street

Lost Angels: Andrei Amodia

June 19, 2021 in interview

Lost Angels: Andrei Amodia

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

Andrei Amodia (AA): My name is Andrei Amodia, I was born in the Philippines, and my family moved to LA in 1994; Since then, I go back and forth from LA and the Philippines. I was first introduced to photography in 2004, when a coworker of mine at Kip’s Toyland brought his camera with him to work, and my love for photography was ignited [by that interaction].

ADM: We're talking about Lost Angels - which is a book/zine of street photographs set in Los Angeles - is there a particular focus to the book (in your own words), and did you come up with the title or concept, before the photographs?

AA: The focus for this book is very simple - I just want to show my families and friends in the Philippines what America looks like from my point of view. At first I [shot] black and white but I thought color would show more detail and information for my family and friends to see - so I switched to color around 2014. I shot bnw from 2006-2010, though I did not do any photography 2011 - to early 2014. I came up with the title after the photographs - I am sure other people have used "Lost Angels" but I can’t think of any better title. The reason why I titled it Lost Angels is because I imagine people living in the city of angels (Los Angeles) are angels but none of us are doing any angelic stuff; so we are all “lost angels.”

ADM: What is the inspiration for the project, or this particular body of work?

AA: I can't really say I have an inspiration for this project because I was not really doing a project. Over the years as I have collected more photos I started to see something that could be put together into a book; but what really pushed me to make one is that I am in a situation that I don’t want to photograph anymore, unless I make a book/zine. In order for me to move forward and photograph the book/zine has to be done.

ADM: So looking forward, what do you think your next project will be, or will be about, now that you're committing to making books/zines as the core of your practice?

AA: There is a part 2 to My Lost Angels project - maybe 3 even, but I am planning to make a Photobook/zine for my Philippines photographs that I made late 2008- late 2010 before proceeding to the 2nd part of my Lost Angels photobook/zine project. There are other projects I want to put out such as the Black Queen project (portraits of black women) which is almost ready. [Another project in progress is] the torn faces project - these are posters of politicians that they posted during the election but did not take them down after, so the posters have deteriorated and made the faces look deformed - somehow this represents how corrupt they are in our country. These are just some [projects] that I have in my plans.

ADM: Oh fascinating - what makes the (potential) part 2 + 3 different from part one, or what did you get out of part one that you're using/approaching your subsequent projects with?

AA: It is not going to be totally different. It is most likely going to be a continuation of the first one - In part 1 it has 5 chapters and I had people write on a yellow paper what they can say about LA and added that to the book as a beginning to each chapter and, next to it photos of police doing their thing - Maybe I am going to do more of this in part 2 -- having people write. In each chapter I sequenced the photographs in a way so it will tell a short story, at least to me. So I think sequencing photographs to tell a short story in each chapter is what I learned or got from part 1. After reviewing some of the photographs that I didn’t use in part 1, that can stand on their own, I realized that they can be put together and make more short stories and put into a book/zine -- Short stories probably only I can understand. But it gives me guidance on how to arrange the photos.

ADM: What was your image selection process like for Lost Angels? And how did you sequence your book?

AA: I am not a very technical photographer - same goes when I am selecting images. I just select the ones that really stand out at the time of selection until I get to 60 images - then I group the ones that are kind of similar and sequence them in a way to make a really short story. This way, the sequencing of the images looks organized.

ADM: When you're out shooting (for this book, or otherwise) is there anything you think about, or focus on? A process?

AA: When I go out I don’t really think about making photographs - I have my camera with me all the time - even during those years I didn't really take any photographs (2010-2014.) I just go out and let the world happen and if I react to something that is the only time I think about really photographing until I am done with it. It could be street portraits, cityscapes, or landscapes, - even cars.

There are times I need motivation or a little push; that is when I tell myself I am focusing on portraits or landscape etc etc just to get me going. And I will tackle whatever I am planning to do that day, but I never say today I will do street photography for some reason - I guess that is my focus and process at the same time.

ADM: What specifically is it about the book form that you find suits your work?

AA: I did not really put a lot of thought [into] the book form - I just wanted something that is larger than a 5x7, and affordable to me and to whoever is interested.

ADM: If there were one image, or maybe even five images that were absolutely essential to understanding the book, or in this case that you'd show your family and friends in the Philippines to explain, which one would it be, and why?

AA: In the Philippines we think of America as this Glitz and Glamour world and it is as we see it through Hollywood movies. So I moved close to DTLA to capture the opposite of that and that is what I want to show them. If I were to pick an image or two, it would be the first image of the book, where two men giving the finger to the police and the police are waving back at them and the image on page 41 - a photographer taking a picture of a model while they are both on the ground and to the side there is a man digging in the trash and in the background there is a movie set a group of police cars on a car carrier.

AA: this image here [below] would probably explain a lot about Cebu, Philippines. We are a very Catholic country, and I believe the only country that doesn’t have a divorce law besides the Vatican City, because of our religion.

ADM: In terms of influence, are there any photographers or other artists who have influenced or shaped your work, either in your process or the photos you like to make?

AA: Yes, Henri Cartier Bresson has had a huge impact in how I work and so has Garry Winogrand. Richard Avedon and Diane Arbus also are a big part of my growth as a photographer. The most recent is Martin Parr -- Their photographs don’t really influence me (maybe a little) but their words, and how they work, influence me the most.

ADM: Do you have any specific favorite or influential Photobooks? Or have you mostly been working from your own template?

AA: There is a HCB book, and Garry Winogrand book (I do not remember the titles -- I have them in the Philippines and have not checked them since 2010.) I think these are very influential to how I photograph, and how I selected photos for the book - but the way I arranged the book I copied what Robert Frank said when he was doing the Americans.

ADM: What advice would you give to someone just starting out in street photography, or looking to document their surroundings? Is there any stand out piece of advice you've gotten or have found in your practice?

AA: I have not gotten any advice from anyone - photography has always been a solo thing for me. I mostly learned what I know from what I read about other well known photographers of the past. All I can say is if you want to do street photography, or any type of photography, is to just do it. Immerse [yourself] in all of the information [you] can gather and apply it. Eventually [you’ll] find [your] own way of photographing. But you got to have passion and obsession to actually grow as a photographer - without it you will not go anywhere.

ADM: From Al Palmer (of Brown Owl Press): What was the biggest single turning point for you as an artist?

AA: When I decided to leave black and white and just do color - it took some time for the transition to happen. That was the biggest turning point for me. I believe my thinking process changed when I switched to color - it is more open to more possibilities. Although I do just color now, color is not a deciding factor for me to take a photograph.

ADM: Where can we pick up copies of Lost Angels? and do you have any other parting words/shoutouts?

AA: Lost Angels is a self-published book of mine - I am not looking for anything big to come out from it. Right now direct messaging me in my instagram (@andreiamodia) or facebook is the only way to get a copy.

The Public Work: Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin

June 28, 2020 in interview

The Public Work: Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin

Andrew D. McClees (ADM): Hi Kwasi, thanks for doing the interview! For those who may not be familiar with you or your work, could you introduce yourself, and give us an overview?

Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin (KBB): My name is Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin and I’m a photographer from Los Angeles. I primarily shoot documentary landscape and street photography with an emphasis on underrepresented neighborhoods. I was born in Brooklyn, New York but have lived in L.A. since I was 2 years old, I grew up moving between Hollywood, East Hollywood, and Mid City, those are also the neighborhoods I tend to photograph most.

ADM: You're launching a site called "The Public Work" and leading with an essay/body of work with Erwin Recinos called "Neighborhood Quarantine." In which you're shooting the color/digital images, while Erwin shoots the BnW images on film. What was the impetus to start the website and how did the new collaborative body of work start?

KBB: I started The Public Work at the beginning of the year as a home for my street photography essays. It was inspired by the role I think that photography can play in documenting life from street level. Once the pandemic hit the city I began to use it as a platform to share what it was like in some of the neighborhoods that didn’t make the news.

Erwin is one of my oldest friends and I’ve collaborated with him on several projects over the past decade such as our old photography collective Snapshot Galleria (with Luis Torres) and multiple zine collaborations. I reached out to him for the Neighborhood Quarantine essay because I saw the work that he was making and thought that it would work well with some of mine.

ADM: When you're working collaboratively, do you notice your workflow change, or at the very least what you're drawn to shoot, in relation to the other contributor's work?

KBB: My workflow doesn’t really change. Unless I’m on a professional assignment, I shoot the same things wherever I go. The great thing about working with Erwin (and others I have collaborated with in the past) is that our work just fits. We often just settle on a theme and interpret it on our own. It involves a lot of trust but the results speak for themselves.

ADM: Stepping back, more generally, what's your working practice like - you seem to split your chops between topographics work and traditional street photography - what gets you out to shoot, and what are you looking for when you're out on the street shooting?

KBB: The goal of my photography has always been to accurately portray life in the city as I see it. When I first started out, I focused exclusively on urban landscape but in the past few years I’ve incorporated traditional street photography into my work. I find that the combination of the two styles allows me to document neighborhoods with more clarity. I’m attracted to scenes and moments that often go unnoticed during the course of our daily lives.

ADM: Was there a particular moment or project that prompted the step into more traditional street photography - you mention that blending both styles gives you a better insight into the neighborhoods you document?

KBB: In 2018 I was accepted into and attended the New York Times portfolio review. The day after the review, I had a day to explore the city on my own and I decided to experiment a bit with street photography. That was really when the seed was planted and I saw the potential in combining it more purposefully with my landscape work. I had experimented with "traditional" street photography for years prior to this but I never made the effort to integrate that approach with my professional body of work. Something just clicked that week in New York and I've been moving forward ever since.

ADM: (If you'll allow me to pivot a bit) in the last couple of weeks I've noticed you've put up a couple more essays, and (on instagram as well) have added the new essay "Hindsight (2020)" about the turmoil 2020 has brought so far - and how Los Angeles (and Angelenos) have resiliently responded. What do you think are the key images to understanding Hindsight, and why those images?

KBB: The Hindsight essay is the result of me just realizing how insane this year had been in L.A. It has really been difficult to process it all so I tried to present it plainly for the viewer. It starts out in the beginning of the year when, like many of us, I was filled with optimism about 2020. The Kobe Bryant tragedy hit Los Angeles really hard and personally, that was tough. I wanted to show a bit of how the city came together to celebrate his life, not just through official means but also on the street. The quarantine and BLM protest movement have continued to reshape life in the city. The main goal of the essay was to show a bit of what all of these events were like here.

ADM: Typically when you're creating your own personal projects is there something that inspires you to create them or put them together - in your intro you mention underrepresented neighborhoods, but is there any other particular draw or inspiration that runs through your work? Also do you find yourself going out and creating projects from the outset, or assembling them once you start to see common threads in your pool of photos?

KBB: Exploring neighborhoods is the core motivation for my photographic work. The focus on underrepresented neighborhoods is because I grew up in several of them. The places I explored in my childhood were never properly shown or woven into the popular narrative about Los Angeles. This disconnect is what inspired me to photograph them in the first place. I'm drawn to photographing details that are both inconspicuous and indicative of the space. Ideas for projects often occur to me when I am out shooting or after I'm done. The only really planning I do at the outset is deciding location, everything else just flows as I take pictures. I also constantly go over my archives. Time is one of the most important aspects of photography and pictures often gain relevance with it's passage.

ADM: You mention a predilection for "photographing details that are both inconspicuous and indicative of the space." Could you give some examples - either as photos or like a description of what those details might be?

KBB: What I mean by that is I try not to be flashy in selecting subject matter to photograph. I find that the elements that most consider ordinary are often what makes a place unique. So whether it's a building or a bus bench, I think that a lot can be learned by documenting them in the context of the surrounding neighborhood.

ADM: Have there been any neighborhoods that really surprised you? Or like you decided to go shoot them, but when you look back at the photos you got, it was much different in feel or appearance than that neighborhood looked initially or in passing?

KBB: The neighborhoods that have surprised me the most so far are outside of California. They were completely new experiences so I was really outside of my comfort zone and I enjoyed it. The first place that comes to mind is New Orleans. I got a chance to explore a lot of the city on foot a few years ago and every area I visited was incredibly interesting. I really didn't have any knowledge of what it felt like to be in a place as old as that city is. I saw a side of life in this country that I had not seen before.

ADM: Looking forward a bit - what projects are you working on right now? Will you follow up (or continue) Hindsight (2020) to the close of the year?

KBB: I'm currently working on a few projects for clients that I can't quite discuss in detail but I'm looking forward to sharing them in the near future. My focus continues to be on building my portfolio and expanding The Public Work project. I honestly wander a lot creatively but I always find inspiration out in the streets I photograph.

ADM: What advice would you have for someone looking to go explore a new neighborhood, or photograph a new area - underrepresented or not, but doesn't know a lot about documenting an actual neighborhood?

KBB: The most important thing is to stay focused and respect the space.

ADM: From Bryan Mederos: Why is Photography so easy but yet so hard?

KBB: The act of taking a picture is deceptively simple. Learning what gives an image meaning is the difficult part.

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

KBB: How do you want people to remember your work?

ADM: Where can we see more of, and/or potentially purchase your work - do you have any other parting words or other advice?

KBB: I have a few projects coming up in the near future that I can't talk about yet so the best place to see my work is my website or Instagram. The only advice I really have for anyone trying to be a photographer is not to forget why you started taking pictures in the first place.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading the interview! We appreciate your readership -normally this is where we’d stump for donations, but in light of the ongoing protests, we’d like to encourage you to donate your funds to a fund aiding them instead. This whole text block is a link.

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The Management.

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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Together, We Wither Away and Know Worries: Dylan Rozzelle

December 18, 2019 in interview

Together, We Wither Away and Know Worries:

Dylan Rozzelle (@objectsofridicule)

Andrew D. McClees (ADM): So, for the readers, Can you introduce yourself, and give a quick overview of your photowork? (beyond the examples we've incorporated here?)

Dylan Rozzelle (DR): I currently live and work out of Richmond, Virginia. My work is entirely based on life as it’s happening around me. I can’t say I’ve ever set out to hone a particular style, I just enjoy documenting things in an unadulterated way. The process of shooting has just become ingrained into my lifestyle. After learning how a camera works, everything else just sort of fell into place for me. Humanity creates my images, I just have to focus and press the button.

ADM: I remember from having talked with you before, your instagram handle "@objectsofridicule" is actually the name of an overall project, is it more your zinemaking/bookmaking output, or your overall body of work? also what's the story behind the Name, and how does it interplay with the work you select for it?

DR: It’s more or less a moniker that just ended up just sticking with me. I like making things for friends and people with similar interests as myself. Photo zines, poetry, pins, patches, anything I was creating and giving out in numbers really, I just started stamping with the name. It was never meant to be taken too seriously, and still isn’t. I’m not trying to create a brand in anyway, it’s just something that’s become an ongoing project -- one that as of recently has shifted away from my own work and moved towards others as well. I have a love/hate relationship with the name, but I think that’s inevitable with anything you’ve submerged yourself into for multiple years, and grown older with.

ADM: From the zines I've read of yours, a lot of your work seems to be done while traveling rather than in any given/set location -- is there a primary reason for that, and what is it specifically that draws you to travel, and how has it influenced your work?

DR: It’s not planned that way specifically. I carry a camera on me at all times, so anywhere I happen to be, I’m taking pictures. Last year a lot of time was spent meandering different countries, so the zines just happened to follow the experiences. When traveling alone, I shoot a lot more, but the focus tends to turn more towards the streets. Being alone and in new places, I find myself less distracted than any other time I’m out shooting, mainly because the only comfort I have is in holding a camera. It’s easy to romanticize new places, though, and shooting daily life is just as important to me.

If you’ve ever gone to a local library and looked through the photo archives of where you’re living, it will teach you not to take for granted what you see on a routine basis. Every city is consistently under construction and will be vastly different decades from now. The hand painted ads, cars, clothing, those things that gives older photographs their charm just happened to be the way life was existing then. There’s no true proof of the past other than the photos that were taken. Time has made mediocre photographs much stronger now than they were when the shutter first opened. Everyone that is documenting the places they have lived will have much more compelling content 40 years from now. The factory your father worked in as a teenager is now a tacky condominium and the record store you used to catch punk shows at is now an Urban Outfitters. You can’t get those stories from street photography in foriegn places. I try to find a balance between the two, because I see the value in both.

AM: Got it. I take it we/I/your audience in general can look forward to at least one, if not more Richmond based zines in the near future? The nod to documenting your life as part of history is interesting -- did you grow up in Richmond?

DR: I have a few things in the works, absolutely. In July I put out a zine titled Together, We Wither Away which is comprised of images from the east coast, with a large focus on Richmond. In the brief period between getting back from overseas to releasing that zine, I had gone home (a town called Norfolk about 100 miles south of Richmond) twice -- both of which were for funerals of people who played valuable roles in my life. As soon as I got back from the second funeral, I formatted that zine and then put it into print. It was an attempt to make a statement against detrimental lifestyles and self-harm, as well as a way to help cope with my grief after their deaths.

Since then I started putting my efforts into a project called Know Worries. They are 4-way collaborative anti-profit zines. Once I curate and publish them, each artist receives 25 copies to do what they will, other than to make money. Know Worries II was released last week.

AM: Your portfolio is entirely black and white, and it has a pretty distinctive edge to it -- how did you settle on it? what were some of your influences for your look?

DR: I shot strictly color through cheap cameras for years. I was soaking films in any chemical I could think of to get bizarre color shifts, and completely destroying emulsions, cross processing as well, just to see what would happen. I didn’t care, I just liked to shoot and experiment. I ended up becoming good friends with a guy who was vastly more knowledgeable than I about photography. He helped guide me towards better cameras and glass, showed me books by the greats and it shifted my focus. That’s when I began to start taking it a little more serious. I switched to black and white because we were processing the film ourselves in my apartment. In turn, the cheaper it is to get images, the more careless and often you can shoot. Good photos are subjective and completely by chance in my experience. The more you shoot, the more chances you have of getting something you’ll be happy with. We ended up living together and turned my bedroom into a darkroom. Fully submerging ourselves into the process. I learned a lot during those times and it helped shape my style for sure. I attribute a lot of where I am today to him. Shout outs to Josie.

I’ve tried shooting color since then, but I just feel like it doesn't carry the same weight and feeling for my own images. I don’t look for colors, I rarely even think about them -- but maybe I’m just too far gone in that thought process. I’m sure it doesn't help that 95% of the books that I buy are black and white. I don't think one is better than the other, I just think it happens to work better for me personally.

Most of the photographers I admire were living and working sometime between the 1970s and the 1990s. Having not lived my youth through those eras and being attracted to the subcultures that sprug during those decades, I’m fortunate for the ones who decided to pick up a camera and were shooting back then. In current times, color point and shoot photography is one of my favorite styles to admire because I know the importance it holds for the future. It plays a large influence in my work even if I’m not doing it. There is nothing about it not to love, and anyone who knocks it is just trying to put themselves on a pedestal. That purist mentality is what ruins art forms and discourages people from getting into it rad stuff -- no matter what scene you’re in, I feel that it almost never does any good. I encourage anyone I meet that shows the slightest interest in photography to buy and a point and shoot with decent glass and just blow through frames to get started. Whether you enjoy color, or black and white, who gives a shit. I think it’s all irrelevant if you’re having fun and it’s going to leave future generations more content to be enamored by. If you don't want to learn the technical side of things, I don't think you should have to. Elitist culture is pathetic. Getting pictures is the point of what we do, right?

ADM: Agreed! That’s really rad -- and a smart suggestion for people thinking about getting into photography, or film photography specifically. Elitist culture makes it really difficult to just get new folks into whatever they’re gatekeeping -- usually to their own detriment. Could you share a few of the books and photographers that you’d admire, and recommend to someone just getting started, that’s been out shooting a fair bit but hasn’t really immersed themselves in the history of photography beyond say instagram (not that there’s anything wrong with that)?

DR: I think it’s important to find out what kind of photography resonates with someone before recommending them too much. I love to read, but I could give a shit less about James Joyce. When it comes to photo books, there’s no shortage of inspiration to be found. The feeling you get flipping through an artist’s book is something the internet cannot give you. The problem with instagram is that it’s far too much content to digest. It’s almost impossible to connect with a viewer, and hold their attention before it’s all lost to the movement of a thumb. Pretty fucking tragic, really. I always recommend going to used bookstores and the library, there’s always new things to be found, plus there’s no need for money if you don’t have it. You will always, without fail, end up inspired to create more compelling work and theorize ideas for new direction in your photographs.

A brief list of people who have personally inspired me:

Tish Murtha, Ray Metzker, Gusmano Cesaretti, Richard Sadler, Andre Kertész, Mary Ellen Mark, Jill Freedman, Richard Kevlar, Helen Levitt, Eikoh Hosoe, Bruce Davidson, Gary Winnogrand, Ralph Gibson, Joseph Koudelka, Lee Friedlander, Ari Marcopulos, Saul Leiter, Julia Gorton, Eugene Richards, Larisa Dryansky, Bill Brandt, Ed Templeton, Ed van der Elsken, Peter Hujar, Nan Goldin, Ken Schles, Robert Frank, Larry Towell, Boogie, Mark Cohen, Jun Abe, Anders Petersen, Mike Brodie, Donna Ferrato, Sylvia Plachy, Bill Daniel, Edward Grazda, Gordon Parks, Elliot Erwitt, this list could never end...

As for books, all of them.

ADM: You mention a strong focus on shooting your life, or humanity making the photos for you, and later go on to say that you’re pretty far gone in the black and white thought process. Can you walk us through what you’re thinking or looking for when shooting and composing your images or is it more gut instinct and small calculations?

DR: It depends on the situation and camera, I suppose. On the street, anything goes. A lot of it is gut instinct, I never really know what I’m looking for, I just know when I see it. I have a good idea of what I want in a frame when the time arises. Sometimes it works, more often than not it doesn’t. Anything that sparks my interest, I’ll shoot a photo of. I’m trying to get better about just taking my friends photos. My 2020 goal is to shoot more medium format portraits.

ADM: We touched on it before, but you make zines fairly regularly, at least once or twice a year -- what’s your process for putting together zines like? What advice would you give someone making their first zine, or even just toying with the idea?

DR: Yea, I actually made 4 this year -- kind wild considering I think they are some of my best work yet. Zines are something I’m constantly thinking about, and always working on ideas for. I have a section in Notes on my phone for titles and concepts. If they will actually come out is a different story, though. I can sit for weeks or months curating zines and playing with InDesign only to scrap it completely and move to something else. That’s just how I work.

As with photography, zines will be a learning process. You don’t have to be great at it, just do it because you want to -- dive in and see what happens. It’s always going to be better than nothing. The best advice I can give is shoot, make, repeat.

And don’t listen to a word people say about photography, including this interview.

ADM: Fair point! Thanks again for the interview! Do you have any parting words? Also where can people buy or trade for your zines (trade especially for Know Worries), and see your work?

DR: Always down for trades, chats, and advice on how to not make money off of photography. @objectsofridicule

Ed. Note: We couldn’t fit all the photos we wanted to here, so we’ve put up a gallery in the “People” section of the website, entitled “Dylan Rozzelle: Portfolio.” Either use the click through menu or click here.