interview

The Edge Of Industry: Al Palmer

December 29, 2020 in interview

The Edge Of Industry: Al Palmer

Andrew D. McClees (ADM): For those who may not be familiar with you or your work, would you mind introducing yourself and your work?

Al Palmer (AP): I'm a photographer and book designer/publisher based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the United Kingdom. I've been taking photographs for 14 years now and have exhibited my work worldwide. The past few years have seen a shift from focusing on exhibitions to releasing my work in zine and book form. The majority of my work deals with world building, creating fictitious imaginary places from photographs of very real places. On the surface it may look like documentary work, it's very much not. Recently I've been creating work that deals with the fidelity of information: how much detail can an image lose before it can't communicate the intended message across.

ADM: We're talking about "The Edge Of Industry" - would you mind explaining the concept behind the series for the audience?

AP: The Edge of Industry is a cycle of photographs taken at the site of a derelict magnesium works near Hartlepool in the North of England where heavy industry has died off over the past thirty years. These images indirectly reference the death of shipbuilding and metal works, the lack of government action to prevent the North and South of England dividing both economically and socially, creating a generation of workers with no future; directly they show the land has yet to be redeveloped; it remains in a perpetual state of ruin. With an increasing amount of closures among factories in England these photographs are both a record of the end of a specific industrial area and also a quiet farewell to the past of the North of England.

ADM: What was the inspiration for the series? How did you settle on the concept and what is your personal relationship to it?

AP: I'm not a documentary photographer but this is the closest I've ever been to producing 'straight' documentary work. As with all of my work, it's more about me than the place I'm photographing. The magnesium works is visually attractive because it's so weird looking, people from differing backgrounds see sci-fi movies, dystopian novels... I saw the recently history of my area and my people. I'm from here and it was the future of my people that was impacted by the government of the Thatcher years.

ADM: Digging in a little more to your nod to worldbuilding vs. documentarianism - would you say that you've built an imagined or extrapolated narrative on top of the magnesium works for Edge of Industry?

AP: There's less world building in The Edge of Industry then, say, my work in “I Believe (In None of This)” but I am of the generation whose parents lost their jobs in heavy industry so there's a degree of distance. The ruins in the photographs are clearly a metaphor for the problems in society caused by these places of work shutting.

ADM: Taking it a step further, will you work on a project on what you believe the future (bleak or not) to be? Thinking future-forward in photography is always an odd topic.

AP: By nature each photography can only be a document of the past. I tend not to think about the future too heavily, certainly not to the point of making work regarding it. You could say my work is about the present, using snapshots of the past. Giving this some thought I cannot figure HOW I would make work about the future. That'd probably involve actual world building, making my own utopian model city and photographing it. Which does actually sound quite appealing...

ADM: You also run Brown Owl Press - what was the impetus behind starting your own zine printing company, and how would you say the self publishing process has affected your photographic and artistic process?

AP: I'm certainly more ruthless with regards to the photographic edit! I'm very conscious of how a series flows now, rather than just picturing the photographs on a gallery wall. I think this has probably meant that I focus less on taking interesting individual photographs and more on serving the narrative.I started Brown Owl Press mostly just because it felt like I should. Why wait for someone else to do it when I can? I like being able to publish photographic stories by photographers that deserve a bigger audience but possibly haven't received one yet.

ADM: Zooming the scope out a little bit - would you say that your work, Edge of Industry included, tends to center on implied or "broken" narratives? why or why not, and could you give an example of how you think about or process that narrative?

AP: Without a doubt. I think that's the crux of what I find interesting about photography: it's not very good at showing a linear narrative, especially in comparison to film making and prose. I suspect that's why a lot of photographers like to imagine they are working in a similar way to a poet. It's a nice idea, it's romantic, but I feel comics are a close visual medium to photography - sequential media leaving out much of the detail. The Edge of Industry is the outlier in my work in that I'm not really trying to suggest much, more show it. Primarily I think of photography as something closer to collage than to painting. Roughly tearing off this bit, a tiny sliver of this.

ADM: In terms of understanding “Edge of Industry: as outsiders - both an audience and, in my case (along with a fair chunk of our readers) as an American, what would you say the most essential photos are to understanding the project are, and what context they provide for the rest of the series?

AP: I'm not sure any one photograph carries more weight than another in this series, there are only 16 photographs and they all combine to give a good sense of the location. There are two photos that show the horizon, one shows this flat, unspectacular landscape and then other shows the North Sea. I suppose they give the magnesium works some physical reference point. There are definitely parallels with, say, Detroit in this story. It'll be interesting to know how an American sees this work. It'd previously been shown in New York but I can't imagine anyone from NYC looking at this work in the same way someone from the mid-West would, for instance.

ADM: The photobook/zine has (seemingly, to me) really come into vogue over the last ten to twenty years, and there's starting to be quite a bit of discussion of the photobook as an art object - as a publisher and book designer - what do you think the key elements of the art book or photobook/zine are, and what makes them so compelling, rather than say a folio, or a hanging exhibition?

AP: There are definitely economic aspects to this - digital printing increasingly being both cheap and high quality, so a decent photo zine costs a lot less than it would've in the past. The flipside of that is gallery/exhibition space has never been as expensive. Everyone has a camera in their pocket and the rise of Instagram has definitely helped photographers never switch off, so this off-hand photography definitely seems at odds with a formal gallery space. Also, an exhibition is temporary and photographs are permanent. Prints are hard to sell multiples of (finite wall space for most customers) while zines and books are an easier item to sell - especially with so many sales avenues online. It's not just economics though, photography works best on a small scale in my mind. I can do it at my own pace, and I'm in control of every single thing. And I like having full creative control of my work.

ADM: How has your approach to narrative driven photography changed over the years - did you learn anything new while making Edge of Industry that you'll take forward with you to the next project?

AP: The biggest lesson learned from The Edge of Industry is to work more efficiently. It was shot in a single day, the entire series consists of of just 16 photos. Some projects require a huge sprawling inventory of images, some require very few. How you say it matters almost as much as what you say. The Edge of Industry is quite literal work, both the photographs and the title. I'm unlikely to work in such a straight forward manner again, at least in the foreseeable future.

ADM: What are your major influences, photographic or not, and can you tie them back to Edge of Industry, or have you diverged from outside influence or touchstones, as you've matured as a practitioner?

AP: My biggest influence visually is Gerhard Richter. Carving into the space between reproduction and expression is at the heart of everything I do. I also admire the fact that he doesn't work in the same manner consistently, my big fear artistically is to just repeat myself. Alec Soth and Joel Sternfeld were huge influences on me photographing, and I can definitely see the influence of Sternfeld's Walking the High Line on this, just photographing a relatively small area in an expansive way with a fairly uniform view. I tend not to take direct inspiration from single photographers now, my inspiration tends to be more abstract and on a larger scale: ideas, music, technology.

ADM: Dipping into that - can you speak on some of the Music, Tech, and Ideas that you've been thinking about and inspired by lately?

AP: I'm hugely influenced by the German music scene surrounding the Termina/Beat Bude/Ava/Tax Free labels. It's most producers and DJs from the house and techno scene (Glenn Astro, Max Graef, Am Kinem etc) moving beyond rigid genre and begin deconstructing various types of music. A lot of it's quite experimental but it's also very musical, which keeps me interested. Photographically, the work of Clara de Tezanos is influencing me a lot currently. Her work is so rich and alien to me, I'm really enjoying trying to 'solve' it. It hints at a lot of things and I'm really trying to suggest more than I'm trying to explain in my own work of late. The idea I'm focusing on of late is how much detail can be taken from a photograph before it no longer communicates efficiently. I'm wrapping up a two year project on this topic currently as well as the layout of a book on the subject.

ADM: What advice would you give to someone looking to create photographs, or sets of photographs that lean into both a narrative form (both implied or explicit), and one that seeks to do "worldbuilding?"

AP: Take photographs impulsively, edit with intent. Or, the opposite. I tend to think in terms of batches of photographs being a 'chapter' or a 'verse'. Pacing is really important to a photo essay and I think that's especially important when putting your voice to something. Lots of experimenting in the editing phase is where the narrative will flourish, figuring out which photographs are essential to the story, and also which are not.

ADM: From Andy Pham: Do you think there is any value in the “hierarchy” of the photo world, or art world in general, in terms of the division between “gallery artists”, big publishers, etc. and the rest of us trying to just make work that means something personally? In other words, do you think there are pros and cons to both, or do you think there is anything lacking on either side of this divide?

For better and for worse I'm quite a self-driven person so, I've never had any fear of the hierarchy of photoworld. I'm not daunted by people or institutions. I can see why some would be useful, and openly want to be involved with some of them but that's because of what they can do for me/what I can bring to them rather than any need to be accepted.

If a recognised gallery wanted to show my work I'd be very conscious of using that (probably finite) time to harvest connections, grow my audience and put that back towards my usual DIY practice as it would probably not be a long-term arrangement. That possibly sounds a little mercenary but the larger the institution, the less concern it'll have for you so get what you can out of the situation. And hopefully make some money.

There are no heroes.

ADM: What question do you have for the next photographer? (you can answer the question yourself, if you'd like.)

AP: What was the biggest single turning point for you as an artist? My answer possibly links to the previous question: when I realised that I could do things myself rather than wait of galleries and publishers doing it for me. That was when I really put faith in myself as an artist rather than just someone who takes good photos. Keeping that moment in mind is important.

ADM: Thanks so much for the interview - do you have any parting words, or advice? I know we can purchase your zines and books at Brown Owl Press - but is there anywhere else that we can see or purchase more of your work? -- Thanks again for the interview!

AP: My advice can be applied to almost anything: consistency is the most important thing for progress.

The Brown Owl Press website has a list of our stockists but we do 90% of our trade via the webstore. Anything I publish that isn't under the Brown Owl Press umbrella is available via my website, the first of a series of zines I plan on publishing came out a couple of months ago called Crawling the Walls and is still available.

Thank you for interviewing me! If anyone has any further questions or would like to reach out, feel free to send me an email.

Brackish River Valley: Eric Kaczmarczyk

December 20, 2020 in interview

Brackish River Valley: Eric Kaczmarczyk

Andrew D. McClees (ADM): For those who aren't familiar with you and your work, would you mind introducing yourself?

Eric Kaczmarczyk (EK): Hi, my name is Eric Kaczmarczyk, I'm an artist-photographer living and working in the Lower Hudson Valley region of New York State. My artwork is primarily made within the environment in which I live; whether it be a landscape, a cityscape, a still life, an abstraction, or the occasional portrait. Photography for me is a way to connect with my surroundings and ultimately, a way to process my own psychology. As I continue to explore, film photography has been my medium of choice, in part due to its slowness - developing, scanning, editing, printing -gives me time to sleep on it all.

ADM: We're talking about Brackish River Valley - you open with the words that make the title being defined, and have a brief afterword - could you expound on the concept and impetus for the project?

EK: The photographs I've made over the past several years were without a specific intention or end goal in mind. Before coming up with the final name for the book, I had the word "river" stuck in my head... and I kept thinking, what about river, why river. As I learned more about the area, I came to understand that the Hudson River is brackish; a mixture of salt and freshwater. When the ocean tide rises, the river flows northward; when the ocean tide falls it flows southward - at least in the lower part of the river. In the afterword, I mention that the "mayor was covering everything in concrete" as a way to acknowledge that there were several large scale construction projects going on around this time, erecting residential towers and complexes. Not everything was being covered, in fact, there was some uncovering. There used to be a large parking lot in the center of town which they removed and re-exposed part of the Saw Mill River that was buried underneath years ago. There was still little-to-no grass in the nearby parks, most everything was concrete with a few trees and some flowers.

ADM: I find the photos in Brackish River Valley to be very formally pleasing - is there a particular meaning or throughline in the photos? What was your process for image-making - and following that - you handmade/bound the project - is there extra significance to that handmade approach?

EK: Symbolically - the mixture of salty and fresh water, flowing two different directions, the struggle between concrete and nature and the conflict of old and new - were all on my mind while making this work. Not only did this help me understand the environment that I stepped into, but also helped me understand my internal dialogue. I used to be a very rigid creator, thinking of a concept then illustrating that concept. For me, this left me stuck behind the emotional walls that I've unintentionally built. Through making this work specifically, while undergoing a life transition of my own, I felt the impact of covering things in concrete. I think making this book by hand is relatable back to why I shoot film - it was a slow, intimate process, giving me a lot of time to gain clarity.

ADM: Are there any images that you would point to explain the project to an outsider, or that encapsulate the project best (from your perspective), and why or why not?

EK: I’d say, look at the pair of images where on the left is a light fixture and on the right is a building without a roof. This is one of my favorite uses of metaphor in the book where the light appears to illuminate the roofless building as a symbol for searching and introspection. Additionally, note the presence of a large shadow cast on the hillside, obscuring the view. Also, take a look at both the black-and-white image of the busy road and the color image of the parking garage with water in the foreground. Both of these images depict two examples of where the Saw Mill River was uncovered and parks lacking nature were built.

ADM: Recently, I saw you mention on IG that "Brackish River Valley has two more sequels coming next year, what are they about, and how does the book fit into that larger cycle?

EK: Yes! I have two more books planned, with different titles yet to be determined. This first book contains photographs from 2017 and 2018, all made within Yonkers which borders New York City to the north. The next book will contain photographs from 2019, all made between Yonkers and Sleepy Hollow, New York. During this time, I've transitioned to a new location further up the river. And finally, the third book will be photographs from 2020, all made within Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow. Generally, the further north you go from New York City, the greener the landscape becomes. This may sound obvious to some, but for me, as I break down my emotional barriers, nature has played a major role.

ADM: Do you have a greater overall goal for the cycle of photobooks? does it have a name?

EK: Ever since I relocated to the Lower Hudson Valley several years ago, I’ve been fascinated by the river and the rivertowns. Not pictured in this first book, another geographic feature that caught my attention is the Old Croton Aqueduct which is now a hiking trail spanning 26 miles, running parallel to the river. Previously, the aqueduct provided fresh upstate water to New York City. Aside from the river being a mode of transportation for water and boats, it felt like a place to meditate, transporting thoughts. My overall goal is to document this transportation of thoughts while connecting with the physical environment. There is no name for the overall project yet.

ADM: In terms of influence, what were the major influences on Brackish River Valley, and the cycle at large? they can be photographic, or non-photographic.

EK: Several artists that come to mind are Sophie Calle, Laurie Anderson, Pipilloti Rist and Sol LeWitt. Aside from artist inspiration, one major influence on Brackish River Valley has been weekly talk therapy with a psychologist. I’ve always been an intuitive artist but, through depression and anxiety, this has helped me connect with my photographs in a more direct and conscious way. Another major influence goes back about 10 years, a college professor of mine who encouraged me to go out and make photographs without thinking or planning beforehand. This helped me ward off overthinking and make more room for reflection.

ADM: You've mentioned therapy and mental health - lately I've found a lot of photographers (myself included) use the medium as an outlet for their personal struggles - in your own words, or opinion, what is it about the medium that makes it so intuitive to the topic of mental health or illness?

EK: For me, one thing about photography that makes it such an intuitive medium is within the ephemeral nature of pressing the shutter button. Personally, in regards to my mental health, my ability to process emotions in the moment can be quite difficult, it takes me a while. If I make work with this in mind, and relinquish some control, this leaves a lot of room for the subconscious to do its work. Letting my mind wander and letting my intuition tell me what to make a picture of. In this state of mind, I feel that it's easier to simultaneously experience the moment and also make the picture, processing the emotions later on.

ADM: What does the Photobook format mean to you, and do you find it to be substantially different from the zine?

EK: I always found photobooks to be a great way to hold art in your hands and feel what the artist might’ve been feeling. Truthfully, I wasn’t fully certain whether to call this project a photobook, a zine or a chapbook… to me, it’s a type of hybrid between a photobook and a zine. I did want an intimate smaller book, and in a several book series, like a zine. I don’t find the various formats to be substantially different; they are all books and serve the same purpose of communicating artistic expression.

ADM: What advice or insight would you give to someone looking to contextualize their mental health or findings in therapy through photography?

EK: My best advice would be to not restrict yourself into one style, one theme, one type of photography. Having gone to art school, often, I felt that you can be pushed into overly developing a style in order to fit into a niche within the industry. In regards to mental health, and art, this can be quite suppressive. If you’re only photographing one subject matter, in one way, it will not be possible to access the far reaching complexities of one’s psychology. My second piece of advice would be to never stop asking questions to yourself; reflect, analyze the symbols, analyze the colors. Unrelated to my book, in college, I made gross food combinations, placed them on the sidewalk, asked four people to stand around, then photograph the scene from the knees down. About 10 years later, I realized it was a sort of rebellion to the superficial environment I was raised in, where food and appearance were the most important thing, more important than feelings.

ADM: From Al Palmer: What was the biggest single turning point for you as an artist?

EK: At first thought, I began to scan my recent achievements, my technical upgrades, my emotional freedom… even with some of this feeling like they’re big steps, it still feels more like a long term progression. Therefore, I’d have to say, the biggest turning point for me is not recent; it was as a teenager, the purchase of my first camera. It was my first major coping tool. I was able to navigate my world, soothing anxieties, the usual “hiding behind the camera” perspective. I tried expressing myself through drawing and painting but, I felt more clarity while looking through a lens. Personally, this is the most important to me because I discovered that I could communicate in ways that I could not with words.

ADM: What question do you have for the next photographer? You can answer it yourself if you'd like.

EK: What does a day in the life as a photographer, as an artist, as a person, look like for you? What time do you wake up, go to sleep? Outside of photography, what are some of your favorite hobbies?

ADM: Where can people purchase a copy of Brackish River Valley? I saw that you'd sold through your initial batch (congratulations!) will you have another pressing for sale alongside the next books in the cycle? Do you have any other parting words? -- Thanks again for the interview!

EK: Fortunately and unfortunately, the book is sold out! The next books in the cycle will be a continuation of similar subject and format and a good chance to pick up a copy. At the end of the cycle, I am hoping to put the several books together into one larger, hardcover book… but we will see! In the future, I may consider a second edition, but will not be handmade like the first edition. Lastly, for those who liked the book, or who missed the book, I am releasing a batch of images from the book as special edition prints that will be going up for sale soon. My only other parting words are a big thank you to frozenwaste.land for offering to interview me and to all my friends and colleagues who’ve shown invaluable support throughout this process.

Noir Myths: Erin Cross

November 07, 2020 in interview

Noir Myths: Erin Cross

Andrew D. McClees (ADM): For those not familiar with you, or your work, would you mind introducing yourself?

Erin Cross (EC): Hello, I’m Erin Cross. I am based in Tokyo, Japan. I’ve been into black and white photography for seven years now - [ED Note - you can read more about Erin’s 7 year BNW career in her own words HERE]

Formerly, I also founded MONØMANIA, the first black and white photography festival in Asia, which later turned out to be a platform.

Beginning this year, though, I decided to focus on my personal projects, specifically self-publishing photozines and (hopefully later on) photobooks.

ADM: Was there a particular personal turning point that prompted you to pursue more of your own personal projects, beyond the festival?

EC: Since I came to Japan three years ago, producing content for MONØMANIA (as a platform) and managing it by myself became a challenge. I’ve tried many times, but there was always something lacking. I realized that I need to take things slower by focusing on my personal projects first, or else my ideas will never be executed at all.

ADM: What's the concept behind "Noir Myths" - I see that it's labeled #1 - Does the series have a particular focus? and What does "cold and gray" mean to you?

EC: NOIR MYTHS is a quarterly photozine that would include visual stories of my life in Japan.

The first volume, Cold and Gray, features a set of film pictures taken on a snowy winter day in Tokyo in 2018. In contrast, I chose to publish this photo story in the summertime because on the same year, I met the love of my life who turned coldness and grayness into the opposite. A short intro can be found on the photozine’s prologue.

I sense that the next volumes of NOIR MYTHS will evolve and evolve. I am not tying this series to just film photographs - although being shot in film is one of the reasons why I wanted to publish in tangible form. I rarely upload my film photographs, so having them compiled as a zine/book emphasizes their “analogue” nature: something which is quite hard to attain nowadays.

ADM: Throughout the zine you make really excellent use of textures to create atmosphere and feeling - from an outside perspective - what would you say inspired that approach?

EC: Thank you. A huge part of this approach was because of my workshop with D’Agata and Hura. During that workshop, I was asked to explain WHY I took such photos and I had to dig really deep into my emotions. So whenever I see shining asphalt or odd-shaped trees, for example, I take pictures of them because they make me feel something. I aim to translate those feelings through my photographs.

ADM: Zooming out a bit, what are your major influences both photographic and musical, for this project and your photography beyond Noir Myths?

Photography influences - I used to draw more inspiration from films back when I started photography. Alfred Hitchcock, Jim Jarmusch, Wong Kar Wai - are some of my all-time favorites.

EC: I “discovered” Japanese [are-bure-boke] style of photography much later on. Masahisa Fukase is probably my favorite Japanese photographer.

On the other hand, music is not the strongest influence in my photography. However, I appreciate the medium and would like to utilize it to magnify the emotions that one can get from “just looking” at photographs.

When using the element of sound, I prefer instrumental only. The lack of lyrics gives attention to the imageries, which to me, is a visual symphony.

Moreover, when my friend skinxbones made the soundtrack for Cold and Gray, I let him create it solely based from the photos in the volume. I plan on collaborating with other musicians, regardless of their genre, for the next NOIR MYTHS volumes with the same “non-instructional” instructions so each time would be a fresh experience.

ADM: What's your assembly and construction process like for your zines and books?

EC: I sequence the images manually. I print very small pictures and then arrange-rearrange them to my liking. I learned a lot about making photo stories during my intensive workshop with Antoine D’Agata and Sohrab Hura in Angkor Photo. That was five years ago, but I always think about the lessons I learned there when I make photo projects now.

ADM: Do you always shoot with an overall project or book in mind?

EC: Ideas always come to me. Though sometimes, some (or probably most) of them are short-lived.

For NOIR MYTHS, though, I’d like to keep my options open. As much as I love repetition in photography, I wouldn’t like this series to appear monotonous all throughout.

Recently, I started posting diptychs of my daily home-work-home routine. I use digital for this, which is great for instantaneous output. It’s also good practice for the eye. I might turn this series into a photozine as well, but nothing yet is set in stone.

One thing is for sure, though. There will always be hints of self-portraits in my works because it’s how I can relate through photography and other people, too.

ADM: What photos or spreads within the zine do you think are most essential to understanding it - you talk briefly about tying in self portraiture and it's importance - can you expound on that as well?

EC: The entire layout of Cold and Gray is essential to appreciating it. I intentionally put two images oppositely adjacent to each other, so that the viewer can look at both images in both directions. Even the cover page (English in front, Japanese on the back) tells the viewer that the photo story can be “read” from left to right (like most Japanese publications). More importantly, the photozine should be viewed along with its special soundtrack - which I had made specifically for it.

Ironically, I didn’t include a self-portrait in Cold and Gray, though there’s a picture of my feet dug in snow - if this counts as a self-portrait. Remember that quote from Lost in Translation when Charlotte said that taking pictures of one’s feet is just every girl’s phase in photography? Guess I’m stuck in that phase forever.

ADM: The "evolution" of Noir Myths or a long term project is familiar, but always fascinating to me. Do you know what you'll do next with it, or have a more specific idea of the next form it will take in the series?

EC: N°2 should come out in late November. It will be very different from Cold and Gray, in the sense that the film pictures won’t come from a single roll. I am collaborating with another musician, whose music I’ve recently discovered. And as for the the visual content, here’s a hint: Nature devours.

ADM: Getting into the music question - how do you fit music together with your photography, or what's your process for creating intertextual experiences between music and photos?

EC: Might have already answered this - But here’s an old photo series (as a slideshow) with music specifically made for it.

ADM: What advice would you give to someone aiming to do a regular zine - ie on a schedule like you're aiming to do your Noir Myths series on?

EC: For any photography project that requires religious updates, the only thing that you can trust or blame is yourself. You move at your own pace. You lag at your own pauses.

With NOIR MYTHS, I plan to release a new volume every time the season here in Japan changes. I think this allows me to come up with the next one without hurrying so much.

I also think that even the rise and fall of temperature influences my motivation a lot. I find it hard to progress in the summertime, but when it's cooler, I suddenly become unstoppable.

ADM: From Kyle J. Kohner: Outside of other photographers and photobooks, where do you find inspiration for your own photography?

EC: Aside from films, which I mentioned in #9, I also draw inspiration from all the daily scenes I encounter, which is probably why I like repetition in photography.

For instance, I pass by the same train stations to and from work, and to me, looking closer at the usual, ordinary things I see along the way allow me to see them differently.

I try to be inspired even if there's "nothing" to see. It's my own way of interpreting bits of my life here. A life less ordinary.

ADM: What question do you have for the next photographer? you can answer it yourself if you'd like.

EC: For the next photographer: If there is a single photo story that you can work on in your lifetime, what would that be and how would you create your images for it?

For me, I would love to work on a very intimate photo story of my family and I would like to do it for as long as I live. It sucks that we're all living in different places now and I only have a few portraits of my mom, dad, and siblings.

ADM: Thanks so much for doing the interview! Where can we see more of your work, and purchase a copy of NOIR MYTHS (both this issue and the upcoming one, when it becomes available)? Do you have any other parting words and advice?

EC: NOIR MYTHS is available through erincrxss.com and also on KungFu Camera, The Phooks, artbooksph, and soon on Unobtanium — to mention a few

You, Me, We, Them: Adali Schell

August 02, 2020 in interview

You, Me, We, Them: Adali Schell

Andrew D. McClees (ADM): For those who aren't familiar, could you introduce yourself and your work?

Adali Schell (AS): Hi, my name is Adali Schell, I'm 19 years old and a street photographer from LA and I'm developing my first self published book/zine. I've been shooting LA's streets since I was 14, so this is something like six years in the making. I've been drawn to the streets since I was little - to get to my elementary school my mom would take Hollywood Boulevard, and even then I remember peering out the window, fascinated by LA's unique street culture and life. As I grew, I became aware of LA's superficiality driven by Hollywood, social media and our collective quench for fame, wealth, and materialistic longings, yet, as an Angeleno, I knew of an authenticity to LA that has never been shown to the rest of the world.

I started shooting after seeing Finding Vivian Maier, a documentary on the 20th century NYC/Chicago street photographer. Through this film, I discovered the world of street photography which prompted an awakening within myself as to how I can translate my frustrations around LA's misrepresentation into a meaningful and creative exercise. I picked up a camera and never turned back I suppose. Moving on from digital to analog film, studying photographers like Joel Meyerowitz, Garry Winogrand, Richard Sandler, Lee Friedlander and even younger, active photographers like Daniel Arnold, Todd Gross, Joey Prince, John Harding, Colleen Combs, Ben Molina, Aaron Berger, Geoff Haggray, Julian Master, Troy Holden, Jonathan Walker, Todd Fisher... I'll stop here to be polite. This list goes on for years.

ADM: On it's face your upcoming zine is a compilation of your work from 2017 to now - is there a particular theme that unites the photos you chose, and what was your experience like, selecting photos retrospectively?

AS: I like to rely on my subconscious. While shooting, I try to rid myself of my conscious mind to let my innermost mind speak - I don't second guess the impulse to shoot, if I feel it, I snap it. I don't spend any time thinking about the shot, I try to capture it as closely to how I saw it. I've learned that I am just as much an instrument as the camera is. Everything I've ever shot first came through my eyes and brain, then to my camera. I am the filter to this otherwise disorienting and upsetting world. Not to pride myself too much. And of course, I went into this with a general idea of what I hoped to create - something reminiscent of Daniel Arnold craziness, with Friedlander-like composition, Winogrand-like impulse, Meyerowitz-like romanticism, and Maier-like mystery. But what I believe distinguished my work from another street photographers work is that my work is based in LA - an undershot and misrepresented city, with it's masses and unique culture left in the shadows as fabricated Marvel movies and sexy action explosion movies are filmed and projected onto the eyes of the world. No disrespect to Hollywood, but I have realized that there is an undeniable vacuum left here - story's to be told, characters to be written and talked about, experiences to be empathized with, laughed with (or maybe even at,) and neighborhoods, people, and moments to be remembered - proof of a relatively short, bleak and irrelevant existence, proof to be remembered, thought of, and loved. In many ways, my photography is largely an existential outlet, an exercise to cope with my existence, in an abstraction and as a physical being. A constant collaboration with my environment - constantly judging, critiquing, hating, and loving. My admiration stems from this spectrum of emotions.

And I realize that once I'd be hundreds and hundreds of rolls into shooting for this project, this would soon be a reflection of my subconscious state more so than my conscious state, as I found myself fighting to reflect what I created in my head, as I'd be constantly disappointed that one can never perfectly articulate what is on their mind - in words or through photos, drawings, music, etc., whereas letting my subconscious go was far from being a strenuous task. And in this incoherent three year long subconscious ramble, pushing aside any expectation or desire, I found that I would create some sort of thematic unity, as a pure flow of inner thought made tangible through something like 64,000 35mm frames could yield some sort of consistency. Or so I hope.

Selecting the photos has been tough. I've been looking at this zine a few times a week, but it takes time to understand which photos should be paired together and which should be shown alone. Especially because these are living, breathing documents I'm working with. What they mean now in 2020 will be entirely different than what they mean in 2050. These photographs reflect a one of one description of a time and place. In the moment, especially with our innate numbness to instant digital cameras like our phones, we often forget this. Only upon reflection do we realize this, as you and me probably have, going through our parents photographs of them in highschool, college, early lives - a relatively shitty photo of a woman then may reflect a lost and nostalgic aesthetic of colors that we don't see anymore, of clothing, make up and hair styles that have been out of style for decades, etc. Who knows what will be interesting to look at decades from now. Because of this, I try to exist in 2050, thinking of what can be interesting now to someone from then. As I shoot, sometimes I pretend to be a person from 2050 who gets to spend one day in 2020. But yes, theme - I suppose everything that makes LA, LA - materialism, poverty vs affluence, desperation, politics, love; to be and to love, struggle, absurdity, chaos, energy, mundane beauty, irony, humour, etc. If I can check half of these boxes I think I'll feel good about this work.

ADM: Where does the name "you, me, we, them" come from? Is there a particular image, or set of images in the zine that explain the title?

AS: "You, me, we, them" comes from how I feel about being an entity. Kind of what I said in my last answer. I struggle with existing. I'm constantly fidgeting, anxious, thinking about the next moment or the moment before, what I don't have in the moment. Also being a physical being who can affect someone else is weird to me. And photography has been some sort of escape of the physical realm to me. I can kind of dissolve. Capturing fleeting moments, rarely being noticed. In a thick crowd just one of thousands, what do I matter? So this title is kind of an analysis of that idea, my relationship with others, and myself, mentally and physically.

I've actually had a hard time trying to think of one image that encapsulates this idea. I don't think that I've made it yet. A lot of them are close, but not quite there. Mostly because of how I've divided this work up by location - oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the zine is in like four chapters; Hollywood, Downtown, Santa Monica, and miscellaneous - because LA is so sprawled out, I've shot designated locations with high people density to kind of carry over what I learned from NYC photographers and apply it to LA. But it's really different out here and needs to be shot in it's own way which is what I'm realizing right now. That will require more space and desolation, and an isolation of subject matter. Less chaos. I can pick photos that describe my feelings about one specific location, but not about all of LA. But I hope that the collection of all of these photographs, in the sequence that they'll be in can spell that out.

ADM: That's definitely a broad statement of being - what's next or what's the next project after you wrap up the finalized book? Or will you continue to shoot and collect another collection, without direct regard for a project?

AS: I'm not too sure honestly. My LA street work has consumed so many years and I was just forced to wrap it up given the coronavirus situation. I think it would feel wrong to keep the project going since we are completely rethinking our social and commuting habits. This is a moment of great change and the street won’t look as it did for a very long time. Not to say I’m done taking street photographs, but I think I will be wrapping up this particular street project. I’m intending to publish this zine now, and in maybe twenty years I'll try and publish this work in a serious book, that way I can give these photographs the gift of time to evolve and mature into whatever context that 20 years could create.

Since covid broke out, I started working on a new project that looks at LA's urban color palette and geometry. I started riding my bike everyday since traffic has died down, and I've been lugging around my heavy 6x7 camera in my backpack which seriously sucks so I hope that I've been producing some strong images. It's kind of this blend of street and landscape photography. I've never felt connected to landscape photography because I've never felt familiar with nature, but what I've realized is that all photographs describe concretely are lines, shapes, and colors, and any deeper meaning about emotion or whatever is an interpretation which is subjective. But the geometry is what it is, and indisputable. So I've studied some landscape photographers like Shore and Sternfeld, and have gotten drawn in by their composition and occasional ironies. Like the one sternfeld shot of Mount Rushmore with the tangled rack holding satellite dishes in the foreground. That rules. And the firemen walking through a pumpkin patch with a blazing fire in the distance. And Shore's shot of the tiny church in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't believe these photographs when I first saw them because they convey the same feelings I get from Meyerowitz and Winogrand photographs. But they're taken on 8x10 field cameras and fit the category of landscape photos. I've also drawn from classical paintings. There's this one section at the Getty museum that is dedicated to relatively realistic Venetian landscape paintings that are huge and full of crazy detail. I'm into those colors and compositions and infinite depth of field. And what I'm doing draws from those ironies and geometric configurations. Beyond actual subject matter, I'm looking through what I'm shooting and seeing lines and light. I hope it becomes something.

And on my 35mm camera, I've tried shooting a couple of things for fun, nothing as serious as the street work I've worked on for so many years. I've been shooting off my bike, probably with my handle bars in the foreground of whatever catches my eye. I haven't seen any of these images yet so I don't know if it's coherent or anything. Admittedly, I have sometimes been seeing a very small group of friends in these past five months, and I hope that those photographs maybe can radiate a feeling of heightened angst amidst the pandemic, a naivety to thinking we're less at risk or maybe even invincible, teens who are either bored, horny or depressed, yearning for activity, attention, a reason to get out of bed. We're existing in unchartered waters. I don't really know what I'm doing either. I've just turned 19 and am a part of the class of 2020. And taking photos has been a remedy to life's absurdity and my struggles because of. I think I'm OK at it. And this has all been very challenging for me as it has been for all of us. Yet in spite of my mental haze and desperation, I hope my photographs carry a theme and coherency.

ADM: What was your shooting process like? and did it change over the three and a half years you compiled this body of work over?

AS: The shooting process started with a digital camera that I actually bought with my bar mitzvah money at age 13 ; I used that for something like 4 years, until my dad showed me his old Nikon Nikkormat SLR with a 24mm prime (what I still use today.) Then I took a Darkroom Photography course at SVA in NYC one summer and was properly introduced to film. So I shot exclusively black and white for a while, doing my own developing and printing, not scanning anything, keeping it entirely analog. Then I eventually became curious to explore color and started to digitize my work. That was the summer of 2018 when I felt like I developed the foundational skill that is necessary. Since then I've done something like 1800 rolls probably, all in LA. That's like 64,800 photographs, and I'm selecting only 80 or 100, which at most is only like 0.0015 of the photographs I've made since shooting film. God only knows how many digital photos came before and also during then.

ADM: You speak quite a bit about documenting Los Angeles - how did you get there (are you a native angeleno?), and what inspires you to document the city? What have you discovered in your photos?

AS: Yeah, I'm from LA. Born and raised! I've always been frustrated over LA's misrepresentation which also inspired me to do something about it. The superficiality that this city is advertised to be is not really what it is. I've only known of an authentic LA. I grew up in Los Feliz which is wedged in between Thai Town and Little Armenia in the East Hollywood area. When I was 14, I realized that the camera could be used as a weapon against that, to describe how authentic and beautiful this city really is when you don't buy into the Hollywood and Kardashian crap. I also wanted to show the world, or at least my Instagram followers what other Angelenos look like. Not just Tom Cruise and Kim K., but those of us who keep this city running. The jewelry store worker in Downtown. The tourists in Hollywood. The street performers on the Pier. These people have never had a spotlight and I have tried to give them one in a sense.

ADM: You mention a broad gathering of influences - is there something, a thread, that unites them, and how do you relate to your influences?

AS: I think that my influences are united by character. If they're distinct and also funny or ironic. Winogrand, Meyerowitz, Levitt, Sternfeld, Friedlander, Cohen, these photographers took strong photographs that were also sometimes funny. There's often a tension that exists, either in composure, or color, or emotion. And in paintings, I see lines and colors as I do in photographs. So to me they're basically the same thing, except that to make a photograph you are deconstructing the world around you and in a painting you are constructing from the world around you.

ADM: Jumping on that - your work largely seems to fit into the Street Photography tradition - what is Street Photography to you, and more generally, what is Photography to you?

AS: Like Winogrand once said, I feel like the term "street photography" is pretty silly. It doesn't tell you anything about the picture or the work. But the values that are attached to street photography are mostly akin to that of photojournalism; truth, grit, transparency, humanity, empathy. I like those traits and look to recreate them. But I feel that street photography is less serious than photojournalism, so I also look for those humorous aspects. On a broader note, photography is a reason. A reason to live at the very least, a reason to go out, a reason to be in that area or to step through those doors into that room, a reason to be present, a reason to think about your placement in the world, a reason to think about where you stand in society and your relationship to your peers and neighbors. A reason to think of where we come from historically and a reason to feel obligated to be an informed citizen of the world. A reason to be empathetic to others, a reason to be concerned about politics and the state of the world and humanity. And in today's climate, I think that we all need to be politically engaged, for environmental reasons, for humanitarian reasons, for ethical reasons.

ADM: So, this is part curiosity of my own, but that's a ton of film to shoot, I know that shooting on film and digital don't really line up on an even ratio, but how do you shoot such a high volume? or what keeps you shooting at such a high volume?

AS: I have tried to shoot less but I can't. I think it'd be better to shoot less. Henry Wessel, a really amazing and renowned San Francisco photographer spent his lifetime shooting SF but he never "went out to take photos." Rather, he went about his day, driving and running errands, doing whatever he does and he carried his camera with him and created an incredible body of work. Whereas with me, I am always searching for photos. There isn't really a moment where it isn't at the front of my mind. I think that this causes me to shoot a lot but also causes me to kind of go insane, my practice is like a never ending search for something that doesn't actually exist, this search for meaning, for clarity. I think to put it into relative terms for someone who isn't a photographer, I feel like there is a word I'm trying to use that I can't remember, and it's on the tip of my tongue, forever. And at every opportunity trying to rephrase what I mean, I can't quite do it. It's this restlessness that keeps me going. Even with my favorite photographs that I've made, I feel like I've missed the mark by a tad, I think I only have like five photographs I've ever taken where I feel like I described exactly what I wanted to.

ADM: What's your key tip on shooting so much, and what key advice would you give to someone about throwing themselves deep into photography?

AS: I can only speak on behalf of my experiences, but what's kept me going is my own frustrations. Aside from photography, I've always had a hard time saying what I mean; with my parents and friends, also especially in past relationships that admittedly still live and rot in my conscious. I hate to say this but I am one to replay scenarios in my head over and over again, getting that last word in, or dwelling on the hypotheticals if something would’ve gone differently. The act of making photographs has been therapeutic in many ways and particularly with this - to spend so much time on one particular moment at a sliver of a second - shooting, developing, scanning, printing, reviewing, etc, it is comforting to become 100% familiar and comfortable with a moment that I lived in. I also had a few tough years from age 14 to 16 where I lived in the suburbs and completely shut down socially. There was like a three month window where I got back on my feet but I quickly stumbled again as I had completely lost myself and most of anything that I found desirable in my life. But while three years isn't very long generally, when you're 15 it is, and my photography is a blatant act where I'm trying to overcorrect for those years lost. Memories that I could've had, trouble I could’ve got in, photographs I could’ve made, friends I could've had, girls I could've loved, etc. I've tried to overwhelm my time now and these coming years. Third, I can't sit still, I need to be out seeing and breathing and living and feeling or I get really antsy and depressed, I think this is an effect of feeling like I've lost time. Lastly, for existential reasons, life is short and I want something to show, a proof of my own existence and of others existence in this otherwise short and bleak world. I, like most others, hope to leave something behind, and the idea of leaving behind a book or prints or some photographic documentation describing what this moment and people and environment and city looked and felt like is really enticing to me.

ADM: From David Gilbert Wright: If you could travel back in time, which photographer from history would you most like to interview for this magazine, and why?

AS: Tough question, probably Vivian Maier since there is practically no information on her!

ADM: What question do you have for the next photographer? you can answer it yourself if you'd like.

AS: What drives you to take photos, rather than making films or writing or expressing yourself in another way?

ADM: Where can we pick up copies of the zine and book? Also where can we see more of your work, and do you have any parting words or advice?

AS: You can reserve a copy for the zine by contacting me through Instagram @advli or through my email, adalischell@gmail.com. I might set up a thing on my site to buy one but I want to keep it personal, I like the idea of the person coming directly through me than through a website where they don't actually read my own words that I've personally typed out with my own thumbs specially for them. I also have two photographs being published in the book "To Live & Cry in LA" which is being produced by 35m Pro, a lab out in Sherman Oaks, with work consisting of 60-something LA photographers who documented the height of the BLM movement. That is currently being produced and should be made available to purchase sometime soonish.

Hi, If you’ve read this far - thanks for reading! Typically we’d stump for donations to the website to keep it up, but in light of the ongoing unrest in the states we’d encourage you to donate to a cause of your choosing instead. This whole thing is a link to a linktree.

GATOS: Bryan Mederos

June 14, 2020 in interview

GATOS: Bryan Mederos

Andrew D. McClees (ADM): Hi Bryan, thanks for doing the interview! For those not familiar with you, or your work would you mind introducing yourself and giving an overview of your work, photographic and otherwise?

Bryan Mederos (BM): My journey as a photographer started a few years ago when I bought a DSLR camera to make youtube videos. In order to learn the exposure triangle, I started taking the camera everywhere and taking photos with a giant tele zoom lens and a crop sensor. All the photos were super cropped in. I also learned about Lightroom and Photoshop during that time. They were the worst photos ever. These days I primarily shoot 35mm film but I use my phone too.

ADM: We're here talking about your work documenting your job working behind the scenes (as a waiter?) at a hotel in Beverly Hills - do you have a title for the project? What inspired you to document this job/workplace?

BM: Yes the title for the project is called "GATOS," Gato literally translates to cat but it’s also a slang term used in Mexican culture that means “servant” or “goon.” I work in the in room dining department and my job title is "Order Taker". I take the food order from the guest, ring it in and hand it over to the server to prepare for delivery. The servers have a rotation so whenever a new order comes out they say "Next Gato"! Think of like “order up!” or “who's next!” I've been shooting photos of my co workers for years now and have amassed close to 1,000 photographs. The project is a love letter to the immigrant laborers of LA. The unsung heroes of the luxury hospitality industry.

ADM: I know this has been an extended project - are you still working on it? Have you found that your approach to documentation has changed over the duration of the project?

BM: I have all the material I need to compile a hardbound photo book. I'm not shooting as many photos as before but I still bring the camera out occasionally. Every "serious" photographic work I pursue is usually born out of being self aware enough to know that something special is going on around me. It may not be clear at the start but it eventually turns into to a deeper sense of awareness and appreciation for what's in front of me. In this case, its my job so I would argue that I've even changed my perspective towards my day job from a negative experience to a positive, productive one.

ADM: I know you're still working on final assembly of the project into book form, but was there any specific moment or image where the project really took shape or snapped into place for you?

BM: Not really a moment for when it took shape but I can sense that it’s done and I don’t necessarily need to take more photos. Intuition is what’s guided me through the whole process.

ADM: What images do you feel are integral to understanding both the job, and the people you work with, and why?

BM: That’s a great question. I’ve actually never thought about it till now. There’s a black and white photo of my co worker Laurencio (we call him LOLO) sitting at a computer with Forbes five star five diamond awards hanging above his head. I remember he was using that computer to search for a used car for his daughter. I feel like this frame does a good job of superimposing luxury and migrant workers.

ADM: Is there a thought process or criteria when you are/were documenting your job and coworkers, and making images - you talk about intuition, can you expound on that?

BM: I try my best to not shoot photos when there’s a bad vibe in the air. Usually because of some kind of conflict between the servers. They fight over tips and orders which can be hilarious but sometimes I really have to pull back cause they’re genuinely upset. I’ve noticed that I tend to bring out the camera when everyone is in a good mood. I do make some exceptions though.

ADM: is there a particular image or example, or even a story of when you took your camera out, or documented a time when not everyone was in a good mood?

BM: Yeah I've definitely misread situations and made people angry. Especially when using flash. I remember this one time I made my co-worker angry about something and days later in a staff meeting he brought up how I take pictures of them constantly and how I don't ask for permission and how it's rude. He was sour about something work related. I nearly got fired over it but was able to talk my way out of it. I told my boss that I always keep my camera on me and that most of the guys ask for their portraits. Which is true. But I could've been in big trouble.

ADM: In terms of influence, of influences, photographic or otherwise that shaped the project - if so, what and how did it/they play in?

BM: There’s this artist Ramiro Gomez who makes cardboard cut outs of immigrant workers and places them in front of houses in Beverly Hills. His work has been a huge inspiration for me. The idea of making the immigrant worker look like a hero is what attracts me to his work. I hope to convey that in this project somehow. Both of my parents immigrated here from Mexico and I feel like that has something to do with my obsession with telling that narrative through my work.

ADM: Looking a bit forward, how do you think, or now that the main body of work is done, how have you seen, your approach to photography, and life as well (you mention a different outlook on life earlier) has changed?

BM: Photography remains a mysterious process for me. I’d like to think I’ve gotten better at it but the truth is I just shoot randomly and hope a good one comes out. Knowing that the main body of work is done, I feel anxious to start a new project. But I’m definitely overthinking it. I haven’t even bound this book yet! I will say this, I feel much more connected to my co-workers. It’s fun to pull up old photos from 3 years ago and show them how much weight they’ve gained.

ADM: What advice would you give to someone else documenting their non-photographic worksite or a job?

BM: Start with a bit of show and tell. Bring your fancy camera and show it off to your co-workers. See how they react. I'm willing to bet that things will happen naturally and they'll be asking you to take their photos. Do this for a few days then you're known as the "photo" guy at work. For me, It's gotten to the point that when something funny or unusual is happening my co workers run to my office and say "hurry hurry bring the camera!" Over communicate that you have a passion for shooting photos and be respectful about it.

ADM: From Erwin Recinos: What is the most important aspect of photography that you have applied to your daily life?

BM: Anyone who has gone out into this world alone with a camera in their hands knows that there's this intimate presence of mind that happens. It can put you in a flow state and you become present in that very moment. You notice things you never noticed in your neighborhood before, you hear things you've never heard. It not only calms the mind, but it makes you feel more connected to the world around you. I try to carry this with me into other aspects of my life. This is by far the best thing about photography.

ADM: What question do you have for the next photographer? You can answer it yourself if you'd like.

BM: Why is Photography so easy but yet so hard?

ADM: Where can we find and purchase more of your work? Do you have an estimate on when your book will be available?

BM: If all goes well, I'm looking to release the book early next year. Feel free to hit me up on IG my handle is @bra_sann.

ADM: Any parting words or advice?

BM: I love to connect with people who are passionate about photography so please do reach out and say hi. My advice to any photographer is to never ever compare yourself to others. You should never wrap up your self worth in something as vain as likes on a Instagram post. Everyone's on their own path so don't judge yourself too hard. Realize that your work may never be seen or appreciated for many years to come. It may be that your work is never discovered at all so love the process over the results.

Hi, if you’ve read this far, thanks for reading! We hope you’ve enjoyed the article. Normally this is the part where we stump for donations, but we’d like to contribute to the ongoing protests and would urge you to donate via this link-tree instead (this whole block is a link).

Thanks - The Management.

David Gilbert Wright in conversation with Will Hopkins

June 07, 2020 in interview

David Gilbert Wright in conversation with Will Hopkins

I was first introduced to David Gilbert Wright’s work by Simon Tasker (@simonltasker), I believe. I quickly became enchanted by his portraits of life in the United Kingdom, and his Brick Lane series felt timely for the news of the day. Not only did he make technically good exposures, each of his photos captured some intangible humanity, and the projects come together to form a whole greater than the sum of their parts.

This is the first time David is sharing some of this work. Much like Simon Tasker’s newly-shared early work and the unprinted works of Garry Winogrand and Vivian Maier, there is something exciting about old photos that are also new. Of course, he is continuing to produce new work, and being able to view his early photos alongside contemporary projects adds even more dimension to the body as a whole.

I hope you enjoy David’s photos and storytelling as much as I have, and learn something new from a veteran documentarian.

-Will Hopkins

Will Hopkins (WH): Could you please introduce yourself?

David Gilbert Wright (DGW): I am David Gilbert Wright. I am English and I have been a documentary photographer for over 40 years. I first became interested in photography while I was doing a Foundation Course at Art College. Initially, I wanted to go on and study painting but found that photography was a quicker way of realising my ideas and also a more effective medium in achieving them. So, I went on to study Photography at the prestigious London College of Printing.

WH: What was it like studying Photography at the London College of Printing in the 1970s?

DGW: It was a turbulent time in both the Art world and also in Britain itself. Punk was just beginning and it was really something that had been happening in the Art colleges of England before it hit the mainstream. I was caught up and carried along with it and it was very exciting. We were all searching for ways to be different and break the rules. I realised that, in order to break the rules you had to know them and also be technically very proficient.

I learned about shooting and processing film, which stood me in good stead for the whole of my career. I shoot only film and process and print everything in order to retain control over the final result. Although I post my work on social media platforms and on my website, it is meant to be viewed as prints. Only then do you get the full experience of the the grain texture and size of the result. I don’t consider [myself] a Luddite, more a person deeply involved in achieving the best possible result through my craft.

WH: What equipment do you use?

DGW: Over the years, I have used different cameras depending on the work I was doing. For documentary work, I have generally used 35mm cameras. I used a Pentax KX for many years. Recently, I bought an old, second-hand 1970s Nikon F2. It is a beautiful camera yielding amazing results. During my landscape period I used a Pentax 6x7, and I use that for more formal documentary portraiture as well. I have a darkroom in my home, and like to work alone at my own speed. I have a De-Vere 504 diffuser enlarger. My film preference is Kodak T-Max 400 and Ilford FP4, both processed using standard stock developer and times.

WH: Explain your way of working in the darkroom?

DGW: Making prints is a long, involved process for me because a negative rarely captures everything with the correct tonal values. It stands to reason, the tonal range possible on film is only a hundredth of what it may be in the scene being viewed. So I have to make judgements at the printing stage about what aspects of the image will need work. It is much easier now on a computer but the actual act of manipulating your hands to mask or burn areas of an image and knowing the times involved are what makes the process so enjoyable but also stressful, I might add.

WH: When did you go to Wales to photograph the miners?

DGW: I went to photograph the Welsh miners in 1977. I spent about a week travelling around different mines and villages. I did not shoot much film, preferring to try to see what was happening in front of me and carefully, almost forensically, probe until the right moment arose. At that time, I was not really aware of the need to develop a relationship with the subjects in the way that the great John Collier (Visual Anthropologist) did. Now, I am much more aware of the benefits of inspiring confidence in the people you want to photograph so that they feel at ease and almost forget you are there. It does not reduce the subjectivity of documentary photographs but does allow life to unfold in front of you more readily.

The 1970s had seen a number of strikes by the miners and with the advent of a Conservative Government and Margaret Thatcher, their future looked precarious. Obviously, I was not to know that the miners strike of 1984-5 would become one of the bitterest disputes with the Government, whose aim was to break the power of the unions. However, I could sense something in their faces and that was what I tried to record in my photographs. Looking back on that series, I can see the importance of the photographs as not only historical documents but also as the generation that eventually had to face pit closures, redundancies, mass unemployment and mental health problems. The series only contains around 11 pictures but I believe it contains some of my finest documentary photographs. The other puzzling thing about the series is that it remained unprinted for over 40 years, along with the Brick Lane photographs

WH: When did you take the Brick Lane series?

DGW: It was 1978 and racial tension was rising in Britain. Groups such as the National Front were beginning to express nationalist views, and people were becoming uncomfortable with their message. However, high unemployment, strikes and the formation of ghettoes in the major cities like London, Bradford, Manchester and Leeds provided breeding grounds for racism. I was not aware at the time how important my photographs would become as historical records of the way local people were being subjected to hatred campaigns as they attempted to go about their work. Looking back, I can see now how I captured the signs of stress, poverty and courage of the people living in what was the semi-industrial area of the East-End. I spent a couple of weeks photographing in the area. Later, in 1980, I had to commute on a motorbike through a part of South London. The hatred had spread to that area and this time it manifested as violence and destruction with shops and cars being set on fire at night, windows smashed and gangs at each others’ throats. A scary time for many. If only, we had all seen the signs and acted more quickly in the late 1970s.

PC: David Gilbert Wright (Disappearing Ireland)

WH: You went on to do a series of photographs in Ireland. What was that about?

DGW: The family had their roots in a small hamlet called Knockgarra, Co.Galway. They were a rural people like many in the area. I began the project in the 1980s with the idea of documenting the farming communities of Western Ireland to show my children something about their heritage. Quickly, it became clear that things were changing and ways of life were disappearing. So I continued the project for many years. It spanned two decades and is made up of around 45 photographs that explore the themes of family, religion, childhood, farming, commerce, culture and age. I started to work on building relationships with the people who I was photographing by getting their stories. Usually this happened prior to them agreeing to let me take their picture and through the conversations we had as I photographed them. The series is organised into a narrative story and became my response to how external finance and influence had impacted on a way of life.

WH: Do you work as a photographer now?

DGW: My career has involved me working in a number of photographic roles including a film processor, a studio assistant, a wedding photographer, a medical photographer and free-lance. I also spent many years as a Photography Lecturer. I no longer do commissions or lecturing, working solely on my own projects.

My experience as an Art School student and then as a photography lecturer was to learn and teach photography was best done through projects. Even training to be a photojournalist, as assignments are projects of a kind. Finding a subject and then spending time exploring it photographically and getting to know the people and their stories yields much more interesting results than simply taking pictures of anything and everything. People just setting out as photographers might consider this as it is how many of the great photographers of the past have worked.

PC: David Gilbert Wright (Modern Tribes of England)

WH: With that in mind, what photographers have influenced you most?

DGW: Jaques Henri L’Artigue for his ability to capture everyday life. Cartier Bresson for his "decisive moment" approach, Bill Brandt for the beauty of his prints, Don McCullin for his representation of the Industrial North and Homer Sykes for his ability to find the quirkiness in our English folk festivals.

WH: What are you working on now?

DGW: I am engaged in two projects - Modern Tribes of England and Survivors. The Modern Tribes project is a large undertaking and will probably take many years to complete. It is based on the idea that people naturally join groups and membership of them can improve their sense of wellbeing. There has been a lot of research around this especially in New Zealand. Having a social network to support you and fall back on during difficult times leads to a greater feeling of well-being. It stands to reason. Human beings are social animals and form communities. The groups I have been documenting over the past two years include Morris, Re-Enactors, Pagans, Railway Enthusiasts, Urban Agriculturalists and Climate-Change Activists. Prior to the Pandemic, I was about to begin photographing Goths. My approach is an anthropological one involving getting to know the group members and gaining their trust so they almost forget I am there photographing them. An interesting thing about doing this is that many of the groups have got so used to me being around that they have asked whether I am actually going to join and become a Morris dancer or a Climate-Change Activist. However, my job is to document the groups not to join them.

The other project - Survivors is about people who have experienced serious trauma in their lives and have got through it and grown in wisdom and resilience. It is about the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. The idea has its origins in my own experience. I am a survivor of a stroke and a heart operation. Photography has become my saving grace and enabled me to grow stronger. So, I set out to find people with interesting stories that they wanted to share. I record and transcribe their stories word-for-word. We then work collaboratively to design a portrait. My expectation is that once I have about twenty stories and portraits I will exhibit the work and publish them in a book. The project includes stories such as a medic who served in the Vietnam war, a man pulled under a train and had an outer body experience, a woman whose Aunt, Mum, Dad and husband all died within two years and a young refugee from the war in Yugoslavia. This project has brought me into contact with some incredible individuals. Ordinary people with extraordinary lives.

WH: Do you currently teach?

DGW: No, I don’t teach at the moment as I am working on my own work that consumes all my time.

WH: Have you tried Morris dancing?

DGW: No, I have never tried Morris dancing but been tempted. Maybe one day.

WH: Where do you hope photography as a field will go in the future? Professional photography today looks very different from even just a decade ago. How do you think it might change going forward?

DGW: Professional photography now and in the future seems to have very little room for 'thinking photographers'. News is dominated by moving pictures. Journalists seem to take their own photos. The only places that appear open are social photography, e.g. weddings, school portraits, fashion and advertising. In effect, the commercial aspects that pay for high quality results.

Going forward, photography of my kind will become commodities into high value prints that collectors buy. Alternatively, it will be a space occupied by serious photographers who are not in it for the money. They want to tell stories and express themselves artistically.

WH: From J. Han: If you practice black and white film photography and use a darkroom to print photos, which photographer's (alive or dead) darkroom would you like to have access to and be able to watch work in their workspace?

DGW: The photographer I would most like to meet and work with in his darkroom would undoubtably be Ansel Adams. He is the master of analogue photography. His approach to printing is inspiring. He likened the printing of a negative to conducting an orchestra. The negative is like the musical score. The musical score can be performed in many different ways depending on how the conductor interprets it. Likewise, a negative can be printed in many ways depending on what the printer wishes to accentuate. So for me, the printing stage can be a highly creative experience and to be in Ansel Adams’ darkroom using his equipment and even being guided by him would be exhilarating.

WH: What question do you have for the next photographer? You can answer it yourself if you’d like.

DGW: If you could travel back in time, which photographer from history would you most like to interview for this magazine, and why?

ED: To find more of David's work, you can visit his website Davidwright.photography or on instagram at @davidgilbertwright

Hi, if you’ve read this far, thank you. Normally this is where we’d stump for money but, in light of the ongoing protests, we’d like to encourage you to donate to a cause supporting them instead. This whole block is a link to a link tree of resources.

Thanks,

The Management.

Becoming an American: Adrian Otero Vila (AOWS)

May 10, 2020 in interview

Becoming an American: Adrian Otero Vila (AOWS)

Andrew D. McClees (ADM): For those who aren't familiar with you, or your photographic work could you please introduce yourself, and give a quick overview of your work?

Adrian Otero Vila (AOV): I'm Adrian, a Spanish-American full-time photographer. I create black and white images of scenes that leave me in awe, with this work I try to pass along that same emotion to whoever is looking.

ADM: In your preliminary description you state that "Becoming an American" is, in broad strokes about your personal experience picking up and moving to America from Europe - What did you find was your experience moving to america, and how do you find that that experience was documented or captured in your photographs?

AOV: America is so present in our culture that I think most people (from other countries) have some preconceptions about it before even setting foot here. That included me when I moved to the US a few years ago. I had an idea of what I was going to find, and for a little bit, it was pretty accurate. It wasn't until I moved to Oregon that I discovered "the West". There, and away from everything and everyone I knew, I found freedom and peace. Those vast and remote landscapes gave me a sense of loneliness I never knew I needed. The rainforest of Washington, the coast of Oregon, the magnificence of the Rockies in Montana, the deserts of the SW... they were so incredible that I couldn't help it but to capture what I was seeing. At this early stage in my photography, I had no idea what to do with those images besides sharing them with family and friends, and later on Instagram. I felt I had to do it, though, and that created the spark that made me quit my job and become a full-time photographer. Those images are now part of my new book, "Becoming an American", and together, they tell my story, what I saw and the places and experiences that made me who I am today (for better or for worse).

ADM: Per your description, this book is a private photodiary, not initially meant for public consumption - what was the impetus to release the book to the public?

AOV: Over the years, I realized that the most rewarding aspect of sharing my photography is that many people find it inspiring, and it helps them in their own creative journey.

With "Becoming an American", I wanted to share what's behind my photography, a window to a period of my life that changed so much. Hopefully, it will inspire others not only to share their journey, but to embark themselves in a similar adventure.

ADM: Following that up, what was the assembly of the book like for you? Was there a specific "click" moment when the book came together for you while selecting images for it? or did you know from the outset the book would take a specific sequence or form (even if it may not initially have been aimed at the public)?

AOV: I started working on an initial draft of the book almost 4 years ago, from a selection of around 100 photographs. I laid the book out and actually printed out that first version. I kept looking at it and reorganizing the images for weeks, but I ended up putting the project aside.

I kept taking photographs, and when I felt like one might work for this project, I'd add it to the original selection. I ended up with several hundred photographs. It wasn't until last year when I decided to go through them and came up with a collection of 88 images that finally felt *complete*. Now, I had all the pieces I was missing before.

ADM: When going through the book, you periodically intersperse written narrative or recountings alongside the photos - what was your inspiration for including text, and at what point did you incorporate it? Was it always part of the plan for the book?

AOV: Definitely not. I decided to include them as I was putting the book together. There are almost a hundred images in the book, so I thought that a few breaks in between would be good for the reader / viewer, plus it'd help giving some context to the images.

ADM: Your standard (the majority of what I've seen on your IG) photo aesthetic leans very minimal. Did you find it difficult to work on this, or shoot like this alongside the more minimal work that you're known for?

AOV: Quite the opposite! The snapshots I take help me stay inspired during my photography trips, as I'm always looking for something to capture. I also make videos of my outings, which is much more demanding than these snapshots. I still find them useful for the same reason: to keep my creativity flowing.

ADM: You talk about maintaining a creative flow between your two bodies of work - following that - did you find yourself applying what you learned in this Diary project to your more public work, as you shot it. If so, how, and if not why not?

AOV: I used to be focused on a specific destination: I’d drive or hike somewhere, take a few photos, and head back. Now, I don’t dismiss any location beforehand, I find myself being more aware and paying more attention to everything.

ADM: In your trip around the country, was there a specific turning point for you - and was there a photo accompanying that? I know you note your move to Portland as being a huge step, or the ending point for the trip - but was there any other major turning point prior to the conclusion to the trip?

AOV: The trip to Portland was the beginning of my journey. There was no major turning point per se. In hindsight, I'd say it was on a weekend trip to Utah (and back to Portland) when I realized how beautiful this world is and how much I wanted to capture it. Even though I wasn't fully aware of it at the time.

ADM: What was the inspiration, from the outset, to document your trip alongside the main body of work you produced?

AOV: I take a lot of photos everyday, using whatever camera I might have with me. While my main body of work is my "artistic view of the world", those snapshots are a visual diary of sorts. If I make it to old age, those are the images I'll cherish the most.

ADM: What were your influences, photographic or otherwise on the book?

AOV: It's hard to know what or who influences your work, I didn't think of anyone or anything while working on this book. I can only assume, though, that books of a similar theme and style that I liked in the past influenced me in some way. My favorites are "The Americans", by Robert Frank, "American Prospects", by Joel Sternfeld and "Minutes to Midnight", by Trent Parke.

ADM: What advice would you give for someone making a big life change like you did? And, if they're considering taking on a big photographically driven trip, what other advice would you give alongside that.

AOV: Travel light. I was shooting film exclusively during a 2-month long road trip across the US and brought with me not only gear (2 Bronicas SQ-Ai, 5 lenses, 3 film backs and 100 rolls), but also the chemicals needed for developing and the scanner. I definitely regret doing that.

I brought only my small RX100 cameras on my last road trip, across Germany, Austria and Italy. When the gear gets out of the way, you can focus on what you’re capturing.

About life changes, it depends on someone's specific situation. I’m a big advocate of traveling, I believe that getting out of your environment for a while is a very helpful way to get to know yourself better. But going somewhere else won’t make your current problems go away, so be careful.

Over the last few years, I’ve made some decisions that weren’t necessarily the wisest or safest, but I knew if I didn't go for it, I’d regret it for the rest of my life. So I did.

ADM: By way of Charlie Thom, but directly relevant here - What're you working now, or what are you planning, what's the next project or trip?

AOV: Right now, I should have been photographing Iceland and the UK, but I’m stuck in Spain instead due to the virus situation. Besides those islands, I was planning on doing a lot of hiking in the US this summer and fall, plus shooting some winter scenes in the Midwest. We will see if that can still happen.

For now, I’m going through the thousands of photos from past trips, making some videos for my YouTube channel, working on a couple of zines and a new book.

ADM: What question do you have for the next photographer? you can answer it if you'd like.

AOV: If you could go back in time and stand next to a photographer when they were making an image, which one would it be? For me, that’d be either Koudelka’s image of the dog in the snow, or the photographs of bats and kangaroos from Trent Parke’s “Minutes to Midnight”.

ADM: Thanks for doing the interview! where can people find your work, and purchase copies of the book, as well as your print work?

AOV: Thank you, Andrew! This was fun. My website is the best way to look at my work, and also where the book and prints can be purchased: https://aows.co. I post every day on Instagram (https://instagram.com/aows) and try to upload a couple of videos a week to my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/aowsphotos).

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Coast to Coast: Charlie Thom

May 03, 2020 in interview

Coast to Coast: Charlie Thom

Andrew D. McClees (ADM): For those who may not be familiar with your work, can you please introduce yourself, and give an overview or introduction to your work?

Charlie Thom (CT): I'm Charlie, a 20-year-old film photographer and university student from Sussex, UK. I have a love for old cameras and visiting new places. I like to think my style of shooting is just "photograph whatever comes to mind". I've never seen myself as having a style as such, but every photographer captures their scene in unique ways and I'm no exception. During my gap year in 2019, I tried and travel as many places as I can as cheaply as possible, and it's taken me on some really memorable adventures. I visited a few places, including Chernobyl where I produced the content for my previous zine, The Nuclear Option, and the USA and Canada, where I produced the content for Coast to Coast.

ADM: We're here talking about Coast to Coast today - what's the concept behind the zine, what was the impetus to put it into a book format?

CT: In August 2019 I travelled to North America for 3 weeks visiting 5 coastal cities, my first time alone in a foreign country with a big bag full of snacks, clothes and cameras to keep me company. While I was there, I knew I wanted to have a final product made out of the pictures I took there but wasn't quite sure what form it would take. I find that happens a lot with my zines and books. I go out, focus on the pictures and then worry about presentation and narrative when I get my pictures back. I feel that way, you tend to stress a lot less about all the little details and just enjoy exploring new places.

ADM: What was the image selection process like for Coast to Coast? Did the images create the book, or did you work backwards from your body of photos?

CT: I didn't realise just quite how many pictures I'd taken until I'd got back and stared at the 700+ frames in Lightroom after hours of processing and scanning. I figured it would be a big, big project to make a zine out of, so I was going to wait till the summer to start working on it - that's when the outbreak occurred, and I thought I should finish it now before it got shelved forever. I thinned these pictures down to just over 70 and it had enough pages to be a paperback book, so I went full steam ahead and designed a pdf for a 66 page photobook. My last project, The Nuclear Option, had a text-based narrative that I felt worked really well due to its historical nature and the short time span I took the pictures in. With this one though, there isn't really much to say - I felt if I captioned a whole book just with stories about myself, it wouldn't be about the pictures anymore. The sheer number of pictures also meant I could divide the book into chapters, one for each city I visited. I think this really breaks up the story nicely and gives it a nice narrative without the use of text.

ADM: What was the specific impetus for your trip to North America, what made you choose the destinations you chose; and how does your book tell or document the trip?

CT: There were a few reasons for choosing America as the destination for my travels: I think the sheer scale of everything is something that really drew me in. The massive sprawling cities and eccentric characters really fascinated me. I'd been to the USA a couple of times before with family, but never had a proper chance to explore on my own and go on a proper adventure. The fact that everyone speaks English too is also a huge help. I chose to visit New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver and Seattle because they're some of the continent's biggest most interesting coastal cities. If my budget had been a bit bigger, I would love to have visited New Orleans or Portland (while strictly that isn't a coastal city, I guess West Coast still counts), but I was cutting as many corners as I could and had to let them go. Coast to Coast tells the story through chapters. Each chapter is headed with a scan of a Polaroid with a significant landmark in each city, something I already really wanted to do just so I could put them in my print albums. When I got home, I'd realised those Polaroids would be great to break up the book into specific segments and give the project's narrative a bit more structure. I captured everything else that caught my eye on my 1951 Leica iiif on whatever film I could get my hands on - colour and b&w stocks of various brands, expired film, etc. My friend Italo very generously gave me a big bag of assorted film when I met up with him in New York (Thanks Italo!). I shot a lot of street but also landscapes too if my surroundings allowed it. I tried my best to tell stories with each picture, and I feel each chapter really has its own distinctive, unique flavour.

ADM: Following that up, were there any big moments that stood out to you, or "clicked" the book into place when you finally did sit down in front of your scanner?

CT: I learned a lot of things about the United States and its people/culture throughout the whole of this trip. It was very insightful, almost enlightening, to see how different everything is to how it's portrayed on television. To actually see America in person was truly something special, and the people I met along the way were probably the best part of the whole experience. I also learned a lot about myself, how I overcame problems like having my flight home cancelled while I was there, and having to spend 4 hours on a bus through Compton and arriving at LAX airport covered in bleeding bug bites, or missing my Greyhound bus and hitching a free ride on another bus because the driver was a super cool guy. There always seemed to be solutions to the challenges I faced, and I think I got some really good adventures out of some of them. When I got back from the States, I was going to move into my university halls 2 days after I landed, and I don't think I've ever processed and scanned that much film in such a small span of time in my entire life. I also learned how to create a proper scanning and editing workflow, with this amount of film it's near impossible to sort through all the pictures and pick out the best images unless you have a good workflow setup.

ADM: What did you learn, either about your trip, or your photography while editing the book?

ADM: In terms of influence - what would you say your biggest influences on the project were, photographic or otherwise?

CT: Inspiration came from a wide variety of people for this one! I drew influence from a few great zines I have such as Useful Idiocy by Jules Le Moal, Reason for Visit by Nicolas Hagen, Enter Barcelona by Nigel Allison/unevenedits and Zoeld by Illia Popovich, as well as a few others. I also drew inspiration from a few of the classic American photographers of the 20th century: Robert Frank, W. Eugene Smith etc. I also got a lot of advice and second opinions during the production of the book from close friends and fellow photographers, which I'm eternally grateful for!

ADM: I find it a really interesting choice that all of the images are titled, what prompted you to title all your images, and was it difficult to title them?

CT: I've always had a fascination with titles - while I made the choice not to write out all my stories and experiences and focus more on presenting the pictures themselves, I still wanted to give the viewer my own impression of the picture to give it a bit of a personal touch. Another reason I added a black stroke and title on the images was to make the book feel like a miniature gallery. I based most of the captions for the pictures off my Instagram posts, but I changed some of them if they didn't fit the frame well. Presentation to me is one of the biggest parts of producing a zine or book, and I wanted it to feel a bit fancier than my previous works. You'll notice there isn't a single double page spread. While there were pictures I really wanted to print nice and big, I felt it wouldn't be doing them justice if a large portion of the frame was lost to the fold.

ADM: For someone on the fence about making a big, multi stop trip, in a very unfamiliar place - as well as documenting it - what advice would you give?

CT: Don't stress too much! It's not an adventure if you aren't lost. Try not to plan every last detail, just make sure you can get to and from your destination(s), have a place to stay, and have enough money in case anything goes wrong. The best adventures I had on this trip weren't planned, they just happened as I was out exploring the area. It was quite daunting at first when I was planning everything, but once I had everything booked it was really easy from there.

ADM: From Sadie Rose Bailey by way of Sam Lloyd: What other creative outlets do you pursue? And what does it bring you that photography doesn’t?

CT: I really don't have any other creative outlets! I can't draw or play any instruments, my co-ordination is absolutely terrible. I adore photographing bands though. I think being able to photograph a band is the next best thing to being in one. I'm doing a Media Production degree at the moment so I do have some video/audio production experience, and I know my way around photoshop. I also collect records and have a Hi-Fi setup in my bedroom, which has become the saviour of my quarantine lifestyle at the moment.

ADM: What question do you have for the next photographer? You can answer your own question if you'd like.

CT: Do you have any projects planned after this one? Spill the beans! If this lockdown ends before the summer and I can get a decent amount of shifts before the summer, I really want to travel Scandanavia, especially Norway and Finland.

ADM: Where can people see your work, and purchase your zine?

CT: You can find me on Instagram @charliethom_ or on Facebook at @charliethomphoto. My zine is available through my Etsy shop, a link is available through my Instagram bio. You can also search "charliethom" on Etsy and find my shop that way too.

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PARADISE: Sam Lloyd

April 26, 2020 in interview

PARADISE: Sam Lloyd

Andrew D. McClees (ADM): For those who aren't familiar with you, can you introduce yourself, and your work?

Sam Lloyd (SL): My name is Sam, I'm a tattooer and student of photography in Portsmouth. I shoot both 35 and medium format.

ADM: What's the guiding concept behind Paradise?

SL: The fundamental concept behind Paradise is memory. It's a visual response to growing up in a pretty mundane suburb, as I'm sure many of us did.

ADM: Did you end up finding out anything about your childhood, or the suburban lifestyle through the process of making your zine? How does memory or nostalgia play into what you photographed vs. what you thought you would photograph at the outset of the project?

SL: So the walk is from my Mums house to my friend Gregs house, from the ages of 11-17 this was the longest walk me and friends would have to make at that time. Now it doesn't seem such a tall order, but that's why I chose this route.

On one of my walks photographing for the zine I had Greg with me and we and we discussed in great length what had changed and what remained, who from the past lived where and other places we would frequent as kids. Looking back over the photos in the zine it definitely didn't occur to me (and my memory) just how mundane the backdrop to my childhood was. I guess if you're having a good time with your friends you could be anywhere. Saying that, I did come across a lot of odd and misplaced things!

The main element of memory/nostalgia in the zine is the sequence of the walk. I like that the relevance of it all is only really known to me. I must admit when I came on to this idea I was pretty set on how I would conduct it, but I haven't been back there in a few years so I had no preconceptions on what I would shoot and how.

ADM: What got you into the zine or book format?

SL: I'm an avid collector of books and previously made a DIY zine showcasing my creative peers. When they announced the "quarantine" or what ever I just got busy and finalised the project, I thought it might be nice to share something with my friends while they're stuck inside.

ADM: Interesting - what would you say your favorite or most influential books have been (photographic or otherwise), and why?

SL: 10 years ago or so I was really into collecting the free copies of Vice magazine that you'd find in selected stores, they were pretty eye opening as to what kinds of photography went to print and who was out there. It was obviously unlike anything I had been shown at A level in college. As for favourite books, that's tough, but i'd have to say Roger Ballen. I have a few of his now and I just love how he incorporates illustration, sculpture, portraiture and chaos!

ADM: What was the shooting and image selection process like for Paradise?

SL: I took out a Hasselblad with trusty HP5 an retraced a walk I commonly made as child, I needed to structure my ideas and this seemed like a fitting ritual to follow for my project. The images you find on full bleed in the zine are from a roll I put through a Holga circa 2008/9, I couldn't believe my luck when I came across the negatives and it was a really nice touch to the sequence.

ADM: Going from Holga to Hasselblad is quite a stretch - how do you think working with toy cameras influenced your image-making, and can you speak a little more on how contrasting the holga images from over ten years ago played into the zine? I find it interesting because a lot of the holga images center on your friends rather than the topographics you lived in.

SL: That does sound like a stretch put like that! I've never been too precious about what camera/film combo i'm using, I was an avid car boot sale raider as a kid and bought anything I found that wasn't already home. I strongly believe anyone can make a thoughtful image with any camera. I've recently come across a few people shooting Holga still with amazing result!

The Holga images I came across clearing out my spare room and I'm glad I did. My initial idea was to respond to a rather large instax collection I have amounted from that same period of time. I wanted the reader to encounter them along this this walk I had put together as they were flash backs. I wasn't really happy with how the instax sat with my photographs, so when I found the negs in black and white and square format I really lucked out, not to mention they also captured Greg and his brother whom lived at the end of my walk.

I chose only the photos from the roll that featured people so they had some kind of continuity on their own.

ADM: Also re: the layout - what prompted you to set it up so that the modern images are plainly laid out, with plenty of buffer against the holga images which are full bleed? is there a deeper significance to that?

SL: I wanted it to be obvious and quite abrupt that you are encountering a "flash back" or something from the past to break up the sequence a bit, so the full bleed was to enhance that abrasion and difference. I left a lot of white space and one image to a spread to encourage the reader to take their time with each image, like a slow walk or something.

ADM: What did you learn, putting the Paradise zine together - is there anything you'd do differently on the next zine?

SL: I think I had it pretty easy with this particular project due to nature of the sequence being a walk, but it was a learning curve curating a single body of work opposed to my previous zines which were collaborative!

In regards to doing things differently in the future, I would like to play with different layouts and sequences. Not because I'm unhappy with anything in Paradise, but it's nice to have a new challenge!

ADM: When you talk about growing up in the suburbs - is there a particular memory that you're trying to communicate to the reader - or like a specific piece of nostalgia that might escape the viewer?

SL: I honestly don't have an agenda with this. It's very much "my truth" and more of a shared experience with the reader. I guess it just is what it is to some extent, to some it might be relatable and others a window into another way of life.

ADM: From Sadie Rose Bailey - what other creative outlets do you pursue? And what does it bring you that photography doesn’t?

With tattooing i'm constantly drawing drawing, so in many ways photography is my outlet from that. I'm currently painting a lot of flash and have been playing with cyanotype printing. I'm quite lucky to have a close friend who enjoys artsy stuff too, so we're always playing with new mediums, chasing the next high!

ADM: What question do you have for the next photographer? You can answer it yourself if you'd like.

SL: I think you should carry that last question over, is that allowed? I'd be interested to know what other stuff camera nerds were into!

ADM: Sure, I can let that question ride! Where can we see your more of your work, and order copies of Paradise (if there are any left?)

SL: So my photography is at @fortyeighteighteen on Instagram, I have not deemed myself worthy of website just yet. Copies of the zine are on acidbathvampire.bigcartel.com where you pick up some of my paintings and prints also. I will be ordering another batch of zines this weeks, I had no idea people would actually buy them!

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SMALL ABYSS: Chris San Nicolas

March 22, 2020 in interview

SMALL ABYSS: Chris San Nicolas

Andrew D. McClees (ADM): For those who aren't familiar with you or your work, can you introduce yourself and give an overview?

Chris San Nicolas (CSN): Hello, I'm Chris. I'm 26 years old, I live in Long Beach, CA, and I've been practicing photography for about 4 years. I started off bringing disposable cameras on trips and eventually grabbed my own 35mm camera, and it's been a steady and constant progression since then. I shoot a mix of street photography, landscape, and occasionally portraits. I don't shoot with an end goal or a specific photo in mind, I take photos as I go about living my life. I see all of the work as autobiographical in nature - with an overarching desire to represent life honestly, as I see it.

ADM: What was the impetus to put together and publish Small Abyss - also will it be a series - there is a "1" on the spine? A bit of an aside - I thought it was really cool how you used the frame marker 1 for that.

CSN: I made a small zine a year into my start with photography and wanted to make another that was more representative of the work I've been making the past 3 years. Since it spanned a longer period of time and I wanted it to be more complex - physically and conceptually - I decided on a small book. In actuality I've been wanting to make a book for a long time, but around November of 2019 I finally thought up a concept that I believed served as an appropriate and interesting vehicle for this period of work.

I don't intend Small Abyss itself to be a series, but the next book/large zine project will have a frame marker for 2 on it - so more of a numbering system for main projects. Thanks, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't partially get the idea from the cover of that Forte Collab Zine you curated a while back.

ADM: I know that the project, while definitely focused, and the photos are well chosen for it - is compiled from photos taken over the last three years - what was the selection process like? Did you find yourself taking more from a specific time period, or end up using more recent photos over older ones?

CSN: The project developed backwards in a way, with the title coming first and being the impetus for the whole project. I knew I wanted to make a large-ish cumulative project but a subject or theme didn't jump out at me just by looking through my photo archives, nor did a project based on one subject or type of photograph particularly interest me. When I was taking the first steps into the project (still unnamed) I was thinking a lot about how individuals perceive reality - how no one's personal experience can perfectly match up with another's, even if they experience the same events. That thought thread led to the title Small Abyss which (though it has many meanings) is a rebuttal to the line "No man is an island" from John Donne's Devotions Upon Emergent Occassions.

I let those competing ideas inform my selections as I looked through all the b&w work I've made since 2016. Since the theme was an exploration of an idea rather than a physical object or space or specific story, I was able to be creative in what photos I chose. I also wanted the interplay between the photos to be an integral part of the project, so I (painstakingly) cut a few of my favorite photographs I've made from the project because it didn't fit the theme or fit well with the photos in the project that did. I ended up choosing more recent photos than older but that's mostly because I took more pictures in 2019 than any other year. I printed ~200 photos in 4"x6" and taped them to my wall and let the layout create itself in a way. I knew I wanted the majority of the spreads to have one photo on the left and one on the right and function as pairs - one of the ways the photos interplay with each other. I also realized halfway through that I wanted there to be a progression that made sense with how the project exists as a book (which made me go back and change a lot of the pairings). I used this framework to guide the actual layout. It was a really iterative and organic process and though it was really fun, it was also frustrating and took a long time.

ADM: In response to how you Assembled the zine: Did you hand print all the 4x6 prints? Also how did you come up with that process of putting the photos on the wall, and constructing your pairs from there - and how do you think that shaped your process rather than doing the process via sorting on a computer, or straight into a layout program?

CSN: No I used CVS for convenience and cost. I wasn't concerned with quality for these prints because they were more an intermediate form of the project. I've always been a fan of tactile processes, so I'm not sure that I can pinpoint a moment where I thought of using a wall. I think it's always made sense and been an aspiration for as long as I wanted to make a book of photographs. The final product was majorly influenced by this process. I had this birds-eye view of the whole project where every loose connection or interesting interplay would draw my eye like the movements of small critters in a large grassy field. When I saw these connections, I could immediately move the photos next to each other, replace one of them with another that works but in a different way, compare them to other pairings and so on with a speed and physicality that I don't know how to reproduce with a digital process. Screens are only so big and there's a trade-off between scope (how many elements you can see at at once) and detail (how clearly you can see each element) which are largely eliminated if you have a wall, prints, and mobility. Maybe I don't know how to use digital tools effectively enough, but I can never experiment as quickly on a computer with the mixing and matching described above and I had the added benefit of seeing the physicality of the photographs. With the goal being a book, this was invaluable. A lot of these frames I had only seen as scans on a screen and I was surprised by how many photographs that I had enjoyed initially, did not hold up when printed.

ADM: The book contains a fairly intricate balance of landscapes (vernacular and traditional) with intimate portraits, and candid glimpses into other lives - how did you strike this balance this, and is there a particular significance to it?

CSN: As I mentioned before, an overarching goal for my photography is to represent life genuinely and I wanted this project to embody all the varied experiences in life. I used the balance of all of these kinds of photos as a way to do that. To reinforce this, I jumped around in scale a lot, for example going immediately from a close up of something tiny to a large sweeping landscape. And though the project doesn't stick to a single type of photo, there's a lot of repetition but also contrast in motifs throughout. A lot of the spreads present two similar things in different ways or two very different things in similar ways - like some kind of oxymoron. This ordered chaos is how I see life and I hope that feeling comes across.

ADM: Was there a particular moment or photo, or even pair of photos - that the overall concept "clicked" into focus for you?

CSN: It wasn't with the photos that the concept clicked. There were two breakthrough points for me. The first was when I wrote the first draft of the poem (or 3 poems depending on how you look at it) in the beginning of the book. I had even used the phrase "No man is an island" in that first draft, which was taken out later.

The second breakthrough was when I was deciding on the overall structure of the book. Initially I wanted the book to be able to be read left to right (normally) as well as outside-in, where you'd start with the inside covers and turn a page on each side in until you reached the middle spread. The idea was for these outside-in "spreads" would work as mirrors or opposites of each other. The main gripe I had was that people don't read books like that and if I'm doing something that weird, it has to reinforce or add to the concept in a meaningful way. I scrapped the idea and played around with a few more related ideas until deciding on one. The final layout has a sense of progression that works with the experience of reading a book and how the photos are presented.

ADM: Going back to the zine being a focused anthology, what would you say your key influences were for it - photographic, or otherwise?

CSN: Presentation-wise, I took a lot of cues from Japanese photography from the 60's and 70's. A Hunter by Daido Moriyama and the Asahi Camera publications come to mind. Both often featured full bleeds on their two page spreads as well as their multi-photo spreads. Another influence was Rap/Hip-Hop which I have only recently started exploring. I've always enjoyed wordplay and turns of phrase. I especially like when someone pivots, talking about a whole new topic based on a double meaning of a single word from the previous line. I wanted the progression of photographs in the book to feel like a series of pivots or turns in phrase maybe even audio samples taken from diverse sources but meshed into the narrative I was trying to create.

ADM: In terms of takeaway, what did you notice about your work, and by extension, about how you and your vision changed over the three year period?

CSN: The biggest takeaway I had was realizing how much of my work had been guided by my subconscious, the same subconscious that attached to the concept of Small Abyss Vs No Man Is An Island. I feel like this idea has always been in the back of my head and after these 3ish years of it quietly guiding my intuition as I made photographs, it finally bubbled to the surface and I had enough work to express it in a satisfactory way. But now that the cat's out of the bag, it's something I feel like I'll always be conscious of and because of that I'm not sure if I'll keep making work like this going forward. This project feels like a bookend, at least for the last few months it has. I haven't been shooting nearly as much once I started making the book and I think it's because I want to tackle a different problem with a different artistic language or medium. I'd say the biggest realization is that I was always working towards something like this and now, at least until I'm no longer burned out on this work, it's time for something new.

ADM: Now that you've wrapped up Small Abyss, what can we look forward to in the future?

CSN: I honestly couldn't say. I'm still taking pictures, just not as frenzied as before. Definitely more photography, probably less exclusive b&w 35mm film work. The project has definitely made me want to do more physical projects. Now that I have the large overarching project done, I've given myself permission, I guess, to do smaller, more niche projects possibly with a more mixed media approach.

ADM: Would you say after this project your working process has changed? if so how, if not why not?

CSN: I'd say it has definitely slowed down. I've been putting a lot of energy into finishing the book and have been shooting less. I hope I'll eventually get back into a groove where I'm shooting at least a roll a week. I think I'll have to start making smaller projects with goals in mind or define more explicit long term projects instead of idly shooting.

ADM: What advice would you give for someone looking to put together a retrospective of their work, especially one covering as much material as yours does?

CSN: Have a concept or theme that you can dig into and also have enough work to fulfill it. Make sure to overview all your work, there might be stuff you forgot about that will work really well. Keep asking yourself questions and don't get married to any one idea.

ADM: Do you have any parting words? Also where can we pick up copies of Small Abyss and see more of your work - I know you do print on demand - both darkroom and inkjet.

CSN: Just stay safe and sane and healthy. Small Abyss will be available on my website www.chrisnicpics.com or through DM via ig at @chrisnicpics. You can also see my work on my website and ig. I do, I'm still figuring it out more consistent print sales but if you follow me on either platform, I'll let you all know on there. Thanks again for doing this interview with me and promoting the project, Andrew. Really appreciate all the stuff you do for the community!

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