras. It really all depends on how I’m feeling and how much weight I want on my shoulders</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">How do you take something like that out in public without becoming a big distraction yourself?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>V</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>isibility helps</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> in making my pictures. I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> think it helps a lot actually!</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> A</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>lso my demeanor with the camera</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I think I must be friendly looking or something. I seem to be accepted.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">You mean you want to become a distraction?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>n a perfect world I would be entirely invisible</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, b</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ut in the reality which I live, visibility seems to render me invisible</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. P</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>eople notice me, I linger, then they no longer notice me</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I’</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>m not sure exactly how I manage this but I seem to be able to blend in to my surroundings</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">How did you learn lighting? Did you teach yourself or did you have some training?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>A</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> lot of experimentation</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. A</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>lso many of the photographers whose work I look up to use flash lighting, so I’ve spent a lot of time looking at their books with a critical eye</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Like who?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>T</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>unbjork, Parr, Jokela, Reas</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. All of whom used c</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>olor film, 6x7 format with press flash lighting. Sort of the staples for the genre of pictures I enjoy most - new color wave photography.</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> Mostly Nordic and British documentary with a twist.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>1984-2001 was the era for that stuff.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Do you know Michelle Groskopf’s photos? She’s from Toronto originally, shoots street portraits using powerful daylight flash. She’s in LA now.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I do know of her work actually. I’ve seen it on the Internet. I had no idea she was from toronto. I’m not particularly a fan of the pictures but I do respect her as a photographer. My window of interest is quite small. I tend to either dislike the work or obsess over it and not so much in between.</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">What about </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Otto Snoek?</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Give me a moment to Google Snoek</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>…<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">No worries.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>J</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>esus Christ his pictures are intense</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. They don’t hit me exactly how I like it though.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">So you basically taught yourself photography, just guided loosely by what you found?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Y</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>eah that’s fair to say</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I’</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ve never had a formal lesson or training or anything</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Love it!</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>P</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>hotography is still just something to do with my time. I never know what to expect and I don’t put too much pressure on myself to produce, even though my life totally revolves around it in some way or another now</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I only just found you on Instagram a few months ago (hat tip to John Sypal). Were you sharing photos in some way before that platform? In shows, zines, prints, or anywhere?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I’</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ve had a few pictures in group shows over the years but nothing I’m particularly proud of. In the summer of 2016 I made a few zines but then sort of stopped putting my pictures out there to see. I also stopped using Instagram. I just spent my energy looking at books and trying to make new pictures without worrying about where they'd end up. I built my darkroom in 2017 and just sort of kept my photography to myself from then on. I only recently started using Instagram again as a platform to share pictures.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Wait, you built a color darkroom?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Y</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>eah</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Congrats. I know how finicky those things are.</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I used rental color darkrooms for a brief period back when I was shooting color film (late 2000s). I was glad that someone else handled the chemicals</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><b>H</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>aha, yeah they can be a bit much at times. Luckily I’ve rigged up a decent ventilation system and never had to deal with much open chemistry to begin with. I started with Jobo tanks and now I run an old Cibachrome RT processor which I modified to work at RA4 temp/speeds</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>It started quite small and bare but as equipment comes available it’s been able to blossom into a fairly productive workspace</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Is it just yours or do you share it?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Its just mine! All from home. It has taken over my kitchen</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> haven’t cooked anything but film and paper in that room in years</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. N</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ow due to the pandemic I have a hotplate in my living room so I can cook from home again</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. Up until recently I had just been eating out.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">What else can you tell me a little about your photo lab?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>It’s basically just a way for me to feed the beast so to speak. To keep me active behind the camera and a means of exploring the medium at a subsidized cost. I started processing film for friends of mine to have steady throughput and to keep my chemistry working strong. The word spread quickly and before I knew it I was receiving packages from all over the country. It’s been my full time job since 2017. I only really offer process and scan services though. I tend to keep the print aspect of my darkroom just for my pictures. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Did you ever shoot digital, back when you were starting out? Or even now?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I used a digital camera for one night in 2016. i lost interest very quickly and made very bad pictures with it. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Do you think your photos would look very different if you weren't using analog processes?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> would assume so but I wouldn’t know until I tried</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. T</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>o be honest the process is what has kept me going</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I enjoy it and haven’t felt a need to change it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">The darkroom process?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Y</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>es definitely</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> love print making</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Developing the film is a bit of a bore but the rest of it is quite interesting. I enjoy the process of going through the contacts and blowing up what I think could be a winning frame</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> a</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>nd then playing with light to get the print just right. It’s such a rewarding feeling when it all works out</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Qz6-i6i8F8/XrBAkQAP_qI/AAAAAAAAXTA/KIizxVINexIwI7mcc47E8r7JDIdC57N7QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_1424.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Qz6-i6i8F8/XrBAkQAP_qI/AAAAAAAAXTA/KIizxVINexIwI7mcc47E8r7JDIdC57N7QCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/IMG_1424.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Well I gotta say, you sent a print here and I had no idea what process you'd used. I kinda figured you'd outsourced it through a lab maybe. But I had no idea. I just knew it was a solid print.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>H</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>aha, thanks. I’m glad you enjoy it</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I'm a hardcore darkroom nerd too. But b/w, not color</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I’</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ve only used one black and white roll in my 5-6 years making pictures</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I feel pretty competent in a b/w darkroom. I can get what I want usually</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">But the color darkroom was tough sledding for me. Very difficult to pinpoint colors and get the tonality the way I wanted. Maybe I just wasn't patient enough.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I’</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ve never really had the need to use a b/w room personally. I had my first go at b/w printing in late 2018 I believe. I started with color making my first prints in my kitchen</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">What do you usually listen to in the darkroom?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> went through a big Sonic Youth phase in there, but then it quickly shifted to my comfort music like ‘90s hip hop, disco and RnB</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. L</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ately a lot of Dusty Springfield and Shangrilas</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>t really depends on my mood and what I’m printing!</b></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">I wonder if music comes through in the prints somehow. For example if listening to Sonic Youth you’d make off-tone prints with colorcasts and light leaks or something? Prints made with hiphop would be more polished in appearance? I dunno.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I usually have an idea on how I want to print something before I turn on the radio.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>f I need to do a lot of dodging/burning I can’t have music playing. I have to pay close attention to the metronome on the timer</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Well, I do like all the references to "getting that paper" in 90's hip hop</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. M</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>akes me laugh every time</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Do you find yourself listening to things in the darkroom which you'd never listen to outside it? I like to play a lot of reggae/ska in the darkroom. Which I almost never listen to outside it. Something about the backbeat helps with agitation maybe?</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I also tend to listen to more long, jammy stuff in there. Where I can just turn my brain off and vibrate</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>T</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>hat’s pretty funny</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> don’t think the darkroom really dictates what music I play. I just like to have fun while I’m working so I typically listen to good time music</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. S</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ide note - I’m not sure if you already do this but you can set your iPhone screen to emit only red light so its safe to use in a b/w room</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Y</span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">ou know that the period of color analog film is winding down. In 5 years there will probably be few color darkrooms anywhere. Is that part of attraction for you, do you think?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>t was dead here when I began actually</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. S</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ince then two schools have sort of reopened their spaces</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Ryerson university and OCADU</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. Sometimes I have to </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>sneak into OCADU to use their automatic paper cutter. I use Kodak paper which only comes on by roll now so instead of cutting it by hand I cut my sheets there and lug all the boxes home</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I try not to think about the future of analog photography to be honest</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>just take things one day at a time</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> and try and enjoy what I’m doing while I’m doing it.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Good pandemic advice.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Apparently the color rooms in New York were getting busy again before the pandemic.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>A new one even popping up</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Let's step away from the analog thing a moment. What are you trying to express with your photos? </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>H</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>mm, that’s sort of a multi faceted question</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I know, big question. Sorry</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I don’t know if there’s any one particular thing that I’m trying to express. The pictures are just the result of my desire to try and make an interesting picture</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> at that moment in time. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I think my main goal is to twist a narrative and I like to see if I can do it with the camera</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. It’s </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>not so much an intellectual process at the time of exposure, but it is right beforehand when I have to crunch numbers. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">It seems like math equations and photographic seeing are pulling at two opposite corners of the mind. How do you balance both at the same time?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Photographing has become a way for me to escape my mind and my thoughts. when I’m out with my camera it feels like I’m drifting in space, quite surreal. The technical aspects have sort of become second nature now. I rely on instinct and lessons learned from past experiences, and since I use film, there is a huge margin for error so long as I err on the side of caution (over-exposure).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I understand the motivation to tweak reality. I think that's pretty fundamental to a certain branch of photography. I'd probably put myself in that camp. But then the question it raises, what is the "fictional narrative" about? What is it trying to express? I'm just throwing out the question. I don't have a good answer, and I've been asking it for a while.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> think it may be self reflective</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. It’</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>s not so much just creating fiction <i>per se</i>, but rather finding a form of truth in reality that is desirable</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> to the person creating it first, o</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>r at least more desirable than what is offered simply by just being present</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Hmm, well what about a more direct version of reality. Like a straight Robert Adams photo of a cottonwood, for example? Wouldn't something like that be a more direct path to self-revelation? Or is there something about fiction, or about tweaking things, which gets more fundamentally at the self. For you, at least?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>T</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>he latter is definitely the case for me</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. i’m less interested in a straight document or recording of a place or event. To me the power of the medium is in its ability to change, enhance or create anew. Like turning lemons into lemonade, so to speak.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">So maybe you're creating this photographic scenes? And on some level you want them to be real? To enter them and take part or something?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>W</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ell they are real of course</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>but I view them from the perspective of a person with a camera who’s trying to making pictures, not as a participant</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Maybe there is some longing for inclusion to some degree. I had never thought about that before.</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">There's a recent photo you posted of some people near a house with a tree in the foreground very brightly lit. And some people are on the roof. what's going on in that one?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>O</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>h. the one with the guy in the tree?</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Yes.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>That was a university's homecoming.</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> I asked a friend who was going if I could come and make pictures. It was in a small town a few hours outside of Toronto. T</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>here is another picture on the feed from that morning as well</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">The one with the light burst coming in upper left?</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Kids hopping a fence?</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7JBNqby1ar8/XrBAyvWlSsI/AAAAAAAAXTI/7PJsgRk56Eg4uS5_FCZU0hApp1EgUIlpgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0902.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="994" data-original-width="1200" height="528" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7JBNqby1ar8/XrBAyvWlSsI/AAAAAAAAXTI/7PJsgRk56Eg4uS5_FCZU0hApp1EgUIlpgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/IMG_0902.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Y</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>es that one</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> wasn’t able to go back last year, and this year will likely be cancelled to some degree, but I’d like to return</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I saw so many things that weekend that were unbelievable. I had never seen anything like it before</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">What was unbelievable? Can you elaborate?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Everything. I wasn’t prepared to witness what I had seen. I had never experienced anything like that with regular human eyes let alone photographer eyes. It was electric. There were thousands of kids climbing onto roofs of houses at sunrise, hundreds of them painted purple head to toe. Strange unique-to-this college traditions I had never heard of. At one point a group of maybe 50 students removed their leather varsity jackets and started whipping them in unison against the ground as if they were putting out an imaginary fire. For what reason I couldn’t tell you.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">What's your philosophy regarding Instagram? How do you decide what to post, and what/when to delete?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>F</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>or a long time I really disliked Instagram</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I’ve lately been opening up to it</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b> </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Every once in a while I will delete a picture if I feel it doesn't mesh well with the rest.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Do photos there get the reaction you expect? </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I don’t really have any expectations for responses from others. That aspect has very little merit for me and I tend not to pay mind to it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Maybe that's why I was an IG skeptic too at first. But still I find the reactions<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>thought-provoking. </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">They almost never conform to expectations. No matter how IG-savvy I feel I am</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> they often surprise me.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>I just like to make the pictures that I like</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> so that aspect is entirely self serving. I can’t expect for people to like what I like since it’s such a specific taste. There isn’t much progressive photography on Instagram. It’s mostly just safe pictures. Books are really important</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> for me.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">I don't think Instagram reflects tastes that are much different than what you'd find outside of it. I mean, photography is no different than most creative arts. Generalized taste centers around the average, by definition. </span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">So Instagram is sanitized in that way, and also with the nudity and violence restrictions. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> mean that sort of stuff definitely makes it onto Instagram</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b> anyway. I’d be remiss if I said I didn’t enjoy nudity, but the implication of it without showing it is much more interesting as photography. One of my favourite photography books is Larry Sultan’s <i>The Valley</i>. It gets away with showing almost everything without actually showing anything. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>It’s a masterpiece. </b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>Contrary to nudity, I don’t like violence in real life and so I certainly don’t want to see it in pictures. If you can make a picture feel violent without showing a violent act then that’s pretty cool.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">You say books are important. Which ones? </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>E</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>verything Tunbjork put his stamp on</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. <b><i>I </i></b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><i>Love Boras</i> was the first book of his I found. I went to sleep with it the first night I had it in my possession</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. I had never seen anything like it and it completely opened me up to what was possible with this medium. I</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b> discovered him the day he passed</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>, </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>quite early in my attempt at making pictures</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">That's weird. Pretty cosmic actually</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Where did you come up with the name <i>normalandboring</i>?</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>Ha! Well there are no ties with that and my pictures</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. T</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>here was a female influencer-type whose name I forget now, but her bio section read "sporty and rich”</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. N</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ormal and boring was just a spoof on that</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Oh wow, was she serious?</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>V</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ery serious</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>. M</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>ostly selfies in expensive athletic gear</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Hmm, lack of self-awareness or ability to laugh at yourself. Not good</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">. </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">Very Trumpian.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><b>T</b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b>hat’s Instagram for you.</b></span><br />
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<i><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; direction: ltr; font-kerning: none; unicode-bidi: embed;">All photos above </span><span face="roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 16px;">©</span> Jon Laytner</i></div>
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Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-80272143638699849092020-04-16T09:43:00.001-07:002020-05-03T10:20:55.997-07:00Q & A with Chris Shaw<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4jaHVca6Kcw/XpYSpaH3djI/AAAAAAAAXNs/OqxXgUYAtF4fj1hdkUm3fNRWtEaEEnGEgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/csparisphoto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="959" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4jaHVca6Kcw/XpYSpaH3djI/AAAAAAAAXNs/OqxXgUYAtF4fj1hdkUm3fNRWtEaEEnGEgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/csparisphoto.jpg" width="400" /></span></i></a></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://chrisshaw.carbonmade.com/">Chris Shaw</a> is a photographer based in Paris.</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">How is the crazy pandemic treating you?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One hour a day outside allowed with a written attestation and id.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yikes, that's more strict than here. We are sheltering in place. But no paper authority required.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Where, Portland?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am in Eugene, about 2 hours south of Portland. A smaller city. Fairly spread out so it's easy to avoid crowds.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Rain?</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No, it's actually quite beautiful out. Which is a dilemma because when it's nice I feel the need to go explore with my camera. But I know I shouldn’t.. I have been shooting a bit lately, just in parks and outskirts away from people. But anyway, about you...I know a bit from your books and from a few things I've read online. But not much really. I'm curious how you first got into photography. When did you take your first meaningful photos?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Meaningful? Erm, haha, well I was a working grunt in a factory in Hamilton, Ontario. Laid off. I walked into a library and picked up a photo book and saw a reproduction of Ikko Narrahara’s picture of two dustbins suspended in mid air… and that was it. I thought photography’s going to save me… I thought. I need to study this… Looked into going to Rochester (too expensive) so shipped back to the UK and my local higher education college where I got a small grant from the government as a mature student (24). All that’s gone now. It’s like the USA… Anyway Tom Wood was the teaching there and Martin Parr was living there so it was where I was supposed to be in 1984. I took some pictures on a beach I lived on in Greece that summer and some documentary type pics in nearby Liverpool.</span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nma8vyXfdFg/XpdWSpQFlRI/AAAAAAAAXN4/4IspS3Z-yq0Ki7VDv-OIuoKND_TCfgSfwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/aa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1002" data-original-width="1476" height="433" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nma8vyXfdFg/XpdWSpQFlRI/AAAAAAAAXN4/4IspS3Z-yq0Ki7VDv-OIuoKND_TCfgSfwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/aa.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Ikko Narraha, Two Garbage Cans, Indian Village, 1972</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So before you saw that Ikko Narrahara photo you'd never taken any photos? Did you have any artistic or creative leanings before that?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">None But it was like I had the realization right there right then people worked at jobs they hated and wonderful to do something I loved and it was just this overwhelming feeling this is for me.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Awesome. Sounds like you found your calling. Or it found you. Most people aren't so lucky in that regard. Was there a time between that initial lightbulb moment and art school where you took photos on your own? Or did you immediately plunge into academia?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Haha, academia? I was taught by Tom Wood, initially developing my first film with him. It was called a BTEC course. It was basically a technicians course but Tom was teaching there so heavily documentary influenced. Right away he pointed out too me that I was unusual in presenting notebooks which had prit-sticked pictures in them. So I did the BTEC and then a degree in photography at Farnham (West Surrey College of Art) where Parr and Graham were teaching.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What was your impression of Tom Wood as a teacher?</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">from Life As A Night Porter, 2006</span></i></td></tr>
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<b>Hard! Wash those reels and when I didn’t put the reels to my nose like a dog. I always did wash my reels thoroughly after that (the smell of fixer not good!) </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What about as a photographer?</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Looking For Love</i> (Chelsea Reach nightclub photos) is a classic. He works hard.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So he taught you about developing film. But surely you learned from him too about how to see?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Less so, unless I wanted to see like August Sander or Lee Friedlander.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What does that mean? You think Tom Wood is too refined?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I don’t mean it in a bad way. It was good education.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No, nothing bad. Just trying to figure out how his style might relate to yours. Or what you picked up from him.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of course I began taking photos in the Leica M3 typical style. But because I was from there and he wasn’t, that was the difference really. And the street was a big influence from him. Also I had Klein’s book.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I can definitely see Klein in your photos. What other photographers or books were you looking at back then which help point you in the right direction?</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Point Of No Return, from Weeds of Wallasey, 2007-2012</span></i></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Japanese came later, before the night porter book, when I renewed my awareness of Eikoh Hosoe and Narrahara. But at that time it was William Klein /Danny Lyon /East 100st Bruce Davidson. That was big. I tried to go and live in the local ghetto and do that. Haha, I was so naive!</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Can you tell me briefly about your experience living in the local ghetto?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ghetto maybe too harsh a word really, but I moved into a flat in Liverpool 8 with a girlfriend and I started photographing people and places around where we lived. I befriended people who later burgled my place —that upset me at the time, haha Now I just love them anyway! They didn’t find my cameras buried under a mound of coats near the front door but they took the TV and stereo and also a box of 200 teabags (tea: that very English thing...) But they left two single teabags out —like after being robbed you really need a cup of tea! </span></b><br />
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<b>My girlfriend was upset, crying. The police came. We asked them to take fingerprints. They just looked at me and laughed, said what do you think this is, a murder enquiry? Of course in that area you couldn’t get insurance, so maybe it <i>was</i> ghetto. Like I would walk with a tripod down a local street called Granby where policemen only walked in twos with Alsatian dogs. I shiver now thinking about it but I was young then and led a charmed life. Nothing bad happened then.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What about Parr and Graham as teachers? What did you learn from them?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Paul was nice, Parr not so nice. He’s nicer now. It was color photography and I was taking black and white. But for me they where just redoing classic B/W photography in the guise of new British color topography, combining Brit doc with Eggleston/Shore, etc</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A fair analysis.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Did you learn something from them about how to approach and/or interact with people in preparation for photographing them? Or if not, where did you learn that skill?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I think I learned to be part of it or not to be part of it —two different approaches.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">How do you find people to shoot? What is your relationship with them?</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Retrospecting Sandy Hill, 2015</span></i></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I gave people “free”prints. They told other people and then I photographed them (<a href="https://www.photobookstore.co.uk/photobook-retrospecting-sandy-hill.html">Retrospecting Sandy Hill</a>). I acted like a fool and people didn’t care that I’d photographed them (<a href="https://twinpalms.com/books-artists/life-as-a-night-porter/">Life As A Night Porter</a>). Different strategies for different places.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It sounds like even when you were in school you were already intent on your own direction. Do you think photo school was worthwhile?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yes, for me the equipment and free darkroom? Amazing! Learning to print. A library. Photographers like them at the top of their game teaching me. Can’t help but be enthused by that. I saw Martin Parr’s first exhibition of <i>Last Resort</i> at a converted bus-stop-like gallery and then it went worldwide. It was kind of like seeing the Beatles at the Cavern or something.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Very cool. I think he was maybe in just the right place and time, properly situated just as color photography was ready to explode. And of course very skilled.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Great business man.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You said that school had a darkroom and that you learned to print there. But your darkroom style defies conventional printing methods. You incorporate a lot of mistakes and stains and such. So maybe "learning to print better" was a backwards process for you? Or something like that. Trying to avoid getting better? Or more open to problems? Here's a question, From where you sit now, what makes a "good" print?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I always think about music virtuosos, you know, like Hendrix. He learned every style before he started doing his own thing. So before I made an aesthetic of bad printing I had to learn then unlearn the right way? If that makes any sense.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Totally.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ansel Adams zone system upside down back to front, but I know about Ansel!</span></b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">from The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game, 2019</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Maybe part of what makes your work stand out now is that photography has gone so strongly in the other direction. Most of what I see in the fine art photo world is <i>so</i> very carefully calibrated. Photographers tend to be control freaks, I think. Maybe the very idea of making photos is about control. Trying to capture the world like a bug in a jar.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I think there’s photography as fine art and straight photography. If you know how to print that automatically makes you an artist nowadays</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Not sure I follow you…</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Time. 20 years ago they were just craft skills. But the world’s become so digital with people looking at and through screens that the physical object now becomes more important.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I love to handle prints more than looking at screens. I think that’s maybe a vestige of me coming from similar era as you. I started with film and prints in the early 90s. There was no photography on screens then. Except maybe the occasional slide show with a Kodak carousel. But I’m not sure I agree everyone who prints is automatically an artist. Maybe…</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Maybe not. But the obsession with tech is oppressive. I always think of Godard’s man from Alphaville film. Just one man going against the tide. To use old technology when everybody obsesses the new.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Atget used glass plate carriers well into the film era, like maybe 30 years into it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Records vs cds? All that stuff about technology always being an improvement not necessarily so.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Maybe in 50 years someone will raise the same arguments, comparing the good old days of digital photography with whatever they're doing in the future. Mindmeld vision or something?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After the chip implants to combat the virus we won’t be taking photos!</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So what followed school for you? You said you spent time in Greece making photos? And in Liverpool? My understanding is that you spent several years hunkered down making photos on your own without much outside notice?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Well I did a lot of gallivanting when I was at college and crashed and burned when I hit the streets of London in 1992, becoming homeless and getting a job as a night porter in a hotel, mainly because they had staff accommodation. I was taking photos to keep me awake or something, lost art school artifice. I just had 2 minutes and 2 shots to capture something. I was about 10 years as a night porter before I had any success with photography..</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've got that book and I love it.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Basically just taking the same photo again and again and getting it eventually. Vertical and black and white the opposite of the horizontal color orthodoxy of the time, insane. Then black and white came back.</span></b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">from Life As A Night Porter, 2006</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">How did that Night Porter work eventually get noticed?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>It was like magical!</b> <b>I mean, I went to Arles then Houston Photo Fest portfolio review, but what really was funny and life changing was that I had entered the night porter prints into a fashion photography competition as a bit of a joke.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The judges were Alexander McQueen and Nick Night. They won 1st prize and about 10k in prize money which meant I could really fly and leave the hotels…Well, stay in them, not work in them!</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">How could those photos possibly fit into the fashion world? Doesn't compute.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because they didn’t, and Alexander McQueen and Nick Night didn’t give a fuck. They just thought, interesting!</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m trying to put together the timeline. So the money you won from the fashion prize allowed you to fly to Houston and Arles? Was that the order of things?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Basically, yep.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What was the reaction at Arles and Houston? Any bites? Or interest? Or valuable feedback at all?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Sure, I met Bill Hunt and Lesley Martin and Houston was a lot less competition than Arles. Houston was pay to play and the players just had money, not interesting portfolios. So I did stand out more. </b>So Lesley Martin wanted to do it at Aperture and a month later I was in NYC.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So what happened with that? How'd it get from Aperture to Twin Palms?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Guy called Gus at the New Yorker said don’t sign anything before you meet Jack Woody. He’s in town.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Gus Powell?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yes, Gus Powell. I said Jack who? I didn’t know a thing about publishers and the difference between them. Anyway I meet Gus and Jack at the Gramercy (b4 it got done up). Jack looks at my book dummy, says you’ll never do this with Aperture. I say “you’re wrong. I’m going in to sign tomorrow. They’re giving me two thousand dollars!” I went in the next day and one of the trustees who had to cosign the contract was off sick so I never signed. A week later Jack offered me $8k and said we’ll do it just like the dummy. I didn’t realize how unusual that was then, haha. That was before I got to know the whole nature of the game a lot of publishers hated me after that! I was not paying to play!</span></b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Life As A Night Porter, 2006</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The night porter book has roughly the dimensions of 11 x 14 prints (kind of mammoth for a book!). Are the pages life-sized print scans?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bigger!! Originals were 16 x 12 prints with a slight white frame. Originally print quality was going to be newspaperish as I had done a Xerox photocopy dummy 16 x 12. But then we took scans of my prints instead so the print quality was a lot better, but still had an “unclean”quality.</span></b></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">You said you didn’t really know what you were doing with publishers. Do you think your outsider/inexperienced status was part of your appeal to publishers?</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;"><b>I think I was trying to sell it. I wasn’t giving it away but I didn’t know the difference between different publishers in terms of quality and attitude. I started at the top with Twin Palms and thought the way they worked was the way everyone worked. You have to look at what they’ve published. They were above a whole bunch of pay-to-play publishers who depend on academics /teachers of photography who became institutionalized and are trying to get their work published to justify their “moribund academia” who pay publishers.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">Haha, publish or perish. As they say in academia.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;"><b>So I guess I was coming from the “lower classes” showing the reality of the working poor and I wasn’t going to pay a publisher. But I always laugh at myself and my own bullshit belief system…I always say to Aaron Morel “You’re upstairs in the castle..and I’m out here in the fields..!”</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">How do you think social class plays a role in the world of photography generally?</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;"><b>In many ways it affected British documentary photography. Movement was very class conscious, an aspect of which was sending middle class southern photographers to photograph the working classes in the north of England. It was almost as if they never saw the middle classes in the north of England, ignoring the unpleasant fact that there are more poor people in London than anywhere else in the UK. Class is a very British thing and very stifling, resembling Indian caste system. Regional accents are always disparaged. It's just he way it is, part of the landscape. But there is always the tendency in documentary photography practice to define working class people in a cruel way, to make people look bad if you like.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">I think your experience trying to get your work out into the world is both encouraging and depressing. It shows the value of perseverance and hitting that lucky break. But still, even after all is said and done, the photos can't really do it on their own. They still require the verdict of kingmakers to get over the hump. Which is kind of a bummer.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Good Morning In Skodaville, 2019</span></i></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's a business.</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yup.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then I started selling prints. Cheaply to the right people and double or tripled when others came mentioning their names.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">How can you run a business charging different rates to different people?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So it’s like Parr and Erik Kessels, Timothy Prus, they were early print buyers of mine at $200 a print. Then there’s the ones who come after them. You double the price. Because they have become your champions, have bought you cheap…History of art stuff.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Do you limit your print editions, or just make them when needed?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Editions of 15 or 16, usually 2 or 3 sizes.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Parr/Kessels thing feeds into what I mentioned a minute ago. The prints have a certain value until someone like Parr buys one, and then it shoots up. I know it's a business, but it still seems crazy. I mean the print is the print, and some outsider's opinion of it should not change depending who owns it. In an ideal world, sigh…</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But it’s a really difficult thing to do selling. Most people don’t like to do it. But it was kind of second nature to me. I’d spent years at a porter’s desk selling theatre tickets to hotel guests, etc.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You sell them directly with no gallery support? Yeah, that's a logistical nightmare</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Galleries take 50% if you sell yourself you get 100% of it. Plus if you’re making the prints yourself in the 1st place that’s how you can sell them cheap. Because if you have to pay a printer to make your prints it’s a lot more difficult to do that.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When you make an edition of 15 or 16, how much do the prints vary? I assume each one is unique, especially if they incorporate handwriting. But it seems to me that's part of the darkroom appeal, which digital printing has a hard time approximating, because the fundamental nature of digital things is replication, not variance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>My thing in the last few years is too make book dummies with real fiber-based prints and sell them. They’re always valued if the book gets published. </b><b>I mean, also I’ve never printed out an edition in one go it’s always been as I’ve sold them. Then I print another to replace the sold print.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So if they're printed during different sessions, there’s even more variety between prints.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Probably to me and you, yes. There’s a thing about vintage prints. Vintage can mean printed with more enthusiasm!</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm with you in spirit. I love the darkroom and I do all my own printing. I print like crazy. But of course there's almost no market for my photos, so it's a different situation.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But if you become successful you will sell everything so it’s important you have something to sell!</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Um, I guess. Is that what you were telling yourself those 10 years working on Night Porter?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No, as I said photography was like keeping me sane it was like going to church. When I develop film or was in the darkroom it was helping me cope with shitty life.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What about <i>Horizon Icons </i>(the other book of yours I own)? Can you tell me a bit about your experience shooting that and getting it published?</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;"><b>I live in Paris and every November the circus comes to town —Paris Photo. In 2012 I was introduced to Gloria and Willard Huyck (sadly Gloria now deceased) an ex-Hollywood couple with a black and white collection (since sold to the Sekkers —Nan Goldin’s friends). They came to my place and I sold them a few prints. Willard liked Ikko Narrahara. I liked Ikko! He had a spare room at his Glendale home full of his prints…if I was ever in LA? I was more than welcome to stay…etc.</b></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Horizon Icons, 2017</span></i></td></tr>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;"><b>Like two weeks later I went. I’m there, he invited some people around for Sunday brunch. I sold some more prints, then he says I should see Daniel Connell (then curator at Palm Springs museum) and just like that I get an appointment and am showing him night porter prints, which he loves, but says can you do something around here? What’s around here? He mentions Joshua Tree and I pass through there on the way back to LAX. Get home, Google Joshua Tree arts and a residency programme pops up. I apply and spend two months, July /August 2013, in a house next to Joshua Tree National Park. I shipped in an enlarger in an adhoc darkroom in the house, took pictures just before and after sunrise (too hot afterwards), developed the films during the day and printed at night. When the prints dried I wrote acerbic diary-like comments on the prints. The prints would be later scanned and made into a book with Ines Bordas then at Adad books, now Silence Editions. Alison Mosshart the musician from the Kills wrote a foreword.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What have you been photographing lately during this pandemic?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Obsessed with a bridge near me.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oh yeah I saw some of those early morning shots on Instagram. Are you shooting them b/w too?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No just the iPhone! Trying to put then together in a film strip way, but this is me taking a holiday from black and white.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What is it about the bridge that interests you? Are you forced there to avoid people? Or something else?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It’s the most photographed bridge in Paris right in front of the Louvre. I’m interested in being there when no tourists are, like now, and there’s no pollution. Also I think repetition is something that interests me doing something again and again.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">How did you wind up living in Paris?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I had been living in a London housing association (rent control place). The local council had been trying to evict me for years so they could sell the place. My flatmates had moved out with the first eviction notice. I had successfully delayed this for 2 years before they changed tack and took me to court, not to evict me but to move someone in with me. This they won and moved a Cuban exile in with me. He was arrested by the police the first night, covered in blood, shouting at the moon. They came to my place —does he live here? Yes, I said. The next day I came to Paris for an exhibition of my night porter work, met a French woman, married and moved in with her. A year later it got very painful. I was praying to be back with the Cuban guy!! So I came back to the UK but up north where I did Weeds of Wallasey (Super Labo 2011). I had to come back to Paris for the divorce but also for photography. Paris is a black and white photography place and has always been. So I’ve been here since 2010.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Why are you taking a holiday from black and white? Is that something you've done before? I haven't seen much color work from you but maybe you explore that from time to time? What about iPhone? Is that a tool you've used much in a serious way?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No, I did shoot a lot of mini dvd cassettes 10 years ago. Then last year on eBay I bought 2 more cameras and started shooting again.. So then I always return to black and white after these holidays. It’s like I have to keep it playful and black and white seems very serious sometimes and I always return to my black and white practice renewed. </span></b></div>
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Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-60053275327870340962020-03-31T10:13:00.000-07:002020-04-01T15:09:06.592-07:00Q & A with Alice Christine Walker<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><a href="https://www.alicechristinewalker.com/">Alice Christine Walker</a> is a photographer based in Portland.</i></span></span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">BA: Tell me about your photobooth pictures. How/when did you get started?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ACW: My first photobooth pictures were back in high school when I lived in London. </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You went to high school in London? What brought you there as a kid?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A typical story. My parent's job was transferred to the U.K. </span></b></span><span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>They had the analog booths at train stations and my friends and I would take pictures as we traveled in and out of the city. I still have all those strips. When I moved Portland 10 years ago, I started noticing the B&W booths at bars around town</b></span><span class="s2" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b> and used the booths in the traditional way, capturing pictures with friends during boozy nights in bars.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Every year I would go to the Ace Hotel on my birthday and started incorporating the </b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-kerning: none;"><b>element of</b></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b> time into my images, documenting </b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-kerning: none;"><b>my aging</b></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>. It wasn't until one night at The Florida Room when I conceptualized a story arc with a strip did I realize the photobooth could be more than pictures with friends.</b></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When and how did you transition into pieces incorporating multiple strips together?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The first time I made a multiple image strip was on a trip to Italy. I found an analog photobooth randomly on the streets. Me and my partner at the time, conceptualized a piece where we interacted in two strips side by side. It hasn't been until recently that I have really pushed the number of strips I've used to make a piece.</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In these initial photos was there much planning or staging? Or just chance moments?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There has always been a high degree of planning and staging. This includes props, order of people and facial expressions to name a few variables. The flashes happen so fast, I had to visualize what I want the outcome to be in order to be ready for the speed of the booth.</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What is the gap between photos?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is about 2-3 seconds between photos.</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Is it possible to tinker with the machines to make that gap longer?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am sure there is a way to make the time between longer but the camera shutter can be fickle and I try not to disrupt it.</span></b></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Bene Gesserit</i></span></td></tr>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Portland is a big center for photobooths. Is that true of London too? Or was it true there 10 years ago?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>I am not up to date on where there are analog booths in London anymore but I have seen first hand the chemically processed booths replaced by digital ones all around the world. There are still instant photo machines in train stations, grocery store</b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-kerning: none;"><b>s</b></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>, etc all over Europe and the UK but they are marketed as "passport photo booths". The same thing is happening in Portland. The city used to have twice as many as they do now. However most locations have been poached by a competing company's digital booths.</b></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XD_IFlY7RXo/XoDlDyEDlOI/AAAAAAAAXMo/uXKvXijHlrUOBBnWBQefWrpa1pEvaLduQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Non-monogamy%2B%2528Florida%2BRoom%2529-%2BAlice%2BChristine%2BWalker%2Bcopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="364" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XD_IFlY7RXo/XoDlDyEDlOI/AAAAAAAAXMo/uXKvXijHlrUOBBnWBQefWrpa1pEvaLduQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Non-monogamy%2B%2528Florida%2BRoom%2529-%2BAlice%2BChristine%2BWalker%2Bcopy.jpg" width="145" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Non-monogramy<br />(Florida Room)</span></i></td></tr>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Same story as record jukeboxes and old school arcade games. They’re mostly gone from public life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.photobooth.net/locations/">This is the best resource</a> I have found to help locate analog booths around the world.</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Maybe this is a dumb question but what does an analog photobooth offer that a digital one doesn't?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There is a basic difference in size and shape. The analog photobooth was designed as a dip and dunk method in chemical baths with special paper to produce a positive image. Behind that door is a machine in a darkroom with a complex mechanical process. It can only produce a vertical set of 4 images.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Behind the door of a digital booth is a digital camera and a digital printer. The options for digital are vast in comparison, vertical versus horizontal or 2x2. Color or B/W. You can </b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-kerning: none;"><b>artificially manipulate the picture by adding objects or retake the image if you don't like it</b></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>. It can be argued that the digital one actually offers "more" than analog. But analog has the origins of the history of photography behind it. The same irrational, emotional and somewhat intangible magic quality that keeps photographers using film and printing in a darkroom.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For my project, I embrace the analog with flaws in the mechanical and chemical process. These flaws of degraded chemicals or misfired camera shutters don't exist with digital.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We should probably mention at this point that you are Portland's photobooth guru. You handle all the chemicals in the city's booths and keep them running smoothly.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Haha! Yes, that's true. I approach the photobooth from the unique position of being the darkroom photographer and the subject. Well, mechanic/photographer...</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The main photobooth I use is at Blue Sky. The strips smell like fixer when they come out. I don't think any digital photobooth can replicate that smell, but maybe I'm wrong.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No digital booth could ever replicate that smell!</span></b></span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></span>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Not yet. I bet some programmer somewhere is working on it.</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Haha! I can image someone trying to make printer ink smell like rotten eggs.</span></b></span></div>
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KPIxDi5YZw4/XoDlfi5yNBI/AAAAAAAAXM0/L8tpyK83OdwTw9-LZXiCFifgEMRIR4BQACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/On%2BBeing%2BA%2BWoman-%2BAlice%2BChristine%2BWalker%2Bcopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1001" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KPIxDi5YZw4/XoDlfi5yNBI/AAAAAAAAXM0/L8tpyK83OdwTw9-LZXiCFifgEMRIR4BQACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/On%2BBeing%2BA%2BWoman-%2BAlice%2BChristine%2BWalker%2Bcopy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On Being A Woman</span></i></td></tr>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So analog photobooths are fading away, and you are their main caretaker in Portland during this change. How much of your project is inspired by a sense of nostalgia, and/or trying to preserve this disappearing technology?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nostalgia and preservation are both of the utmost importance to me. There is a division that is true in all photography, for some people what is important are the ends and not the means. Therefore it doesn't matter if an image was made using chemical process or digitally.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am not one of those people. The means and the ends both matter to me. At this moment in time, the mechanical parts that still exist for the analog photobooths are all that are left over from the 20th century. Although once abundant, there was a large purge of these machines into scrap yards where there were destroyed. There are very few of these machines left and fewer people who know how to keep them working. I am one of those people now. Analog photobooths are also at risk of losing the one Russian supply source for paper as well as fewer companies making the chemicals. It is true that one day, supplies/parts might dry up and they will just fade away.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oh wait, I didn't realize the paper and chemicals were disappearing too. Isn't it just normal photo paper and chemicals? Or is there something different?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yes, the paper and chemicals are a different process than working from a negative. The camera exposes the image directly onto the paper so in the chemical processing you need to produce a direct positive. The paper is special in its size (it is cut to fit into the film magazine and to fit into the strip holders for the chemical baths) but also unique in that you can put it through a special chemical reversal bath and have the positive image appear.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wondering out loud…. How would that paper react if treated like normal paper? Say you exposed it to a negative in the darkroom and then developed in D-76?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have these questions too and my goal is to start experimenting in the darkroom soon!</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hmm, ok. I'm learning something here. How did the paper manufacturer happen to be Russian? Were the booths made there? Or what's the connection?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SENmGAXZ4Z8/XoDWfnD3oxI/AAAAAAAAXMA/Jowx-kOVszoIrQvt-YCXolj531GBwf9MACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/josepho%2Banatol%2Bwith%2Bterrier.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="198" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SENmGAXZ4Z8/XoDWfnD3oxI/AAAAAAAAXMA/Jowx-kOVszoIrQvt-YCXolj531GBwf9MACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/josepho%2Banatol%2Bwith%2Bterrier.jpg" width="179" /></i></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Anatol Josepho with Terrier</i></span></td></tr>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Unfortunately I think it is the same story that has played out with many analog products. Demand decreases and companies stop making a profit or there are regulations that change the availability or cost to make a product so the company stops production. Polaroid, Kodak, etc have all had to adapt. I'm sure there were booths made in Russia but most booths in the west were made in the United Kingdom or the US. A company in Russia just happens to be the only company still making the special paper and cutting it to the specific size. Although it should be noted Anatol Josepho, the inventor of the photobooth, is Russian. He created the first photobooth in NYC.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What else can you tell me about him?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is directly from online but I think it is more concise than I can be! The Photomaton took years to create, as Josepho tinkered with chemical formulas in hopes of finding a faster-developing process while maintaining picture quality. After running a successful photography studio in Shanghai, Josepho decided to relocate to America to secure financial backers to build his machine. He later raised $11,000 (approximately $150,000 these days), building the first Photomaton in midtown Manhattan and opening for business in 1925. Lines quickly wrapped around the block, with as many as 7,500 people a day paying a quarter for a strip of eight photographs (that's $1,875 a day in 1925 or more than $25,000 in 2017 dollars.) The Photomaton became known as Broadway's Greatest Quarter-Snatcher.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I hope the booths can hang on.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me too!!!</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So your project is a race against time. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In both senses! I am racing against the obsolesce of these analog machines as well racing against the speed of flashes in the booth.</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Tell me about the images you're making. How would you describe them? And how did you develop the style you have now from the photos you made in your initial photobooth experiences?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There are so many limitations when working with the photobooth. I find myself challenged and really pushed to my creative limits trying to break through those limitations while embracing the uniqueness of the medium. My style has come from trying to overcome those limitations.</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Chris Rauschenberg, a great local photographer you may know, has a quote about that. Paraphrasing, it is something to the effect of Limitations are essential for artists. They spur creativity.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Woven</span></i></td></tr>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I agree with Chris! He actually gave me the name for the Instagram account I will be using to show some photobooth work: PhotoBooth Strip Club. Perfect for Portland right?!</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>I am making a variety of images. Some images use the basic format of four vertical images to tell a story. I am using multiple strips to build pattern and repetition to create a larger image. I am </b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-kerning: none;"><b>exploring</b></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b> the idea of future obsolescence to talk about consumerism in our society and in my life. I am making art that talks about my own experiences of being a woman in Western society and the pressure of beauty. I am exploring the freedom of identity and anonymity that happens behind the curtain. My work is now art where </b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-kerning: none;"><b>as</b></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b> before it was documenting a moment or friendship.</b></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yikes, that's a lot to unpack. Did you wind up buying your own photobooth yet. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I absolutely would like to own my own booth one day but they are very hard to find in working order with all the parts. There are 10 booths left in the Portland area. As part of my maintenance route I test each photobooth once a week. If adjustments need to be made I will test it twice. I am making my art one strip at a time over weeks and months. Each booth is slightly different so I am intentional about which concepts I am working on in which booths. It's a slow process.</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So you only shoot one strip per week in each booth? But if you're working a certain topic you might want to shoot multiple strips in one session, no? Or does that wear down the machines or something?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It doesn't wear down there machines but it does wear down the profits for the company that I work for! So yes, I am only shooting one strip per week in each booth. After changing the chemistry or the film magazine I do have to shoot multiple strips to make sure the booth is ready for the next paying customer. I use those opportunities to make multiple strips on a certain topic.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Is it too technical to ask which photos work best in which booths? What are examples of some of the differences between booths?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Not technical at all! The backgrounds are different. Some curtains you can change and some are set designs. The size of the booths are slightly different so one might have a larger field of view than another. Some cameras have a different focal length than others. Technically, the flash strengths might be different in different booths, and in all the booths the chemicals are always at different points in their life span. Through working with all the booths, each one has a slightly different personality to me. I would say that is something I noticed and loved about photo booths from the start. I have always sought out as many booths as I could find to try them out and thus have my favorites.</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you had to pick one in Portland, which one is your favorite?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Probably the Cruzroom Annex. The background is a black reptile texture and the strip is slightly larger than the rest.</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Do you know of other photographers currently making work with photobooths?</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pnOG08OzXAc/XoDmsW333mI/AAAAAAAAXNI/4l32N2ZoiOM4FYC9Rm_69s4KuYWHx1pdQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Degrade-%2BAlice%2BChristine%2BWalker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="230" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pnOG08OzXAc/XoDmsW333mI/AAAAAAAAXNI/4l32N2ZoiOM4FYC9Rm_69s4KuYWHx1pdQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Degrade-%2BAlice%2BChristine%2BWalker.jpg" width="146" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Degrade</span></i></td></tr>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.jaredbarkstudio.com/">Jared Bark</a> in NYC still has shows and I believe is still making work. Daniel Minnick is more contemporary and I find his work incredibly inspiring but I do not know if he has made work in a few years. I heard rumors that there is a female photographer in Portland who owns her own booth and has been making work but I have not found her yet.</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If she's out there, seems worth tracking down.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-kerning: none;"><b>I agree! I secretly hoped it was photobooth artist Jan Wenzel but I think she lives in Germany.</b></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> <b>Photobooth.net is another great resource for the purpose of researching photobooth artists. I think great art is being made in these booths every day but working with them as your main medium can be cost prohibitive.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I found Jared Bark's book in the local university library and we've talked about him. He made photobooth work in the 1970s and I think there was a miniboom in that period of photographers doing photobooth stuff. What do you think inspired that boom? And are we in the midst of another (smaller) one? Or am I just imagining both booms?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Photobooths were more affordable in the 1970s. You hear stories of Warhol arriving with a model and rolls of quarters to a booth in NYC and taking it over. Pop art was the trend in the 70s which gave cultural validation to instant art like the photobooth. I would call it a boom. I would love for us to be in another boom now. I might be in the middle of it but I can't see it from the outside? I feel </b></span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-kerning: none;"><b>that</b></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b> in our individualist culture everyone is try to be unique as possible. The photobooth might be playing into that as access to the medium is not readily available to all photographers.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Has the work of these prior artists been influential for your own work? Or did you discover those folks later, after you'd already gone down the photobooth rabbit hole?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I discovered most folks after I went down the rabbit hole. Art history is important and artist don't exist in a bubble.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have no idea if we're in a boom, but for whatever reason Jared Bark is getting a new wave of attention, and you're doing your thing, and photobooths seem like a thing. So I dunno.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What goes around comes back around. I am glad Jared is getting due recognition.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm curious about the logistics of shooting with a photobooth. It seems like a chancy process, and also irreversible just like any analog tool. There's no healing brush. What is your general hit ratio? I mean, how many strips do you usually wind up tossing for every one that works out?</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I7nS8H8YQ8M/XoDXS9K3AHI/AAAAAAAAXMI/ZAs90AooSQ0YwVyPJEUWvFK3soolBltUwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Optical%2BEvolution-AliceChristineWalker%2Bcopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1278" data-original-width="1600" height="510" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I7nS8H8YQ8M/XoDXS9K3AHI/AAAAAAAAXMI/ZAs90AooSQ0YwVyPJEUWvFK3soolBltUwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Optical%2BEvolution-AliceChristineWalker%2Bcopy.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Optical Evolution</i></span></td></tr>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I find my mood going into the photo booth affects my hit ratio more so than anything else. Some days it is just a job and I sit and look into the camera blankly with a grumpy face. As I am in the process of beginning to show and share my work I am uncertain how the world will respond to it. Like all art, I know what has significance and meaning to me but that might be very different than what society values or deems worthy. I keep all the strips and hope that even the failures can be used in totality to create a successful pie</span></b></span><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ce.</span></b></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another trait of photobooth pictures is that you're always work in series. You've got to think about how frames interact with each other, in the same strip and also in multiple strips. Which seems like a different approach than most photography. I'm not sure if that's a question or maybe I'm just making an observation.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'd say that is a great observation and there is a small degree of luck. I've included a couple pieces where you can observe my planning. Often I have to bring a note pad into the booth to keep straight which direction I should be looking etc.</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I looked for some of your photobooth pictures online but couldn't find any. Is that because it's still in the beginning stages? Or are you holding it back for some specific time or project?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Honestly, I am still trying to figure out how to share it. Also, many of the larger pieces are still in process. I will be updating my website this month to have a page dedicated to my photobooth work. I will also be debuting most of it in September in the rear gallery at <a href="http://www.blackfish.com/">Blackfish Gallery</a> in Portland.</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cool, looking forward to that. What about right now with the Coronavirus pandemic? What's been the impact on photobooths?</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's been a wild two weeks. I actually had to shut down all the booths during this quarantine period so no art is being made right now. </span></b></span></span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;"><b>For the immediate future, I am in the same boat as a lot of people. Until bars and restaurants open again, the booths will stay off. There were a couple booths that we tried to keep open like the Ace hotel but even they have decided to close until May 1st. </b></span></span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;"><b>Also, because the photobooth development process is darkroom based, the chemicals will degrade naturally if left sitting for an extended period of time. In addition, with Portland's shelter-in-place, photobooth maintenance should not be considered essential services. So I'm hanging tight and focusing my creative energy on my other photography work. </b></span></span><b style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am going to start experimenting with photobooth chemicals and regular darkroom paper.</span></b></div>
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Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-55834756701357218182020-03-26T12:40:00.003-07:002020-03-31T10:10:55.093-07:00Shore's Transparencies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">It may be hard now to imagine a time when people didn’t routinely shoot photos of meals. But until just a few decades ago the practice was rare. Stephen Shore was perhaps the first major photographer to go there. Beginning in the early 1970s, while on various photographic road trips, he seldom left a restaurant table unphotographed. Food was just one small component in his daily captures, along with motel rooms, dirty clothes, parking lots, toilets, ceilings, shops, nightstands, appliances, and all the other artifacts of his domestic explorations. Everything was fair game, his appetite for material seemingly insatiable.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">So it’s fitting that a dinner photo introduces the hefty new Shore book <i>Transparencies: Small Camera Works 1971-1979</i> (Mack, 2020). It may be the only such one in the book, but it sets the tone for what’s to come. By showing an ordinary fast-food Mexican taco/enchilada combo, split by beans and rice, harshly flashed, and, well, downright ugly despite the nicely choreographed blue napkin and green tabletop, Shore establishes his credentials. “I’m not picky,” he seems to be saying, “It’s open season on any subject.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Of course other photographers had taken aim at the quotidian before Shore. But their efforts were typically highbrow. Think of Weston’s Pepper No. 30 or Siskind’s Gloucester glove, for example, both the product of men seeking grandeur in the mundane. Shore’s aesthetic, which would eventually come to dominate fine art photography, was a deliberate effort to avoid these modernist trappings. Instead he looked to Ed Ruscha’s deadpan factuality for guidance. As Britt Salvesen explains in the book’s afterword, Shore mined the vernacular for material.<span class="s1" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Inspired by postcards, commercial signage, and snapshots, he developed a direct, non-fussy style which stripped away any highbrow pretentions to framing, lighting, or the picturesque. <span class="s2" style="background-color: white;">“Some photographers go out and want to make beautiful photographs," Shore once told Gil Blank. "I think that puts the cart before the horse. Good photographs are the by-product of some other exploration, or some other intention."<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Shore’s approach proved prescient, and we’re still dealing with the aftermath. The idea that image is secondary to intention is now the zeitgeist. Meanwhile, Shore is busy mining his early archives. <i>Transparencies</i> is the merely latest in a recent slew of books to explore them. A new edition of <i>American Surfaces</i> is due soon. I’m guessing other books may follow. The more the better, as far as I’m concerned. It’s rather amazing to look back and realize that none of these early photos were published as books contemporaneously. The first edition of <i>American Surfaces</i> didn’t arrive until 1999, and it wasn’t until 2005 that a more comprehensive edit came along. So if a book world recounting is overdue, I say bring it on.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><i>Transparencies</i> focuses on the mid-seventies, the period just on the heels of <i>American Surfaces</i> and when Shore was transitioning to the view camera. That larger format work would eventually produce the project for which he is still best known, <i>Uncommon Places</i>. But even while consumed by that project, he hadn’t quite given up on 35 mm. True, he’d ditched his trusty snapshooting Rollei 35. But in its place: a Leica M2, a handheld workhorse. It went everywhere with him, stocked with Kodachrome. It’s fun to browse through <i>Uncommon Places</i> now realizing this duality. Shore probably had a Leica on his shoulder as he made <i>that </i>famous photo, and<i> this</i> one, and so on.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">How did that Leica see differently? The book shows a sampling of what Shore found, 112 photographs, generously sized, without captions, preceded by a miniature prologue of highlights (leading with the Mexican dinner photo). <i>Transparencies</i> compares with <i>Uncommon Places</i> in the ways one might expect. Beginning with a shaky series of indistinct road shots, the photos exude the loose energy of 35 mm. Some frames are cockeyed, or seen through a windshield, or suffer from camera shake, or are helped by it. There are generally more pedestrians caught in <i>Transparencies</i> than in <i>Uncommon Places</i>, though that might be a function of editing as much as format. And whereas Shore using a tripod could stop down his aperture to get entire scenes in focus, his 35 mm depth of field was often restrained by slow film and unreliable lighting.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Even though the work was shot concurrently, there’s seemingly only one scene shot by both cameras. That’s a boat harbor in Miami in 1975, huddled under a massive highway interchange. Britt Salvesen’s afterword offers an instructive comparison of the two photos —one photo is flat, the other deep— but leaves the reader wanting more. Can that be the only pairing? It’s hard to believe there aren’t others. A moot point in any case, since they don’t appear here.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">With no other direct comparisons, the reader looks to the work for hints of Shore’s thinking. <i>Transparencies</i> is sequenced chronologically, and as we move through the seventies some familiar themes arise. One change which becomes immediately apparent is the transition to outdoors. Whereas most of <i>American Surfaces</i> featured indoor snapshots, Shore’s Leica found much of its material in public settings, presumably lured there alongside his view camera. The change in backdrop seems to echo a broader switch in Shore’s approach, from internalized snapshots of a very personal nature toward the dispassionate open landscapes typical of <i>New Topographics</i>. Whether the Leica work was “a parallel iteration of an iconic vision… like a piece of music played in a new key,” as Mack describes it, or simply the waning efforts of a photographer whose style had already moved on, the results are fascinating.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">The formalism of <i>Uncommon Places</i> manifests more and more as the reader wades deeper into <i>Transparencies</i>. The opening photos are blurred and dreamy, but they quickly firm up. Soon we see storefronts shot head on, alleys opening into distant vistas, delicately composed parking lots, an affinity for cars, pavement, signs and vernacular material. There’s even a brief taste of Europe before the book returns stateside. By the time late in the book when the reader encounters a street corner fronted by plywood walls, angled just so, the world has shifted convincingly toward <i>Uncommon Places</i>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="s4" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Regardless of camera, whatever Shore photographed in the 1970s was with an intense visual hunger. It’s the same motivation fueling all great photographers and all lasting works, that restless <i>need</i> to swallow the world with a lens. “I wanted to be visually aware as I sent through the day,” he is quoted in <i>American Surface</i>s. “I started photographing everyone I met, every meal, every toilet, every bed I slept in, the streets I walked on, the towns I visited. Then, when the trip was over, I just continued it.” </span><span class="s5" style="color: black;">With <i>Transparencies</i>, we finally have sense of where that continuance led: not very far from the present.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><i>Note: This is the full "Director's Cut" of this piece, initially published <a href="https://blog.photoeye.com/2020/03/transparencies-reviewed-by-blake-andrews.html">here</a> in abridged form.</i></span></div>
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Blake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.com0