Don/Dean

Don/Dean is a blog founded and operated by Cole Don Kelley and Jessica Dean Camp that is dedicated to showcasing an exciting photographer bi-weekly with images, video and a personalized interview. Please come back every other Sunday for a new post. Questions, comments and submissions can be sent to [email protected]. Due to the high volume of submissions, only people who are selected will get a response. Thanks for understanding.

[don-dean]

Ian Kline

Ian Kline is a BFA Candidate at Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland.

If you could only photograph in the same place for the rest of your life, where would it be? How does that place relate to your work?

Honestly I’d probably pick York, Pennsylvania, where I grew up.  Even though since the time I could drive I’ve been trying desperately to escape, I always end up back there eventually. Along with my personal connection to this place and all of the experiences I’ve had there, the other thing that draws me to York is that it has a little bit of everything, there are multiple conversations happening in the landscape.  It has the typical highs and lows, while in-between the two is found resting somewhere in a confused purgatory that’s all too easy to get stuck in.  Although it was one of the first capitals of the United States, something that should ground this place, it doesn’t seem that it has made up its mind.  

Is there a difference between photographing women and men?

Well, no and yes.  No because they are all people, and yes because when I photograph men there is a part that I directly relate to because I am one of them.  With women I get a totally different feeling because I truly don’t know them and up until recently I have been pretty intimidated by women, and for the most part I still am.  I also never really surrounded myself with that many girls; it has always just been the boys club.  Growing up I would hang out with the boys and skate all day then hang out at night and repeat.  But as of recently I’ve been trying to open up the doors of the boys club.

Talk to us about photographing reflective surfaces such as television screens or windows.

I think a lot of my interest in televisions comes from being surrounded by them all my life, and watching and learning and somewhat living through the TV.  It’s also interesting that most of the movies and TV shows and video games I watched and played tried to depict a more refined reality.  These football players are what men should be, this landscape is the epitome of the sublime, even though they are just pixels being experienced by someone that may never get to those things outside of the screen.  They act as a temporary escape for a couple hours, but it’s a false escape.  And with windows, the interior and exterior act on each other, sometimes you can see in and out and other times you can’t.  They act as a division between something that is internal and something that is external; it is a transparent barrier.  I find myself constantly looking out windows and trying to look into others.  A lot of it comes from being alone, constantly looking and imagining.

Tell us about the worst nightmare you ever had.

I guess I was probably five or six.  I had this big half circle chair made out of a denim fabric in the corner of my room and my bed had the blankets to match.  My room was also half painted at the time, because my dad and I were re-painting it, although we never did finish painting it the way I wanted.  I remember something freaking me out and making me shoot up in bed.  I sat up for a second, and looked around.  My room was completely dark, only slightly lit by the yellow streetlights coming through the windows.  I turned my head towards the chair and I saw my younger brother sitting there.  I was so confused as to why he would be in my room right now, in the middle of the night, just staring at me.  I loudly whispered his name and he didn’t respond, so I said it again, still nothing, he just kept staring as the light through the window blinds cast yellow shadows on him and the chair.  I said his name one more time, loudly, nothing.  I flipped to my other side facing towards my wall and quickly threw my denim convers over my head and somehow fell back asleep.  During all of this I was terrified, and I still don’t know what exactly happened, was he actually in my room, was I just imagining things, was it a ghost, or was all of this just a dream that I thought was a reality?  This still haunts me today.    

It looks as if the same figure is present throughout most of the "812" series.  Tell us about him and his significance.

There are a couple of guys and most of them have a similar body structure and look, but Nathan and David come up multiple times, and for me, they are the key players.  Nathan’s been truly one of my best friends since middle school.  He’s always there to drink a beer and just talk and has some of the realist views on life of anyone I’ve met.  After we graduated high school he went on the road working for a cell phone accessory stand that traveled to all the fairs up and down the east coast, so during that time I only got to see him once a year or so.  When Nathan left, David and I moved to Lancaster, PA to start school.  David and I first met half way through high school.  He would come to the skate park occasionally, but for a while he was just someone I’d see.  Then he started to hang out with everyone more, and we became closer.  When college time came, both of us were psyched on photography, and ended up going to the same school and moving in together.  I can definitely say that us living together and pushing each other and being up at three in the morning screaming at each other about work made me who I am today.  Two years later, we were finishing up our sophomore year of college and our friend Nick, after crashing on our floor for six months, had just bought a 5-bedroom house with a large yard on the edge of the city.  Nathan quit the carnie gig and moved back and was the first one to move into Nick’s house with our other friend Kyle.  A couple months later David and I moved out of our apartment and into the house.  At the time David and I were going to school but everything was changing.  We were in the process of knowing we wanted to transfer schools but unsure of where we would be transferring to.  So we moved into the 812 knowing that this perfect storm, living with all of our friends, wasn’t going to last because we knew we were going to be leaving them as soon as we got there.  It was as if by moving into this house we stepped through a black hole that just plopped us in this perfect place that had a darkness of knowing that we’ll be leaving soon lurking right outside of the yard.  When I photographed David, there was always some sort of tension felt with everything that was happening with the unknowingness of the school situation, which resulted in both being vulnerable but also closed off.  And with Nathan, when I photographed him there was a sadness and confusion of leaving I could feel between the two of us, which was so incredibly hard knowing that the late night porch conversations wouldn’t be there forever.  These are two of my best friends who I love so fucking much and we were all experiencing similar things so it made total sense to photograph them during this time.

Tell us about the significance of the title for your newest body of work "Mary Anne, Drive".

With everything I have done so far, titles have had a large importance to the photographs in vaguely structuring them and guiding the viewer.  So with “Mary Anne, Drive”, a project that is stemming from my relationship and feelings found within my family and the landscape, the title partly comes from my aunt’s name, Mary Anne.  Growing up she wasn’t around that often, other than at Christmas and Thanksgiving, because she lived in Boston.  Even from a young age I could tell there was something different about her and when she was home, there was always something different about the air that filled my grandparents house.  It wasn’t until I was probably 13 that my mom and I were talking in the car and she asked if my aunt’s partner was at Thanksgiving.  The word partner threw me off, I said her friend was there, and that’s when my mom told me that she was gay.  My mom was surprised that I didn’t know.  So after that, the air made a bit more sense.  Because my grandparents are very traditional in the way they run things and with their views on living, the whole situation of running off the path that has been constructed and has confined you for the majority of your upbringing totally interested me because I could relate to not following in the footsteps of the elders.  When I started photographing, I had the intent on photographing what was felt by my aunt, being raised in a traditional house filled with all men other than my grandmother, who loomed behind the scenes holding the house together.  But as I kept working it became more and more about myself and what I felt in these spaces that were filled with a suppressed tension from events that weren’t talked about, and trying to get out of this weird landscape.  But trying to escape is impossible because even if one is to physically leave, the memories will be in your mind forever.  So the title “Mary Anne, Drive” is a statement saying drive, but who is saying it is unclear, and what the tone is, is also unclear, that’s where I feel the photographs come in and may guide the title.  The title and photographs bounce back and forth off of each other.  Also with the title, the punctuation became interesting because without the comma the title becomes a street name, a place, but one I have never visited.      

Ask yourself a question and respond.

Is the grass always greener on the other side? From a distance it always seems to be.

http://www.iankline.com

[don-dean]

Izabela Jurcewicz

Izabela Jurcewicz is a photographer based in New York City and recently graduated from the International Center of Photography

There is a sense of the occult or ritual in the pictures.  How do you account for that?

The impulse for this work is in the memory of a traumatic body experience and its impact on my physical and mental state today, as I continue searching for alternative healing methods to cope with the pain and stress that accompany illness. I look at the fluctuation of particles that happens as materials transform from one state into another. The role of integration, destruction, decay and mortality in these changes raises the question: can we look at these processes of translation as constituting a kind of life, even in regards to our own materiality/mortality? Processes of transformations and life creation have a mystery that I am drawn to.

Are these self portraits?  If yes, why are you photographing yourself?  If no, is the figure a stand-in for yourself?

I made self portraits in relation the accumulating, blooming and ultimately decaying organic matter around me.

How does a garden help bring you back to feeling human again?

I lived for over a year inside an organic installation in the form of garden, which I constructed inside the room I rented in midtown Manhattan. Living inside the garden was making me feel a part of a natural system again, which I felt I had already forgotten about, living in a city such as New York. I didn’t feel I was exposed enough to the greens in this city, as they are unevenly distributed. Around my living space, there is no real green area that would allow me to breathe and feel connected, as a human being, to the physical world. Having the garden helps me feel a part of the constantly changing system of organic matter that remains alive.

How does the context of a garden change when it is photographed indoors?

The garden indoors was made from a very urgent need and against all the odds. I did set the organic installation on multiple plastic garbage bags, for many reasons - I was drawn to laying out life on this material in the first place, but it also did protect the apartment and neighbors from all the ongoing processes.

What was it like to wake up to the smell of fresh and dying flowers?

It was mostly intense when the flowers were blooming, but when you are already inside the room you get used to the smells and don’t notice them as much as when entering the space. Overall, the smell was nice, even when the flowers were dying, they were still rooted in the soil.

Why photograph flowers in black and white? Aren’t they meant to be experienced in color? How do flowers change in black and white?

I look at this project as a result of my state of mind, which has created this alternative dimension that I was immersed in, this particular time and physical space. During the time I lived with the inner garden, I was coping with the idea of loss and death. I was going back and forth between being mesmerized by death and being a cultivator of life. I understood that there is no real boundary between those two and death is a part of life, not only because it has to happen, but also because in nature the wreckage of what is left of one entity, becomes alive and comes back forming a different one. Nothing is lost in nature. I feel that the darkness and tonalities coming with a black and white photographs of my project represent my mood in a way that color photography never would. Although it’s true that the beauty of the flowers is less emphasized. Having photographs of the room with the garden in black and white, takes this other dimension of living with the garden, outside of that space also. Every time I would open the door, I would feel I am entering this sphere that is my healing space. Paradoxically, this healing sphere looks almost like a twilight zone, which is maybe because I know through my own experiences, that sometimes in order to heal you have to go through painful, stressful and dark experiences.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

Have other people come to see the space and the garden?

Yes, I was open for people to come in and experience the place and the way I lived. People were interested how do I combine my work and my life, and there was no boundary between them at this point.

http://izabelajurcewicz.com/

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Serena Jara

Serena Jara is an artist living and working in New York.

Why only portraits?

I can never forget the faces of girls in my life. A lot of Trans girls don't expect to live past the age of 30. Sometimes I feel this way and sometimes not, but our relationships together are histories I can't unsee or go back on. Love is was keeps us from isolation, and it comes across unexpectedly in direct eye contact.

Can you talk about the shutter release that shows up in your images? Are the subjects taking their own photographs? Are they still your images? Does it matter?

The cable release matters as a visual metaphor for power and as a symbol of control. I like the idea if audiences losing certainty in me as a singular cultural producer of trans imagery. Sometimes my friends actually use the switch, and sometimes it's not plugged into the camera. My images would never exist without the help of collectivity.

Do you think photographing gender fluid individuals allows us to just consider the body?  Should we consider gender?  

To isolate gender in the discussion of my photographs would erase it's interplay between race, class, sexuality, and transness in the work. People aren't used to considering Trans bodies in relation to Trans minds, and often strucutre conversation about us on body centered hang ups. However, I don't shy away from our bodies in the work because I think these conversations can take place simultaneously, especially considering how vastly different are bodies can be.

Do you view photography as a collaborative art? Yes!!!

Tell us about your first crush.  What did it feel like?  Have you felt like that since? I remember sharing feelings of attraction with many younger girls and boys as a child. Those emotions stemmed from curiosity, impulse, and trust. I still feel those emotions as an adult, but my own lived histories and traumas now come into play as well.

Do you think photography will always be the language you need to speak?  Or is it just specific to what you are doing and thinking about now?

I think I fell in love with the dark room in my high school for a reason. I hope I always find a way to express my emo fantasies, and all the cinematic dream sequences I imagine for the girls in my life.

Ask yourself a question and respond. Q: best Gregg Araki movie? A: doom generation/nowhere tie

http://www.serenajara.com

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David Billet

David Billet is a photographer who is currently a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

What is your sense of masculinity?  How is it present in the work?

According to Dictionary.com the definition of masculinity is "having qualities traditionally ascribed to men, as strength and boldness." My perception of masculinity right now is a hard working male, who is driven by sex and a will to succeed.  As I get older my definition of the word changes. In the beginning my idea of the word was more simple and broad similar to the one found on dictionary.com. As I get older, I find myself still searching for my own sense of masculinity more than I have before.The presence of masculinity in my work is dark, but there is a lot of comedy in it as well. I think of it similar to that of a angsty teen, there is a lot of confusion, is always changing and doesn't want to be what everyone else thinks it should be. 

IMAGE REMOVED

What do you think about before you go to sleep?

I usually end up listening to jazz thinking about if I am just like a car on the high way on this path from A to B, not willing to stop on the side of the road or take the wrong exit. If having that last beer was a good idea, what I have to do tomorrow and contemplating if I should get up a grab a glass of water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qglV31eNz9I

What kind of world do you think you live in?  How do your photographs interrogate that world? I feel that we are currently living in a world that is driven by sex and wealth. Tinder is a popular app, Donald Trump is running for president and I was just looking at a billboard of a half naked guy while swiping on tinder. My photographs are my own experience in this sex driven world questioning what this conquest for sex and power really is. Do we really have emotions for more than a day anymore? Someone new or something good can come into our life, we will like it and it will be swiped out in less then a week, being replaced by the newest thing. 

Why shoot in black and white? What difference does it make? Porta 400 was back-ordered. For me black and white becomes more ambiguous and allows for a world of its own to be created, where as color relates to the world that we are currently living in or world we use to.

Do you think photographs are more interesting when the subject is shot to look "bad"?  Do you think there is a rise of this behavior in photography?

It depends on what you mean by bad. If it is referencing a less graceful and more awkward composition and movement of the subject then yes. I think there is a rise in this type of photography, we are still referencing Henri Cartier-Bresson with the decisive moment, however the moment is more of an in-between. Its not the poetic flowing movement that most desire. Its more of a movement that starts to take us out of reality. I feel as this relates to where we are with photography in this weird in-between awkward stage. Finally being more accepted in the "Art" world in a age where everyone can make a great photograph with their iPhone. Forcing us to look for these moments that are not normal and become less the ideal beauty and more about awkward beauty. 

Are you photographing spiritual moments? If not, what types of moments? At first I didn't think I was photographing spiritual moments, the more I thought about it and wrote about it, I realized I was. These moments for me are about familiar feelings I have either actually had or a way of photographing and being a part of intangible dreams I have had.   

Ask yourself a question and respond. Rearrange the last Five songs I have listened to in order by ranking, 1 being the best and 5 being the worst. 

1. Justin Timberlake - Rock Your Body https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSVHoHyErBQ

2. Robin S - Show Me Lovehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps2Jc28tQrw 3. D.R.A.M - Broccoli ft. Lil Yachtyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4L2vmBC3xA 4. Kanye West - Wolves https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puP-lmvCcH0 5. Madonna - Hung Up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDwb9jOVRtU

http://cargocollective.com/DavidBillet

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Hadi Fallahpisheh

Hadi Fallahpisheh lives and works in New York and has recently created a new body of work, ‘May dies in June’.

Do you think we need to understand your photographs to like them? I don’t think I even understand them, and I don’t like them either, but I enjoy of watching them as photographs, and I hope they make my audience to slow down and spend time with them, to decode each image. I think the process of coding and decoding is quite joyful for both author and audience, and if you decode it correctly you won't like the result.

Can you talk about the clothes in your photographs? About how the fabric catches the light of your flash? The clothes are functioning in different ways for me. In one layer I asked the models to wear my clothes, so all the clothes are coming from my archive; in this realm I’m simply visiting how my clothes look like, and also through this, ironically I go back to what I have which is my take of “return” through photography, but also it opens up the door for tomorrow. You go back to see what you have to wear tomorrow. Through this performance of asking models to wear my clothes, I think what I achieve through camera is kind of a backstage staged photography. I remember walking in my city on the streets, and seeing so many bodies wrapped in curtains absorbing sunlight. I tried to do the same with my clothes and my flash.

How does photography reconcile loss? Many years ago there was a bad Iranian ad about a bad car factory in a bad T.V channel, while the ad was showing an ugly car driving on beautiful roads, the narrator was saying, “sometimes the path is more joyful than the destination”. It was kind of a wrong ad that was sounding good. I think my photographs are standing for the joy of path, and trying not to think of destination; in this way destination equals loss.

How do your photographs describe and use light? My girlfriend’s grandfather used to sing; “A little learning is a dangerous thing”. I use lighting in a way of pretending that I don’t know how to use it, or that I just know a little bit of how to use it. In one level it’s dangerous, since it can cause bad photographs, but I think the one who goes for dangerous things causes good moments. (Oh I hope it doesn’t sound too much like middle eastern worldview? Haha) I’m interested in the idea of stammering and I think my use of light help to exaggerate this idea.

Do you see a photograph in your mind before you make it? Sometimes yes, some times no. Maybe better to say I see a scene in my mind, then I set up the scene, then I let the scene go, then I take photographs. Kind of a like what is for Cinema “B-roll.”

Ask yourself a question and respond. Name the months of a year? May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April. 

http://hadifallahpishehstudio.com

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Jacob Haupt

Jacob Haupt is an artist based in Utah.  He recently worked alongside Noah Jackson to create a book titled Infinity Gate.

Do you consider it imperative to photograph in a studio setting?

It depends on the image I am making. Some images require going out and shooting a night sky, setting a prop on fire on my grill, or going to a building that is painted to look like a castle. I’m not sure whether or not a studio is necessary but I do think that the use of costumes, items, and artificial light help provide the best solutions for my current ideas. The place where I watch films, play RPGs, and research is also where I make photographs. My living room is my studio.

Do your images rely on the viewer’s fantasy or your own?

I hope my images function like a magic mirror or a crystal ball, where the viewers can look into the fantasies that I create. I think my photographs require a viewer to make a decision as to what amount of fantasy to embrace. At the same time, the images preserve holes and flaws in the fantasy they attempt to create.

What drives your need to create the work?

I used to think art was therapeutic, like it did something for me, or made life a little more liveable. Maybe that’s cheesy. I don’t think I’ve really grown out of that completely, but I don’t really think the making of my art is a stress reliever or always fun. Sometimes I have a really hard time making all of the necessary elements for a photograph, but I do it because I feel the need to do it. On the other hand, the images that I do create give me a sense of wonder and surprise that I enjoy. Even when I was making stop motion Dragonball Z action figure movies, I felt that I was doing something that I needed to do. I feel the same way now when I make photographs, but I don’t really understand why it feels more necessary and fulfilling than playing Elder Scrolls, and it is usually less fun and more stressful.

It seems like you rely on other fictions (fantasy novels, films, etc) for inspiration.  Can you tell us what your influences are and how they drive the work?

Yeah. The current stuff that I’m looking to for inspiration include: First Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide by Gary Gygax, Photography Methods for the UFO Hunter by J. Chisholm, X-Files, first hand accounts of UFO and extraterrestrial sightings, Elder Scrolls, Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, Doom, Magic the Gathering, Conan the Barbarian, and other sword and sorcery movies.

The Dungeon Master’s guide sets out to outline nearly every possible situation that can occur in an imaginary world. I’m both inspired and overwhelmed by this poetic attempt. I see the Dungeon Master’s guide as a handbook on how to be a god. One similarity between a supreme being that creates worlds and a dungeon master is that they both create worlds that neither can experience first hand, they both bar themselves from the experience of the player or native. I like to think of it as the curse of the dungeon master, that no matter how rich a world is created the dungeon master will never be able to experience the full magic of it.

When I set out to make a photograph I’m usually bouncing off of an experience with one of these sources and the resulting ideas, but I don’t necessarily try to translate the ideas into a work. I believe that by thinking about the associated ideas while I make a work that the ideas will come through in a more subconscious way. I guess I’m trying to create work that works like the Dungeon Master’s Guide, where the work depicts straightforward moments in a fantasy world but naturally includes these connotational philosophies.

What do you think artwork can do at its very best?

When an artwork does nothing but becomes unforgettable to an individual is where I think the artwork is most magical. The worst recurring nightmares are the ones where you don’t understand why you are afraid. but you can’t help feeling completely terrified.

Tell us about your process, both for getting ideas and working in the studio.

I think the beginning of a work starts when I become obsessed with something. Whether it is Godfrey Ho ninja movies or playing Magic the Gathering, that is where the process begins. After that I try to research and indulge in the obsession as much as I can. While I engage with the obsession I try to pay attention to what I am thinking about and write things down at a later time. When I am writing things down I will attempt to process things visually by making drawings. These drawings become the source for most of the photographs. After I gather materials and begin shooting I am either able to stick to the drawing or I need to change things completely. My favorite moment is seeing a finalized image that references my drawing, but looks and feels like a complete stranger.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

What does your current Magic deck look like?

Creatures

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Abhorrent Overlord x 1

Abyssal Persecutor x 1

Demon of Death’s Gate x 1

Desecration Demon x 3

Griselbrand x 1

Ob Nixilis, Unshackled x 1

Typhoid Rats x 4

Vampire Nighthawk x 4

Sorcery

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Corrupt x 2

Duress x 2

Languish x 3

Ruinous Path x 1

Instant

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Dark Ritual x 4

Doom Blade x 4

Grip of Desolation x 1

Murder x 3

Lands

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Swamp x 24

www.jacobhaupt.com

[don-dean]

Courtney Asztalos

Courtney Asztalos is an artist currently living in Syracuse, NY. She is currently an MFA candidate at Syracuse University.

Can you talk about your use of materials and colors?

I grew up in Florida hooked on the cosmic and ever-flowing river of garage sale treasure so a lot of the objects in the photographs are from my collection of strange ephemera.  I was specifically inspired by the lighting and color palette of specific objects from my collection… objects such as monster magazines (Fantastic Monsters of the Films and Castle of Frankenstein), Vampirella comics and film slicks from the 60s and 70s, women’s home journals, 50s science fiction, erotic novellas and 8 tracks.  There is something about the psychedelic color saturation of these objects that mesmerizes me- specifically the brilliant color quality that many of the photographs possess in the printed material.  Building sets and photographing with reflective materials were the natural result of absorbing and abstracting these objects and their influence. 

How does your work fall into the concept and history of a photographic portrait?

I am indebted to many female photographers who have paved the way for me to make work.  A few days ago, I saw Thomas Roma give a lecture on Helen Levitt and he said the working title of it was Helen Levitt “almost famous”.  He referenced the many tragic ways in which “the universe never fully allowed her to live up to her potential”.  Ways varying from how she was colleagues with ‘great men’ of the time (Evans, Bresson, Agee), how her best color slides (of the 1960s) were stolen from her apartment and never recovered, how her show at MOMA was curated around her photographs of children in which she frustratingly became most famous for, to how her aspirations at becoming a filmmaker (even though she was nominated for two Academy Awards and a Venice Golden Lion for an experimental short) ultimately never came true.  He ended the lecture on the note that one day he was walking with Helen and they began talking about reincarnation. When he asked her if she could be reincarnated- she immediately responded that if she could, she would come back as a beautiful woman. He said to her “why Helen you are a beautiful woman”.  She responded with, “no, a truly beautiful woman can do anything she wants”.  This gave me goosebumps and made me incredibly sad.  It was very telling of the frustrations and struggles that people have overcome in order to open up the doors for others.  There is still much work to be done to allow the history of photography to expand.  I view making portraits as a continuation and opportunity to add to the exciting new spaces that all kinds of women and people are creating to continue the dialogue of what photography is and can be to all people.  

Can you talk about the almost theatrical quality of the staging of the pictures?

Some convey drama on the verge of melodrama but not the melodramatic.  I am fascinated by experiencing our own desire, courage, frailty, resilience and sensuality so I try to find elements of this in the people I photograph.  I’m often frustrated and bored by typical narratives of femininity so I look for women who are badass, unique and iconoclasts. 

Your newer work is very different from your earlier 'Bourbon Street' series, what prompted the shift?

This work is a logical progression from earlier work as portraiture is my primary mode of working.  The arc of my practice has also often been buoyed within the realm of the consumer space- buffets, flea markets, malls, Bourbon Street in New Orleans- and now with this newer work many of the portraits were made in casinos spanning from Las Vegas, Niagara Falls, upstate New York and a Holland America Cruise.  The progression came from an intense desire and challenge to leave documentary circumstance behind in favor of allowing less of a base in reality.  I have enjoyed developing a sense of control with lighting and collaborating with the people in these photographs while also having intense, compelling or humorous conversations about their lived experience.  Their stories inevitably inspire the work.

The super imposing of faces on top of faces feel very surgical, can you talk about this in your work?

I have often been seduced and scared by disguises, masks, and alter egos and I find it strangely comforting that the history of ‘masking’ spans back to our beginnings as humans.  This gesture of masking in the images came out of the desire to push the boundaries of my portraiture with my collage practice-- I wanted to combine the two and have them in conversation.  My interest in contemporary forms of masking have inspired the work- specifically female masking-- the community of men who wear silicon glamourous female masks that extend down to their necks to look biologically more feminine.  Another place of inspiration is the appearance of superimposed faces in my own dream space as a few years ago I had a dream that moved and disturbed me greatly-- it had occurred in the months following my grandfather’s death.  My grandmother, his wife of 60 years was in town and we had been spending a lazy Sunday together watching a televised Catholic mass-- her praying the rosary alongside it while we were sitting on the couch together and I fell asleep.  What happened after I fell asleep was extremely lucid- I was laying awake in the same space on the couch and was watching her go through the motions of the mass. When it was finished, she told me to follow her into the kitchen where she was talking to me in the dream when suddenly she looked at me super intensely and her face morphed into my grandfather’s face.  With his face on her body- he smiled at me with glowing eyes and continued to stare at me for a few seconds and then his face morphed back into her face.  I immediately woke up and she was still saying the rosary. I was disoriented and stunned on the blurring that had just happened between the dream space and real space.

Your work seems to group into two batches of images, one is formed of high contrast portraits of elderly women and the second is of surreal images of women with obscured faces. Do you see these as different groups?  What is the conversation happening between the two groupings? Is there tension?

There is a certain lurid quality of the lighting in many of the images that varies from different levels of strange, familiar and fantastic.  The poses and places open up empathies, the narrative of mystery and the consequences of abstraction.  Materials, subjects and colors swirl to create a psychological realm that resonates in a dream-like manner and acts as a reimagined space for the viewer to swim in and out of the images to experience affect.  I see the work as functioning through the lens of mostly female protagonists, however, I am continuing to push forward with this work evolving together as an edit while currently working on opening up the dialogue with different types of images.  I spent most of the past week building a floating chess set and I want the viewer to experience the feelings of an invisible presence... I love photography 

Ask yourself a question and respond.

What was the last thing you were hypnotized by?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVTsnSg-MS4

http://courtneyasztalos.com/

[don-dean]

Justin Oliver Hill

Justin Oliver Hill is a photographer who is currently pursuing his MFA at Syracuse.

Can you talk about your digital manipulations to your images? Can you tell us when and why this started?

Many of my images look like they’re altered but are not (other than slight adjustments in LR), while others have obviously been manipulated. I like the Idea of confusing the viewer, to have them question whether what they are looking at is real, while placing them in a space that seems nervous or visceral. My work is very much about a sense of anxiety or angst and the psychological space that exists between reality and the unconscious, where information from perception becomes altered and morphed. In this sense, I am interested in creating imagery that exists within the psyche rather than necessarily within reality. I became interested in Lieko Shiga’s work a few years ago, and the way she manipulates some of her imagery to tell a story has had a strong effect on me.

Do you think that there is language of color you use in your work? Do you think many people understand it? What do you think the color of your images are trying to say?

Color has an incredible ability to hold and convey emotion. Often times I go through phases where I like to use a certain color or colors that represent a place mentally rather than physically. There is an intensity to color that i use to communicate the constant sense of anxiety that nature forces upon us. I’ve spent the last few summers living and working in Yellowstone, Alaska, and the Grand Canyon in an attempt to escape the human presence. I think our society is largely disconnected and disenchanted with the natural world which I believe is our strongest connection to the rest of the universe. Nature is always reminding us of our mortality and what may lie beyond or existence as a whole. My way of dealing with this fact is by confronting that feeling. 

How important is it that your photographs be understood?

I think it is more important that my photographs be felt or that they create a reaction in the viewer. With that being said I am very interested in Freud’s concept of the Id which is at the center of human nature, “a seething cauldron of activity fueled by the instincts,” and which is one in the same as the unconscious. The animalistic self, the hidden nature of the personality, and the impermanence of being are all fascinating Freudian concepts which I continue to explore. I studied psychology as an undergrad and during that time I witnessed a good friend who I was living with lose touch with reality during a stage of mania as a result of a bipolar disorder. I began thinking a lot about what he was going through as his reality began to change, as the Id lost the restraints of the Ego and Superego. Freud claimed that the Id was most prominent at night when we dream and my work reflects this interest metaphorically in that I generally shoot at night to capture a sense of this vestigial Id, the lingering instinctual aspect of our personality.

Tell us about a childhood memory that you think is connected with your work.

I remember starting Kindergarten in Germany after moving from the US. My German was not good at the time and I was terrified of the other students and teachers. I hid behind a large, leafy plant in the corner of the room where I felt safe and just watched for about a month until I was finally urged to come out of hiding. Its a ridiculous scenario but ever since I have always felt a soothing sense of comfort from plants and have developed a deep respect for many different types of plants.

Why can't a straightforward photograph show us your vision of the world?

I want to borrow from reality but I do not want to represent it the way a straight forward photograph does.

If you suddenly could never use photography again how would you choose to express yourself?

I played D1 soccer through college and always thought of physicality as an expression. I am learning how to kite board now and find that controlling and navigating a 12 meter kite while riding in high waters is a lot harder than I had anticipated. The more mastery one can exert through a physical task the more one is able to express themselves through that act. I should keep practicing.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

Greatest fear?

Robots harvesting my blood.

www.justinoliverhill.com

[don-dean]

Tova Katzman

Tova Katzman works in photo and video, she graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2015.

What connects all of your photographs together?

My photographs are an accumulation of random and fleeting encounters that feel simultaneously intimate and monumental. I like to look at something and be left with questions.

I'm constantly moving around, so the connection between images is about a certain way of looking and interacting with whatever surroundings I find myself in. This usually involves being alone, so I can have an uninterrupted conversation when I am with a person, or I try to create enough time with whatever object I find to figure out why I'm interested and how to present it. 

Is photography a search? For what?

Photography opens doors and is a tool and a means for subjectively presenting what I find. If the photograph is a document then I presume the act of photographing is a search. I'm not inferring that a photograph holds answers to said 'search,' more like pseudo answers to satisfy our questions and memories. 

The title, "An Otherwise Fruitless Search," came out of an email I received from Marie, a character in a video I made last year, "Searching for Ada." I was meeting up with people who posted on Craigslists in the lost and found section about losing something. Every day for weeks, Marie would search for her dove that flew away earlier that winter. In terms of my own art practice, I could empathize with this relentless yearning to find something, but not knowing what that was, I turned her search into my own. Maybe this was selfish of me, but in the end, a certain clarity came out of my own undefined search. I try to reveal something about human nature and the consistent quest for meaning we are all on. Although the dove remained missing, I loved that Marie was able to recognize a silver lining in her "otherwise fruitless search."

Do you feel you take pictures of your life? Where are you represented?

I'm going to go back and forth with this question. I like to think my pictures are a collaboration with life, not so specifically my own. What I photograph has little to do with what I do with my free time, besides talking to lots of random strangers or drooling at the way sunlight shines.. What I photograph clearly represents what I'm drawn to and this is closely woven within my life. 

While working primarily in video during my last year of school, I had the ability to literally place myself within the work. I was recording my interactions with those I would meet, and suddenly, my process was totally exposed and incorporated into what I was presenting. Before this, I was always convinced the photo was about the subject, and I was the mediator. But it's my story made up from my surroundings and I am the one arranging the pieces. 

Which has more influence on the photograph, the subject or the photographer?

The photographer. Portraiture can be really twisted. 

I take on a lot of control when I photograph. It is the surface of a subject that draws me in, and when photographing a person I love to find out as much as I can about them in the generally short amount of time we spend together which I am always super grateful for. I've learned that as much as I love the people I photograph, the interaction is not going to come across in a photo the way I felt it in real life. I am using what I see in someone to describe something far beyond their presence in order to fit in with my own visual narrative. 

I remember resonating with a Danny Lyon quote about how he photographs his subjects to simply show their existence. At a surface level, this is related to my process, but my work is more dictated by how I physically move around a person and how our two lives intertwine for that moment. 

Why are you a photographer?

I was in Medellin, Colombia, standing on an insanely busy street corner gripping my camera. There was so much going on I could have stood there just looking all day, but I felt too overwhelmed to make a picture. And then the afternoon light hit this stand of mangos, and they all glowed gold, while the fruit vendor sat on an upside down bucket with his eyes closed.

Photography allows me to extract details from our chaotic world and try to make some sense out of the abundance of random moments we encounter.

As a photographer, I get to be a part of other lives outside my own, and learn about the world with the assistance of a camera. I've thought about studying anthropology or journalism, and maybe I still could, but photography allows me to teach myself through my own questioning and observing. This past October I was the documentary photographer for Estudio Nuboso's Art and Science Lab in Panama (http://estudionuboso.org/laboratorio-arte-y-ciencia/). Because I know how to use a camera and I reached out, I got to be a part of this incredible project and learn from scientists, other artists, and Panamanians. I found myself meshing into a world so far from my own. I don't have to be an expert in something, but I can still learn by just being there as a documentarian.

And there is also the unbelievable satisfaction of zooming in to a crisp, sharp image. 

When you set out to take an image, are you searching for a subject or an image?

I have no idea what I am going to find when I set out to shoot. Sometimes my camera is in my bag and suddenly a subject is in front of me and I'm scrambling to make the picture without stopping to consider why. 

The best advice I've ever gotten was from an important teacher, Nick Nixon, who said to always say yes and make a photo you feel the impulse to take. Seems simple, but adjusting to this mindset of intuitive shooting allowed me to suss out what it is that I'm interested in. I look for the fleeting moments that won't happen again. If I come across someone I want to photograph, it usually has to do with how they fit into their setting, or how the light is playing with their features, and this collaboration of elements that I'm witnessing. I love the crazy process of trying to describe in my excitement to my subject why I want to take their picture. Suddenly the background is a stage, and if I play it right, they might understand the importance they hold within my own visual vernacular.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

What in the world are you currently doing in South America??

I am moving around Peru after spending the past couple months traveling South from Panama, salsa dancing, speaking Spanish, looking for freelance opportunities, and making lots and lots of work you can peek at ! -- www.tovakatzman.tumblr.com

http://www.tovakatzman.com

[don-dean]

Amiko Li

Amiko Li is a photographer currently based in Massachusetts who recently received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Would you describe yourself as a sensitive person?  A sensitive photographer?

Yes. I always imagine if I am a less sensitive person my life will be much easier. But what’s so good about a easy life? I pay particular attention to light and juxtaposition, I think I am observant just like many other photographers.

Who are the people in your photographs?  Who are they to you?  Who are they to us?

They are strangers and later friends through the process of photography. I use photography as an excuse to get to know them, the process is much interesting to me in comparison to the end result. They are vehicles to confront my desire and identification to the viewers.

What do you think about before you go to sleep?

Tomorrow, embarrassing memories, what is my ex-boyfriend doing now, if I have hard time sleeping then sometimes Cheer Chen’s neck in her music video “Too Clever“.

Can you talk about the volume of your work? Do you think your images get louder when put all together?

The voices in my work is constantly shifting, I switch tones when I am making works in different locations and situations. Instead of getting louder, I think the images orchestrated a layered and nuanced read that emphasized the connection in a series.

Why do you incorporate yourself in some of your image? What does photographing yourself do for your work?

It started with the fact that I want to know how my models feel in front of camera. I guess it’s tautological to perform “myself”, I am a shy person and reenacting gives me permission to incorporate myself physically in some images. I want to look vulnerable and innocent because that is how girls are depicted in Japanese manga. I grew up reading manga, and longed for that kind of feminine beauty depicted, the ideal woman in manga is reserved, quiet, and flawless. She is standing underneath a cherry blossom tree where pink pedals slowly fall onto her eyelashes. I thrive to gain the same treatment in a photograph. Experimenting with the highly-idealized imagery, I pose myself with my girlfriends and put myself in romanticized environment and situations, as I cannot imagine a masculine way of depicting beauty.

Can you talk about your use of color?  It appears to be frequently muted or washed out.

I grew up in Shanghai where there isn’t really lots of colors around in general, my observation is usually focused on the states of things, the before and after. I want my photos subdued because I write a lot at night back in high school and when I finished it is already dawn, I always remember how that time of a day looks like. I enjoy incorporating that color palate into some of my images.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

Tell us a piece of your memory in China.

I remember every year before the semester begin students are asked to use calendar paper to make covers for the textbooks, to protect books from wearing. So every August 31, I was sitting on the floor cutting paper until I moved to the States. The word “baoshu” (making cover for the textbook) sounds so strange to me now.ᐧ

www.amikoli.com

[don-dean]

Jenny Calivas

Jenny Calivas is a photographer who graduated from Evergreen State College and is currently living and working between Maine and New York.

Who is the woman with white hair? What role does she play in your photographs?

Her name is Debbie. One day I saw her crossing the street in my hometown in New Hampshire. She was so striking that I made a u-turn and asked if I could photograph her. I usually laze out of doing that. I’m glad I didn’t this time. We ended up talking for hours and she told me about her life in an excited, fragmented way that was full of visual details. As I rehashed her stories later on, ideas for photographs started coming. I called her and told her how excited I was, that I wanted to keep photographing her and hear more about her life. She was excited too, so this collaboration was born.

Most of the time I don’t actually shoot anything while I’m with her. Instead we just hang out, go to the bar, and talk. Then later, ideas for photos come. This process seems to yield the most interesting photos and it helps me to get around some of the issues I have with working in a strictly documentary, or strictly staged way. A few of the images were taken in the moment but most were set up later based on her stories or re-staged based on something I observed while we were together. 

Can you talk about photography's ability to freeze movement and how it relates to your work specifically?

Recently I have begun to see the influence of dance on my photography. I grew up doing both things as hobbies. It excites me to see people’s gestures mid-movement, their weight shifted, faces tense or relaxed, etc. and how their shape activates negative space. These details are too slight and ephemeral to notice as the world zooms by. The camera allows me to pick them out and see what they look like.

I am hugely influenced by street photography for this reason. I remember seeing a photograph of Wolfgang Zurborn’s that made me certain I wanted to be a photographer. Unfortunately, I tried my hand at street photography for quite a while but I didn’t like it and was also not good at it. The main thing I try to take from this style of shooting though is movement, specifically the beauty found in the unpredictability of people’s gestures. I am always searching for ways to maintain this, even when making photographs that are primarily staged.

What is the most important photograph you've ever taken?

I took a photograph of some moss growing on the side of a rock on Overlook Mountain in Woodstock, NY. For years I had been trying to transform people and things into something that felt unique to my perspective and I had finally done it. And with moss no less. I felt like a pregnant woman whose water had broken. Since then things have been different and dare I say, more fluid.

Tell us about the divide between what you learn about photographing people versus what we learn from looking at the pictures.

It is a large divide! For me, making pictures, of people or otherwise, is a way of experimenting with the formal aspects of photography and of connecting with my innermost self. I’m really not sure what the viewer learns from looking at my photographs but they surely don’t see this process. Nonetheless, I hope that they can sense something of the world as I see it and perhaps connect with it, as well as see some of my interest in the formal elements of photography.

What do your personal relationships have to do with your artwork?

Nowadays I make a lot of my pictures without thinking of how they fit into a project or what they mean as I’m making them, usually propelled by some formal challenge. However, when they begin to accumulate, I can begin to see how they reflect something that’s going on in my life that I hadn’t seen clearly before—sometimes it’s related to my personal relationships and helps me navigate them in a more informed way.

Tell us about the last time you were frightened.

A few months ago I was visiting a friend that is very sick. I was standing next to his bed when all of a sudden I felt hands press against my hips and push me forward with a jolt. I looked back and no one was there. A relative of my friend had died in the house about three weeks prior. Was it you, Janet?

Ask yourself a question and respond.

I understand you’re currently doing an artist residency in Vermont. Is it true that there are more cows than people there?

I haven’t counted but all signs point to yes.

www.jennycalivas.com

[don-dean]

Nando Alverez Perez

Nando Alverez Perez received his masters in photography from San Francisco Art Institute in 2014.

Tell us about some of your visual references and influences.

I spend an unreasonable amount of time every day on Instagram, which both in form (an unending and incoherent flood of images) and content (my one-way mirror into the rest of the art world) is probably my biggest influence, or at least what’s going into my eyes the most on a daily basis.

For the most part though my influences come from what I read: sci-fi, philosophy, a lot of history lately. It’s important to me to be thinking about how the images I produce reflect the “now,” but contemporaneity itself is only very interesting to me when it’s viewed as an unstable site at which histories are being continuously rewritten and possible futures are being considered and built.

How do you allow sexuality to enter your work?  Is it purely visual?

I should preface this by saying that one of my earliest introductions to art photography was in the 7th grade when I used to steal my dad’s copy of Ralph Gibson’s Deus Ex Machina and would hide it under my bed for weeks at a time. Photographers are inherently perverted I think, by virtue of the fact that to see something and want to “capture” it is an act of desire. I also, in a semantic coincidence, for some reason often refer to photographs that I really like as “sexy,” which I guess is a glib way of saying that an image is having a powerful sensual effect on me.

But frankly I think that photographers who are explicitly addressing/using sexuality in their work from a heterosexual perspective are, for the most part, ethically compromised and pretty tiresome. Unlike so many other practitioners of contemporary art who are forced by their respective critical communities to question age-old representations of, say, the female nude, especially when it’s being represented by a male artist, photographers have by and large been given a pass on dealing with these politics (Aaron McElroy, Todd Hido, Antoine D’Agata, and Ralph Gibson being a few examples who immediately come to mind) with the excuse often hinging on some sort of lazy aesthetic or formal qualification--e.g. “But it’s just such a beautiful picture!”

On the flipside of course is this new generation of female gazers and perspectives from Asia--Petra Collins, Sandy Kim, Vivian Fu, Mayumi Hosokura, and Ren Hang--whose work is interesting precisely because it addresses sexuality from a sector in which it’s historically been repressed.  

All that is to say that I think it’s a perfectly fraught topic, but not one that interests me in itself all that much right now, at least not in my work. Western culture has a fixation on sex (duh) and honestly, as a straight male in America, I don’t think I have a whole lot to add to the conversation at this point.

How would you like to stimulate your viewer?

When it comes to the way my photographs look, especially when I’m shooting in my studio, I like images with a kind of formal maximalism, an ecstatic overindulgence like stabbing heroin into your eyeballs or, dare I say it, a Kanye West song.

Then when it comes to exhibition time–a space I’ve really come to prefer to the space of the book–I try to build an ecology of symbols to guide the viewer through the work in such a way that new meanings are generated between the various juxtapositions, but none are insisted upon. The one place where I’ll admit I might give the viewer a bit too much slack is in my titles, which can be a little overwrought, but set important boundaries within which I’d like to frame the work.

Can you talk about surface tension in the context of your photography style? Do you create the tension or find it?

I used the term 'surface tension' in the title for my graduate exhibition because it was a good metaphorical fit for how I had come to think about images when I was finishing school.

To paraphrase wikipedia: surface tension describes the phenomena by which, at liquid-air interfaces, liquid molecules are more attracted to themselves than they are to the molecules in the air, which results in the surface of the liquid pulling away from the air and behaving more like an elastic film. At the time it was interesting to me to consider the surface of the photograph as a taught membrane separating two realities, the real and the photographic.

The full title of that show was Surface Tension Birch Effect. “Birch Effect” is the name of a pattern printed on an Ikea fabric that I used in one of the images, but also, in the title, spoke to a certain magical arbitrariness by which the act of photography happens. Even in the studio, where you have the illusion of control, sometimes you’ll look into the viewfinder and, through some combination of light, space, and lens effects, be staring at something else, some unintended view into another, more ordered world.

Generally I’ve found that when I’m trying to make it happen I fail at it but when I work through the failure all of those clichés about the process of art making and how “inspiration is for amateurs”  and Yodic phrases like, “Do or do not do; there is no try,” turn out to have a radical truth to them.

How do you use depth of field in your work?  Why flatten out already flat objects in camera?

My depth of field choices tend to be pretty extreme, all or nothing. This is partly because I shoot, at least in the street, with a Sony RX100; the smaller sensor leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to depth of field choices, but it’s a compromise I’m willing to make to have a camera that I can easily bring with me anywhere.  

But, formally, I think in a lot of ways it goes back to that idea of the photographic surface as a membrane, and wanting to highlight the surface of the photograph as a portal into another world with different rules than the one we’re standing in when we’re looking at it. I’ve found that when I remove the element of flatness, or highlight aesthetically pleasing lens effects like shallow depth of field, the photograph’s documentary qualities become much more apparent and it’s harder to achieve that other worldliness that I’m looking for.

How many subjects do you think a photograph can have?

Barthes called for the death of the author, I might call for something like the death of the subject. The subject in the photo is constantly withdrawing, constantly shifting meaning and status according to the culture it enters into, when it enters it, and how.

It’s like Frodo looking into Galadriel’s Mirror, which showed him, “things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be.” All images are objects and all objects are vessels: containers for thoughts and ideas, holders of discourses that sit at the center of a system of relations between author, viewer, and their respective cultures and worlds, which are constantly changing over time; so one does not look at a sculpture, photograph, or painting, one looks into it, looking for what it means now and how its meanings will change for other viewers at other times.

So whether a single subject is dominating the frame or it’s a wide-field view like Friedlander or Meyerowitz with many apparent subjects at once, it’s irrelevant, the ostensible subject itself is a mirage, a phantom that is going to appear one way today and another tomorrow.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

What’s up next, Nando, and where can I find your work?

Well, funny you should ask! I’m working on a solo show at CEPA in Buffalo, New York where I’m really delving into these ideas about history and images, as well as working with a new framing system using extruded aluminum that I started playing with this summer. You can follow me on instagram @nandodoteternity, or on my website at www.nandoalvarezperez.com.

http://www.nandoalvarezperez.com

[don-dean]

Ryan Oskin

Ryan Oskin is an artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He graduated from Pratt Institute in 2012.

Can you talk about your use of materials?  What about your use of both "art" materials and construction materials?

I try and either balance or fuse industrial and photographic materials. This process starts as documentation which is then either printed and brought into my studio or used as reference for other works that utilize materials found at building sites. I think part of this dual process is an attempt to get away from the preciousness of photography as well as move in a more sculptural direction. I have been using a lot of vinyl or altering photographs with other materials to go beyond how photographs are typically displayed.

There seems to be some suggestions of failure in your ongoing series, "Under Construction." Can you talk about this?

There is a lot of failure in every artist's practice that is hidden from the public. While most of this is omitted for good reason, I have always liked seeing things exposed or unfinished pieces. I think construction work has this appearance sometimes because it is mostly about function. If a wood wall is constructed to hide a work site and is going to be removed in 6 months, it doesn't necessarily have to be perfect. However, I am a perfectionist but always wish I could have a looser approach to making work. Ultimately, I think sometimes it is more interesting to have the process exposed than something in it's final form. I also have been leaving some of these pieces more open ended with variable dimensions as I am interested in variations and the ability to adjust these pieces to a given space or installation.

How is art work related to construction work?  Where do you fit in?

I think the art and construction worlds are related in an aesthetic way. In both practices, there are decisions being made in gestures, forms, and colors. On a practical level, the labor invested in these objects and structures is approached with intuitive problem solving. I find myself comfortable in the insular world of art, while the everyday actions that happen and effect me directly around where I live seem more coded and ripe for investigation. I want these facets of daily life to be reflected in more art.

Is there more than one way to see a photograph? Are you interested in new ways?

A photograph can be looked, studied, and analyzed in so many ways that it has become a subject in itself in contemporary photographic practice. At the same time, I don't like having interactions with photographs solely through a computer. It is very important for me to work with my hands. I am interested in expanding the potentials of materials, presentation, and overall disintegration of the traditional field of photography into a more fluid contemporary art world.

What is the personal motivation for this work?

Personally, I feel I have ignored all the possibilities of the urban landscape as a subject. For a long time, I was very into this romantic idea of nature that is mostly untouched. While I still love that aspect of nature, it is impossible to find in New York City. So instead of always creating images that highlight this opposition, this project reflects my acceptance of the natural world in every form.

Can you talk about the evolution of your photographs into sculpture or installation? Is this where photography is going?

I have been interested in sculpture for a long time, but never felt I could properly address the things I was interested in through the medium. Throughout my undergraduate education, I made straight photographs and then moved onto creating photographs of things I arranged. I am still invested in this way of working with my other more photographic work. While there is a lot of work being made in this vein, there are also artists like Anouk Kruithof, Letha Wilson, Katie Steciw that work in an "image as object" way that I admire and feels very of the moment in photography. In addition, I think the work of Gabriele Beveridge, Ethan Greenbaum, and Carson Fisk-Vittori are also using images in different ways. I am consciously trying to make sculptures and installations in my new work to expand my own practice and not feel that I have to prescribed to one way of working. The funny thing about photography is that it isn't moving in one linear direction. It is being fractured, split, and distributed in so many ways and this is what excites me still about the medium; it is incredibly flexible.

http://www.ryanoskin.info

[don-dean]

Camille Lévêque

Camille Lévêque is a French visual artist/photographer based in Los Angeles. 

Are there religious themes in your work?

There are many. Every time I come across a church or a religious place I try to take a picture of it. I have always been attracted to religious imagery and grew up loving religious icons. Besides taking pictures of churches I love working in cemeteries too and try in most of my pictures to capture a spiritual angle. Whether it is a picture of nature or the way lights seats on an object, I believe photographs can have a strong spiritual visual identity. Most of my pictures are empty of characters and are still life images. I like the idea of a silent proof of existence, especially with random objects or ephemeral moments.

How do you know when to take a photograph?

One just knows I guess. I feel like I’ve been taking so many pictures, I started to see in pictures. Everywhere, all the time, I don’t see things anymore I see a potential picture. I sometimes take pictures to remember a moment or a place but mostly, it just expose itself, and as I see a picture I take it. I have many regrets of pictures I could not take because the situation wasn’t right or I wasn’t fast enough and I know it would have been great, all was meant to create a great picture but I couldn’t take it.

What does texture do for you in a photograph?

It is one of the main component of my pictures, more important even than light I’d say. I particularly like plants and fabrics, for they are meant to be an amazing texture for a photo. Grass often looks like some fluffy fabric, some leaves look like velvet, wool, silk offer great reflection of light. I very often take a picture of something because its texture caught my eye before even realizing what I was actually photographing.

How important is place in your work?

It is not, really. When I travel I obviously end up taking pictures of the place because I think it is pretty, special, or I want to remember it, or show it to my family. But mostly it doesn’t matter. My pictures are usually of random things I see, and they could have been found anywhere, the setting does not matter that much.

There seems to be themes of habit and routine in your work.  Can you talk about that?

I definitely like having series of pictures. For instance, series of the same plant at various hours of the day, or random things I find in the street during my daily commute. I am also attracted by a few things and therefore tend to photograph it again and again. My work is very introspective and illustrates my daily life as a visual diary. I almost exclusively take pictures of my relatives, and my surroundings, my street, my house, my belongings.

How are photographs supposed to look?  Do you subscribe to a particular style?  How do you make decisions about your style?

I do not think that I subscribe to a particular style, and like various style of photography. A picture is supposed to look exactly like the way you saw something. I really like sharp pictures as much as I love blurry, grainy, hectic pictures. I guess there are ways to tell a story and the trick is to find what style to use for each of them. I wouldn’t do still life in black and white for instance, or blurry shots in digital. I don’t make much decisions about my style unless I’m doing still life composition, then I try to create an image that reminds me of artists that are inspiring me.

The best feeling is when you shoot in film and when you get the film back and some pictures look absolutely nothing like you thought and they’re way better. That is rare and amazing, analog is great for that.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

What is happening in my street right now?

The plants must be drying up.

http://www.camilleleveque.com

[don-dean]

Mikey Gower

Mikey Gower is a photographer who recently received his BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

There seems to be a decided disconnect from photograph to photograph, more of a blur of images and timelines, can you talk about why that is?

I imagine this work to be a part of a larger, fictional archive. What is seen by the viewer is only a fragmented version of it. I wanted to build up the history of a narrator, as if we were catching only glimpses of their personal history, leaving the rest to be decided upon the viewer’s own history.

Time is a crucial factor when it comes to thinking about the pictures because I leave out crucial information that would allude to any specific time frame. It is a lot about looking back, but while simultaneously thinking about the future.

Do you think making artwork helps people deal with their mortality?  What about your own?

Everyone has a different relationship with making art, and for me to say that I can speak for a larger population about something almost impossible to understand would be wrong. But yes, I do think that is part of it. A lust for immortality has been a reoccurring theme within my work, and by obsessing over the desire to be invincible, I have actually come closer to accepting the impossibility of it. Which has been extremely liberating as an artist.

For me, the symbolism of the rose accepts this. Often times a rose is a promise of love, but by taking the rose out of its root you are actually bringing the thing closer to its death. This brought me to the repetition of the text ‘forever & always.’ When used in general dialogue it is almost always genuine, but nothing lasts forever.

How does attraction to people factor in to your photographic choices?

My decisions in people are always based on attraction, but that doesn’t always mean a physical or sexual attraction, but just a natural pull towards someone. Generally, the people I photograph are friends, or lovers, or people I have only met briefly, but regardless, I have formed some sort of relationship with them outside of the photograph. So their identities for me exist in two realms: a real one and a photographic one. Lust is huge part about being young, and embracing it without letting it control you is important. Photography has allowed me to understand my sexuality without out it being too aggressive visually.

Have you ever been in love?

Maybe not in the most obvious way of understanding this question, but I think I fall in love with something new every day.

What can photography do that makes you the most excited?

I'm becoming more and more jaded with the medium, and finding myself feeling more restricted because of it. Our world is so over populated with the consumption of images in the media that it has broken down the value of the photograph. People lack the ability or the will to read into an image. Photographs have the power to be extremely specific, but everyone always needs an explanation. I admire when an artist allows me, as a viewer, to draw my own conclusions. So, to answer the question, I am excited to see how photography will change.

Do you think we can get a sense of who you are by looking at your photographs?  Or are they unrelated to you personally?

I feel strangely disconnected with the imagined world that is created through my pictures, despite how closely connected it is to my own. I made the images on the principal that the maker of the pictures were some imagined fictional narrator that I made up. As if it were a fictional-memoir. That doesn’t mean you can’t get an idea about my own desires, morals, or interests, but it is easy to make assumptions. Those that know me personally see my pictures differently than those that don’t.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

Where can I find paradise?

im still looking

http://www.mikeygower.com/

[don-dean]

Vivian Ewing

Vivian Ewing is a photographer living and working in Portland, ME. She is currently pursuing her BFA at Maine College of Art.

Where does most of your inspiration come from?

Gossip from small towns. When there isn’t much to do in a little town, like the ones I grew up in on Martha’s Vineyard, people like to talk. The island is a place of hermits that scuttle away from the summer and creep back downtown to tell their saved-up gossip once the tourists go away. Whether the stories are true or not is of no matter; a true story tells you what actually happened and a lie tells you everything else. A single image in one of these tales can inspire a series of pictures. The stories that interest me the most are ones that speak of what it feels like to be miles out to sea.

An example of a story that has inspired me goes as follows; On the island, two teenage boys from my high school drove out to the longest, darkest stretch of road, one side of which is lined by deserted beach mansions, the other with ocean. They drove far apart until the other car’s headlights were barely visible then straight at each other at full speed, each of them daring or maybe praying the other would swerve. Neither of them did, of course, and both died in the resulting crash. I know this because someone sitting in their house could see the headlights and watched them converge.

Can you talk about what the relationship between photographs and text means to you?

I’m less interested in photographs than I am in the power and influence of good stories. It isn’t necessary for me to say that both writing and photography have unique abilities to tell stories, but I do believe that they can work together to make something bigger than the sum of their parts. W.G. Sebald is the master of combining photography and text and Sally Mann’s “Hold Still” is a good recent example.

How much thought goes into a photograph before you take the picture?

I heard about the house fire in Portland this past October that killed several young people from a friend (who’d heard it from another friend, etc.). He told me that one of the kids jumped out of the burning building to escape. When I heard this, I replayed in my mind what that must have looked like until I thought I’d go crazy. While I don’t know if this even happened, I imagined the moments where he looked for the window and what it felt like to find it and if he could see trees outside and what the smoke looked like billowing up into the sky.

Often I can’t help but do something about the images in my head. When my response is most productive, I figure out a way to make pictures about them.

Can you talk about the shine or glow in a few of you photographs?

The glow in many of my pictures is something I think I’ll grow out of; I see beautiful light and can’t resist. Some of my best pictures are ones that have a similarly luminous effect without a sparkly thing present. I read that you can catch a raccoon by putting something shiny at the bottom of a small hole with nails pointing down into the circle like a funnel. He’ll reach his hand in and make a fist around the lure and won’t be able to pull it back out. I’m like the raccoon, still in the woods, dazzled, very stubborn.

Does color represent emotion? Does it represent a mindset?

To me, color represents the lucidity of vision. Since I try to show what life looks like to me, and the experience of seeing it as a human, my pictures are in color.

What is your subject?

My subjects are what happens on islands and what happens when a person is an island unto themselves.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

How many degrees can a praying mantis turn its head?

180

www.vivianewing.com

[don-dean]

David Soffa

David Soffa is a photographer based in Philadelphia who recently received his MFA from Yale.

How do you feel about occasionally flirting with what could be labeled as sentimental and/or “pretty” photography?

 I don’t necessarily reject these labels outright because the operative word for me here is ‘flirting.’  Many of my pictures tread in aestheticized territory, but I like to think they transcend the sort of surface level beauty associated with sentimentality. That being said, emotion is an inescapable condition of life, so to say there’s no place for that in art photography is ­­misguided. 

When I was first exposed to the medium in 9th grade, my photo teacher was kind of guy who read magazines like Popular Photography and preached the rule of thirds gospel. The great thing about him was he allowed our class to just go out and take pictures of anything and everything. I credit him for getting me hooked. If he had told me to go home and make a ‘self-portrait narrative’ (as I was compelled to do later in high school) I don’t know if I would have fallen in love with photography so easily.  Although I quickly became bored while flipping through my copy of Pop Photo, I took his appreciation of sentimental pictures to heart.  I know I risk being labeled nerdy or untrendy, but a rainbow is one of the most gorgeous things ever any way you slice it.

How do you interact with the world when creating one of your more labored pictures?  What do you think about?  What about obsessiveness or repetition? 

 I wanted to make the wrapped tree picture partially because of my love/hate relationship with plastic and my respect for nature.  Construction sheeting is often used to conceal and protect objects that are destined to become angular and inorganic structures. There’s something so ominous about the way plastic can engulf and conceal, swallowing large patches of industrial landscape. I wanted to see what would happen if I applied this fairly common practice to something natural. I wanted to comment on the state of the environment today: urban sprawl, the detrimental effects of petroleum use, and the virtual suffocation of nature. I knew a picture like that had to be at once ominous and seductive. I spent three days wrapping that tree, using black plastic, a staple gun, and some well-honed climbing skills. Being so physically close to that tree, embracing it, becoming acquainted with every branch, I began to realize it was as much about swaddling as it was about suffocation. 

 In addition to my environmental concerns, this image means so much more to me. When I search for pictures in the world, I often photograph objects I’ve come to view as unintentional sculptures. The act of photographing is my way of pedestaling, or claiming authorship over my findings. I began to make the more labor intensive sculptural interventions like the tree picture because I can’t always stumble across what I’m looking for in the external world.  I experience a quiet catharsis as I construct these pictures; they have proven to be effective psychic outlets for thoughts and feelings I experience when immersed in the landscape. The obsessiveness of these endeavors mirrors the way I approach composing all my photographs, always striving for formal rigor.  It is the same compulsion that drives me to explore my surroundings searching for visual meaning, day after day.

You seem just as interested in unnatural and geometric forms as you are in nature.  Can you talk about this?

 I’ve always been drawn to basic geometric forms. Geometry was the only math subject I ever enjoyed and I remember creating intricate block structures as a child.  Geometry is the foundation for all of civilization; it’s essential for the creation of any sort of structure or engineering feat. Despite this, perfect shapes almost never occur naturally. Perturbation from other natural forces always interfere. Trees would grow straight as a ruler if they weren’t subject to wind and rain. I think this lack of naturally occurring geometry is why humankind has always organized itself along engineered and mechanistic lines. In a way, this imposition of geometry into the landscape is our attempt at making sense of a planet that’s naturally fluid, adaptive and asymmetrical. In this vein, I strive to photograph with formal rigor, employing geometry and creating my own structured compositions using the frame, all in an attempt to understand and organize the world around me. I’m captivated by the countless objects and structures industry creates, some of them supremely bizarre.

What do you look for in a photograph?

Above all, I pictures to have affect and sincerity. If I’m moved, and I sense the photographer really cares, I’m down. My one exception to this are pictures that try to pass off nostalgia for content. Anything that looks old looks cool. It’s a cop-out.

What sort of burden do you take away from yourself or the viewer when you do not photograph people but instead photograph shapes and lines etc?

 I’ve always been weary of the ethical implications that come with photographing people I don’t know really well.  There’s an inherent power exchange, and although there are many who derive pleasure from being photographed, I can’t help but see the transaction as lopsided.

When I was 15 and wandering through the city, a homeless man asked me for money.  He had a lazy eye and wore a bright orange camouflage print vest.  I agreed to pay him on the condition I could take his picture. Why? National Geographic.  He seemed to acquiesce, and after taking my dollar, he stood motionless in front of that brick wall.  I squatted and hurriedly made several full length portraits and a close up. Standing in front of him, my camera in his face, I felt very uncomfortable. When I saw the resulting pictures, I was disgusted with myself.  It wasn’t my place to photograph this man. It felt like exploitation and it was. As cliched as it sounds, I couldn’t help but think I had stolen a piece of this man’s dignity. Ever since then, I’ve been hyper-aware of that power exchange that takes place when I photograph a relative stranger.  

 So, in a sense the burden I relieve myself of is having to engage with the constant ethical debate in my head. I have long since given myself permission not to shoulder this weight. It’s a very different story when it comes to my viewers. I don’t think I’m unburdening them at all. People like looking at people.

Whether or not they look particularly attractive or unique is irrelevant.  As a social species, our desire see other humans is hardwired into our biology.  I’m challenging my viewers to make connections and glean meaning from my work without a familiar human element.

I do feel the need to qualify all of this by telling you that some of my favorite pictures ever are portraits. I have nothing but respect and admiration for many portraitists. From time to time, I do make portraits of people I’m close with and even people I’m not, but these mostly remain private.

What are you most concerned that your viewers should see in your work?

I’d like my viewers to see the poetry and allegorical possibilities that I’m attempting to show through everyday observations as well as ones that aren’t so commonplace.  I hope they would recognize my collections of pictures are more than the sum of their parts. And above all, I want them to perceive that I’m a person who is trying to photograph, the best that he can, what it feels like to be alive.

Someone very close to me once described my pictures as “a considerate collection of moments discovered with the same gentle innocence and eagerness a kid has when turning over a rock--what's underneath is compelling, beautiful and bizarre.”  I like that.

 Ask yourself a question and respond.

Q. Will artistic integrity survive late capitalism?

A. Will we?

www.davidsoffa.com