Athens, Georgia and The Do Good Fund Collection

The Willson Center for Humanities & Arts at the University of Georgia will be presenting a number of exhibitions and events over the coming months related to The Do Good Fund Collection. Six different venues in the town of Athens, Georgia will host exhibitions from the collection, which is a public charity dedicated exclusively to photography of the American South. The events are being held in partnership with The Georgia Review, which published a portfolio of images from the collection in their Winter issue, including works by ETSU professors Mike Smith and Joshua Dudley Greer.

Additionally, there will be a panel discussion and portfolio review with Mark Steinmetz, Mike Smith, Baldwin Lee and others on February 19. For a full calendar of events or more information, please click here.

Matthew Jessie's Its Hills and Valleys

from the series Its Hills and Valleys © Matthew Jessie

Recent ETSU alum Matthew Jessie (BFA 2015) has been making the rounds online with his project, Its Hills and Valleys. Fresh on the heels of his exit show just last semester, Jessie has been featured on Oxford American's Eyes on the South, The Latent Image, Splash and Grab, and Aint-Bad Magazine. Check out the links below for more information:

http://www.aintbadmagazine.com/article/2016/01/15/matthew-jessie/

http://www.oxfordamerican.org/item/735-corrections

http://latentimage.us/2015/12/17/matthew-jessie-mine/

http://splashandgrab.co.uk/post/135045573745/weekly-selection-1-ellen-pearson-2-mona

Contemporary Photographer Series - Kristine Potter

from the series The Gray Line © Kristine Potter

Kristine Potter (b. 1977) holds degrees in Art History and Photography from the University of Georgia, as well as an MFA in Photography from Yale University. Her photographs have been exhibited at the Georgia Museum of Art, Neuberger Museum of Art, and the Hagedorn Foundation Gallery. In 2014, she was an artist-in-residence at Light Work and is currently represented by Daniel Cooney Fine Art in New York. She was recently interviewed by Bradley Marshall for our Contemporary Photographer Series (CPS). 

You not only hold a BFA in photography, but a BA in art history. Were you always interested in photography? If not, what was the turning point that prompted your return for a BFA? Would you say that a degree in art history made the transition into finding artistic direction any easier?

I earned both of my undergraduate degrees at the University of Georgia. Truth be told, I skipped around majors a bit - trying on this and that for a while. I even studied Japanese for two years. (No, I don't speak it anymore. Two years was barely enough to order at a restaurant.)

At any rate, I settled very comfortably into the Art History program and was working at museums. To complete the degree, I had to take some studio courses - which I think is a really important requirement. All art historians and art world professionals could benefit from learning how things are made. I ended up in a Photo I course and everything changed for me. I had always "liked" photography in whatever way I knew how to use it as a kid. But I sat down in class the first day and my teacher was (by luck of the draw) Mark Steinmetz. He showed us a slide show of his work and the photographers he admired: Atget, Kertesz, Brassai, Cartier-Bresson, and of course, Garry Winogrand. I was immediately taken with the idea that photographs possessed a very particular visual language, and I was able to connect that language with the history of art. For me it was a rich and symbiotic experience to pursue both degrees. I found myself progressively less interested in writing about dead artists and more inclined to be a maker. I finished both degrees concurrently, and packed my bags and moved to Paris, France; the former home to many of my newly-established heroes.

The term "subjective documentary" was used to describe your work in a recent piece for Light Work; do you think that a sense of you as the photographer needs to be present when viewing your work? What are your thoughts on the term "documentary" in a contemporary sense?

I've always appreciated the language of the document but I've never really believed in its ability to exist, author-less. There are just too many decisions to be made when you hold up a camera - what's in the frame, what's out, what's in focus, what's not, etc. It changes the nature of reality, as if reality were one fixed idea. I've struggled with the notion of the subjective documentary style being attached to my work. But at the end of the day, yes - I believe my picture making points back at myself as much as what is in front of me. It seems pertinent to consider my presence. Perhaps Walker Evans expressed it best:

"What I believe is really good in the so-called documentary approach to photography is the addition of lyricism. This quality is usually produced unconsciously and even unintentionally and accidentally by the cameraman."

from the series The Gray Line © Kristine Potter

The space in your work is often complicated and disorienting. Often times your human subjects (if any at all) must be discerned from the monochromatic intricacies of their surroundings. My question for is do you find the black and white aesthetic an essential component of your work?

For the moment, yes. I'm still quite invested in the monochromatic print and all of the wonderful ways in which it can be manipulated and visually manipulative. I have a workflow that includes shooting on color 4x5 film, scanning it and then converting it (often in laborious ways) to black and white. This technique is perhaps becoming more normalized within a RAW format, digital workflow, but for me it began with film and it offered me ways of translating color to black and white that dramatically changed the space of a picture. For the West Point work, I really used it to amp up the idea of camouflage. With the Manifest work, it has become a key way of visually addressing the incredible intensity of the light in the mountains and the disorienting experience of getting deep in that landscape.

from the series The Gray Line © Kristine Potter

Your most recent body of work, Manifest, is a menageries of male characters and landscape studies made in the American Southwest. What made you turn toward this looser, more enigmatic range of subject matter in contrast to the somewhat tight focus of military cadets in The Gray Line?

I think I wanted something "Wild." The Gray Line was about parsing out nuance from a very rigid structure. Separating the cadets form the corps was critical in letting them become "human" and individual again. However, as much as they let down their guard during the photographing sessions, I still found them to be incredibly polite and in a way, obedient. It was like part of their genetic makeup. After that body of work, I really just wanted to loosen everything up. I wanted to look at masculinity from a full pendulum swing away. The men I photographed out West are not tied to a set of rules. In fact, they are very likely out there because they don't like rules. Individuality reigns and the experience for me was much more adventurous. The landscape work flowed naturally in between my portrait work. I was out in the middle of nowhere and there were far more dusty paths and thickets than men to photograph. I began to see the landscape as a psychological stand-in for the men I was otherwise in search of. 

from the series Manifest © Kristine Potter

What compels you to deal with people as subject matter and how do you go about finding your next subject? Also, what advice can you give to someone on photographing people while remaining challenging or inventive?

I'm interested in the human drama and the psychological and emotive experiences we have. And simply, I'm interested in connecting with people - which the camera (however briefly) allows me to do. 

How do I find people? It depends. With the Manifest work, I basically hung out in this very small town on the western slope of Colorado and would just solicit interesting men to work with me. Sometimes they introduced me to other potential subjects and so on from there. When I see someone I want to work with, I don't hesitate. I go right up and try to explain that I'm a photographer and I'd like to make their picture. Too many regrets arise when you psyche yourself out and get scared to act. My advice is to be as fearless as possible. "Stranger Danger" is a real thing, and while I don't think we should ignore our better instincts to leave certain people alone, I do think our society has taught us to be afraid of people we don't know or who are (gasp!) different from us. So first thing is first - you can't make a good portrait if you don't get your camera in front of an interesting person. After that - I'm not sure what to advise. A certain level of instruction balanced with a certain level of patience and observation seem key. Being a good conversationalist will help. Flattery most often helps. But just being sincerely interested might be the key to it all.

from the series Manifest © Kristine Potter

Contemporary Photographer Series - Jason Lazarus

Phase 1 Live Archive, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA © Jason Lazarus

Jason Lazarus (b. 1975) is a Florida-based artist, educator, curator and writer. His works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Milwaukee Museum of Art and have been shown in galleries and museums around the world. He was recently interviewed by Benjamin Moten for our Contemporary Photographer Series (CPS).

People primarily recognize you as a photographer but you've branched out of that role in the last few years. How has serving as an archivist or curator affected your mission as an artist?

I consider it all my practice - interdependent, generative and my path of growth. As I've gotten older, I don't shoehorn all my thoughts into printed photographs anymore, this seemed limited and anachronistic to me. I'm currently a new tenure-track assistant professor of photography and digital media at the University of South Florida, Tampa and my pet project down here is starting a gallery, Coco Hunday, set to open in the Spring of 2016. I miss curating and will be seeking out artists/work/formats that challenge my ideas about everything. Inevitably this will inform my own practice and the gallery will also act as a pedagogical tool - If my professor is having art shows in his garage, why don't I? You have to make your own art world, and strangely when you do, the more mainstream institutions seem to clamor for it. Michelle Grabner's practice is a good example.

Your project, Phase 1 Live Archive, features Occupy Wall Street signs that have been recreated from online documentation of occupations that have happened around the world. The physical signs that are made are a part of a growing installation. While exhibiting this body of work, you've been able to start a dialogue about the signs used during major protests. How has this experience varied with each different exhibition?

Each geographic location, its context, its people, all inform the workshops and the readings of the work. When I exhibited the work at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in SF, the audience was informed by their activist history and the teenagers I worked with threw themselves into their contributions. In Chicago at the MCA, there seemed to be more of a divide between artists and activists, and the larger audience seemed to operate more as witnesses in general. The workshop I had there was just as productive; if someone shows up at the workshop they are already open-hearted to the process and its meaning.

© Jason Lazarus

During exhibitions of this work, you've held workshops where participants are encouraged to make their own protest signs. In these workshops, is there a discussion about the process of making signs versus the importance of the message displayed on the signs?

There is not a standard curriculum, the pedagogical aspect is very much embodied, and through participation, the connections and repercussions seem to flourish. This is my attempt at circumnavigating the traditional documentary on a social phenomenon - let's make the project together and be together, let's mimic the economy of protect for a public forum.

Installation detail, Too Hard To Keep © Jason Lazarus

Collaboration and submissions have helped assist you in adding to many of your exhibitions in the last few years. One of your projects, Too Hard To Keep, features old personal photographs that were too emotionally painful for their original owners to keep. The owners weren't required to provide a reason or explanation as to why they couldn't keep the photo when they submitted them. Without having this prior context, how were you able to curate the exhibitions?

I curate through a sensibility that grows with the project - how can I show the texture and depth of the submissions? How can I not bore the viewer or give them what they expect? How can I slow down the reading and promote deep engagement? How can the selections and installation strategies encourage personal connection and broader philosophical engagement with images, archives, history-writing, and the analog-to-digital paradigm shift?

© Jason Lazarus

Phase 1 Live Archive and Too Hard to Keep are both ongoing projects. As an artist, when do you decide a project is complete?

When I am done learning, things tend to slow down, although both projects seem to resuscitate themselves which is motivating to take another step into their iterative pathways.

William Wegman at Asheville Art Museum

© William Wegman

Renowned artist and photographer William Wegman will be giving a public lecture on his work at the Asheville Art Museum on Thursday, November 19 from 6-7:30pm. ETSU students can attend the talk and see the corresponding exhibition for only $4. There won't be any van transportation from Johnson City, but if you are interested in attending for the discounted price, please email professor Joshua Dudley Greer at greerjd@etsu.edu so he can get an accurate headcount.

Taking Care of Business Opening Friday

The opening reception for the Student Photographers' Association exhibition Taking Care of Business will be held this Friday, November 6 from 6-8pm. The show, which will be on view at the Tipton Gallery until November 20, features work by Annie Buckles, Rebecca Ingram, Matthew Brown, Joshua Harr, Monica Simerly, Lyn Govette, Katie Sheffield, Matthew Jessie, Bradley Marshall, Jared Sapp, Amber Law, Katherine Joy Williams and Amanda Musick.

Mike Smith Named as Finalist in Smithsonian Portrait Competition

 Watauga, Tennessee, 2014 © Mike Smith

ETSU photography professor Mike Smith was recently named as a finalist in this year's Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. Smith was one of 43 artists selected for the exhibition which will run from March 12, 2016 to January 8, 2017 and will feature works in painting, sculpture, photography and drawing. Along with key members of the Smithsonian staff, guest jurors Dawoud Bey, Jerry Saltz, Helen Molesworth, and John Valadez selected the finalists from more than 2,500 entries this year.

Other notable photographers in the exhibition are Paul D'Amato, Jess Dugan, Claire Beckett, Jessica Todd Harper, Dave Jordano and Cynthia Henebry.

Erin Florence Receives Research Fellowship at Philadelphia Museum of Art

ETSU Alum Erin Florence (BFA 2008) will be joining the Philadelphia Museum of Art for a Research Fellowship in the Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs.

This is a three-year fellowship which provides an opportunity for close collaboration with the curators as well as research within the department's collection of nearly 35,000 photographs. This position falls under a museum-wide initiative to completely catalog all works of art in each department and to make them available to the public by way of the museum's website. Once related research is completed, all works will be photographed so that the museum has a digital file of everything. 

Erin studied photography at ETSU before continuing on to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she became a curatorial intern in the museum's photography department. She has also held positions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Not a bad pedigree. Congratulations to Erin on all of her success.

Contemporary Photographer Series - Andrew Phelps

© Andrew Phelps

Andrew Phelps is an American photographer who has lived in Europe since 1990. He is a curator at Galerie Fotohof in Salzburg, Austria and his work is represented by Robert Morat Galerie in Hamburg. He has had several books published including Higley, Not Niigata, and Haboob by Kehrer Verlag. His most recent book, Cubic feet/sec., was just published earlier this month and is now available here. Matthew Jessie recently interviewed Andrew about his work for our Contemporary Photographer Series (CPS).

As your statement for the series describes, "Alpine Half-Life is an ongoing series which marks the point of my life where I have spent more time living in the Alps than in the deserts of Arizona." How has living in a country so different from your native country of America influenced the way your work?

I spent so many years living in the Alps without ever really photographing in the mountains. This always surprised a lot of people because the landscape plays such a pivotal role in my work, and here I am living in a powerful landscape deep in tradition and I could never get my head around photographing it. In 2012 I passed the point where I have now lived longer in Europe than in the States, and I have always insisted that the landscape shapes who we are, so I figured I had better start taking a look at the places right outside my door. To answer the question, I would have to say the biggest disappointment about traveling to Europe is finding out how similar it is to the States. There is a lot more which the two places have in common than what separates them. I think one has to ask the question about the difference between living and growing up in the desert and living in the mountains; it's as much about the physical difference as it is about the cultural differences. So Alpine Half-Life was a conscious effort to make a work about the mountains, but not just the physical space, also the cultural relationships between man and the land in a place with a lot of people, little space and a rich tradition of looking at the land.

© Andrew Phelps

This series contains many different culturally descriptive elements - landscapes, people, interiors and objects are all included. Do you think that your unique perspective allows you to see things in a way that a native might not simply because they were born into that society and are used to it?

I think photographers in general, especially documentary photographers, have a way of pointing out quirky ways of seeing a place. It's my way of combining portraits, landscapes, architecture and still-lifes to create the narrative I want to tell. But of course the narrative is just my relationship to the place. There is no narrative which is inherent in photography, the only narrative that exists is the photographer's relationship to the subject. My relationship to the Alps is a bit of wonder, confusion and doubt, so those all lead to my narrative, which can be sarcastic and funny at times, while also not being afraid of being beautiful.

© Andrew Phelps

From the pictures there is a feeling that the people of the Alps have a great appreciation for the natural world. Many of the objects and interiors in your photographs incorporate elements from nature. Murals and paintings of nature even coexist in actual natural settings. How much of your own interest in the natural world drove your approach to this series?

The series Nature De-Luxe from 2004 is an attempt to get back to my childhood summers in Arizona which were filled with camping and outdoor adventure. The European landscape is much different than the West in America. Here in Europe the term wilderness doesn't really exist; the next town is just on the horizon and the term camping doesn't allude to adventure and extreme outdoor activities, instead it involves a very controlled relationship to the wilderness where nature is avoided and the best campgrounds are the ones which more resemble cites. Nature De-Luxe became very sarcastic after a while and I don't really like sarcasm in photography so I decided to try to make Alpine Half-Life much broader than just the campers and let it include the general relationship which people have to the Alps. I really enjoy being in the mountains - climbing and kayaking - it's only recently that I take my cameras with me. It is strange for me to think that I spent years here without ever feeling the need to photograph the place, but that is not unusual.

© Andrew Phelps

As a large format photographer, do you think the view camera's innate process of considering and composing each image individually helps the formal aspects of your pictures?

I don't know if it helps the formal aspects directly, but it makes you slow down. I don't always use large format, in fact it's becoming less and less because I want to work quicker now, and I want to utilize the fantastic aspects of digital. Being that I used the large format for so many years I know exactly what I want and how to wait for it and plan for it and set up for it, so even if it isn't the large camera all the time, the approach is still one of long consideration.

Although you have spent more than half of your life in Europe and most of your work has been made outside the US, Higley and Haboob are two major projects that have been made in the US. What is it like to travel back home to work?

It's ironic that I had to move to Europe so that I could do the two most important bodies of my work about America. I grew up in Arizona and Higley is by far the most important thing I've done photographically. But I had to leave that place to ever be able to see it. There is no way that I would have spent 8 years making that work if I had never left; it is all about going back home and finding it nothing like you remember it. It's all about my family, but it is broader than that, it tries to take on a lot of global themes such as urban expansion, family traditions, the American Dream, the instability of unbridled economic growth, etc. Something interesting happens for me when the images of places and people in front of my camera are superimposed with the images of those same places and people out of my childhood memories, it is a double exposure of sorts which becomes very complex to me and I hope a bit of the complexity seeps through to the viewer.

© Andrew Phelps

Contemporary Photographer Series - Sarah Hobbs

Escapism, 2009 © Sarah Hobbs

Sarah Hobbs was born in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1970 and received a BFA in Art History and an MFA in Photography from the University of Georgia. Her work is held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, LACMA, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Knoxville Museum of Art. Her first book, Small Problems in Living, was published by Charta in 2012. She was recently interviewed by Alba Ciordia for our Contemporary Photographer Series (CPS).

Within your work you explore different psychological states like insomnia or paranoia. Where did your interest in these human conditions come from?

For many years I was drawn to photographing old and abandoned houses. Each one had a different feel to it and I ultimately realized that the feeling was a psychological one. It was coming from me as much as it was the space. The images of empty spaces eventually ran out of steam, but I could not shake the jolt I got from the psychological experience of being in these places. I started thinking about how I could make the feelings more specific and fill the space in an overwhelming way. I realized that by controlling the environment more I could create a space that holds a narrative. This led to me to research neuroses and phobias and to explore how they might manifest themselves in our lives.

Untitled (overcompensation), 2006 © Sarah Hobbs

All of your installations seem to exist in interior spaces, why do you choose to work there instead of outside?

While the outside world may be hinted at in the images, a person's solitude is very much implied. This illustrates the fact that solitude is a very personal state and mental space is a very personal space. Interior space accomplishes this much easier than the outdoors. One does not have to create a facade in their own space, so issues are free to expand and build. Outside there are more ways to escape, to shift perspective.

I have noticed that many of your pictures contain an empty chair. To me, this invites the viewer into the space so they can recreate their own emotions. This seems similar to the way you title your work, where you suggest a condition that the viewer can interpret. Do you see a connection between these two practices?

Absolutely. For me, it is ultimately the viewer who completes the work. I invite the viewer to participate in the image, to in a sense be the subject. How they experience the work depends on their own psyche. Each piece is a kind of self-test. 

The earlier pieces are untitled with a parenthetical title. That title is the jumping off point. I recognized very early on that there are other issues at work in the images beyond where I began, so I wanted the viewer to feel free to explore. In the later works, I stopped using Untitled not because my titles were no longer jumping off points, but because I want the viewer to be able to feel like a bystander or witness to what they are seeing in addition to feeling the subject.

Untitled (sensitivity), 2004 © Sarah Hobbs

In order to represent a psychological state I'm sure you need to carefully select the materials and spaces that you are going to use. How does this process work for you? Are there any behaviors that interested you that you weren't able to translate into successful images?

For quite a while in my practice I was deliberately picking a concept first. When I had lists of concepts, I would then allow myself to explore spaces and materials to illustrate them. As I have matured in my process, I have taken a more organic approach which has opened up many more possibilities. My process unfolds in many different ways. I carry my journal at all times. I write a lot. I try to be open to everything. The space or the materials may set the work in motion. Lately, with the installations, the place has come first. Place has in these instances become the concept. From there I begin accumulating or creating the materials that illustrate the idea.

There is a large bag of wedding cake toppers in my studio cabinet. I have worked on the concept of anuptaphobia (the fear of never getting married) from many different angles, but I haven't been able to make it work yet. Someday! I have lists upon lists of psychological issues that I revisit from time to time. Some of them work and some do not. There have been some ideas that I could not figure out for a photograph, but they worked perfectly as an installation (for example, the Germaphobe hotel room). There are some that I am going to be illustrating through video in the coming months.

Denial, 2008 © Sarah Hobbs

Yes, some of your installations are meant to be seen through photographs while others are experienced in person. What is the difference for you?

For several years people asked me, "why photographs instead of installations?" For most of my photographs, a domestic or private space is the setting. It is inherently tied to the concept. It does not really work to create a domestic space in a gallery or museum, as the knowledge that you are in a non-domestic space does not leave the viewer. A photograph shows the entirety of the space I want seen. The view of the personal space makes more sense in an image. Further, the viewer can imagine the rest of the space and the possibilities with that are endless.

After I completed three bodies of photographs, I took a little time to regroup. I found myself becoming more and more obsessed with the idea of creating spaces for viewers to experience in person. But a gallery setting still did not work. I needed space that was more personal. So I thought about the kinds of spaces that are public and private at the same time. 

Overpacked was an installation created in three hotel rooms. The rooms were presumably occupied and altered by people who had issues with being away from home and, therefore, their comfort zone. The viewer's experience of wandering into a hotel room someone else occupied, creating a voyeuristic feeling was part of the work. 

A storage facility was the location for Repository. Through four separate units, it examines the idea of how people can create a completely private and secret space for themselves apart from their home in order to house a compulsion, secret desire or difficult aspect of life they wish to hide. Wandering down the cold, long, brightly lit hallway and coming upon an open storage unit with strange and very secret items inside was integral to the installation.

detail - Homesick, 2012 © Sarah Hobbs

37614 Volume Five

The latest edition of 37614 is now available on Blurb.com. The book features photographs from our Advanced Digital class consisting of Olivia Breeding, Heidi Woerz, Megan Cottage, Alba Ciordia, Amanda Musick, Annie Buckles, Kasey Sisko, Matthew Jessie and Kalani Odum.

You can preview the entire book online or buy your very own copy here.

Upcoming Exhibitions

New Nashville Photography

Beth Gorham | Bradley Marshall | Casey Carter | Chris Donahue | Evan Hickman

Holden Head | Jamie Donahue | Shawne Brown

Fort Houston Gallery, Nashville, TN

May 2 - May 31, 2015

Opening Reception: Saturday May 2, 6-8pm

© Joshua Dudley Greer
 
Coming into Focus: Emerging Southeastern Photographers

Jeremiah Ariaz | Shane Derwent | Joshua Dudley Greer | Meg Griffiths 

Tammy Mercure | Whitten Sabatini | Kristen Skees

Blue Spiral 1 Gallery, Asheville, NC

May 1 - June 26, 2015

Opening Reception: Friday May 1, 5-8pm 

Contemporary Photographer Series - Jessica Auer

 

Skogafoss, Iceland, 2011 © Jessica Auer

Jessica Auer earned her MFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University. Her documentary-style landscape works are held in many institutions including the Musée de Beaux Arts du Québec, Canada Council Art Bank, and Cirque du Soleil. Jessica is a co-founder and board member at Galerie Les Territoires and teaches photography at Concordia University and Champlain College St. Lambert. She was recently interviewed by Megan Cottage for our ongoing Contemporary Photographer Series (CPS).

Much of your work focuses on themes that connect a particular place with the cultures you experience there. How did your interest in this subject begin?

I think it really just comes down to being a curious person - curious about exploring the world and having an interest in how people inhabit and experience certain places. There was however a defining moment for me when I was quite young that brought photography and landscape together for me. Shortly after I turned 10 years old, my parents separated, and as a consolation my father bought me a 35mm Nikon camera. He also told me to pack a bag and be ready to leave the next day - I would be traveling with him throughout the summer and all that I needed was a small bag of clothes, a book and the camera. So began my first cross-Canada road trip. Day after day, I experienced a cinematic view of this country from the front passenger seat. I witnessed the changes of the landscape as we traversed the geography of a diverse country, snapping photos of everything from roadside attractions to black spruce forests and the trains that often glided alongside the Trans Canada Highway. The further we got west, the more aware I became of the people who lived in or were visiting these places, and it was then that I learned, for the first time about the culture of nature. I think that once you look past the beauty of landscape, it becomes more interesting to look at how we people are connected to these places.

 

Hvalsey Church, Greenland, 2014 © Jessica Auer

You are from Canada, however you travel all over the world to photograph. What are some of the challenges you face as a photographer doing this type of work?

While I consider myself to be extremely fortunate to be able to travel so much, there are indeed some challenges. Firstly, there is of course the cost and I'm always struggling to raise enough money to finance these trips and find cost-efficient ways of traveling. Fortuntately there are grants available for artists, especially in Canada, as well as a lot of funded residency opportunities abroad. I spend quite a bit of time writing grant and residency applications, and that eventually pays off. In terms of being a photographer, I shoot on film so I always have the anxiety that something could go wrong and I wouldn't know about it until I got back home and processed my negatives. Airport security is also a challenge because of the danger of x-ray damage to unprocessed film. I used to ask for hand inspection of my film but airport security has often refused, especially for sheet film that is packaged in boxes. So I now put all my film in a good quality lead bag and let it go through the carry-on luggage x-ray. So far this method seems to be working fine. If I can process my film abroad as I'm traveling, I will do that, but most of the time I have to wait until I get back home to see the results. Carrying all my gear can also be quite a workout and it seems that every trip I take, I end up towing more and more stuff, especially now that I also work with video. But I learn how to be a better packer with each trip I take.

What artists have influenced you in your thinking, your photographing, and your career choices?

The first artists that had a huge impact on my practice were the German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose works I was introduced to and studied thoroughly during my undergraduate studies. Although I relate to their subject matter, it was their methodical process and discipline - almost to the point of obsession - that really inspired me. Like most sincere artists, I believe that they had that drive whereby they just couldn't help but make art, to some kind of point of exhaustion, and I really admire that. To address your question about career choices, I don't think there were any artists that led me to make those decisions. These are some of the decisions that are best taken with one's own intuition.

Hiking the Plain of Six Glaciers, 2013 © Jessica Auer

You often produce videos of different places and how the people there interact with these landscapes. What is your motivation behind this segment of your work and how is it different from the motivation behind your photographs?

I think you are referring to my Studies on How to View Landscape series, where I set up a video camera to record the actions of sightseers and various viewpoints in Banff National Park. I began this project while on an artist residency at the Banff Centre and I like to use residencies as an opportunity to explore new processes. In this case it was working with video. I naturally gravitated to people as the main subject because they move around, unlike so many of the landscape subjects I've been photographing. I would capture groups of tourists visiting some of the busiest viewpoints, recording for about 20 minutes at a time. Then I would go back to my studio and study the footage, selecting some of the more poignant scenes. I enjoyed this process because I got to really examine all the moments that make up a scene, something that is missing within the still photograph. There is also a more voyeuristic approach to this work so when the audience sees it, the idea of looking at someone looking is enhanced, and I like to get the viewer to consider their own habits as a tourist, sightseer and spectator. 

You just spent a few months in Europe shooting photographs. What cities did you visit and what type of work should your audience expect from this trip?

I recently came back from an epic trip that began in Iceland in January, where I was an artist in residence at the Skaftell Centre for Visual Art in a small town named Seyðisfjörður. The type of work I did there was a departure from most of my research-based, documentary work. My project was based on a structured process that involved a lot of walking. The series is certainly about the landscape but just as much about my personal experience of wandering and exploring in the low light and tough conditions of winter. 

After one month in Iceland, I travelled to Visby in Sweden and spent a week installing my exhibition Before History at the Gotland Museum of Art. Then I continued on to Lofoten, Norway where I did a second, shorter residency. I've been researching and photographing this area of Norway for a few years with a particular interest in a ship called the Hurtigruten, which brings tourists along Norway's breathtaking coast, north of the Arctic Circle. I decided to take a short journey on the ship to scout out the possibility for a more extensive project in the future. Finally, my travel itinerary ended in Berlin, which was really the only big city I visited during those two months. Berlin has become one of the most significant cities for contemporary art so I wanted to check out some of the galleries and museums. I'm really grateful to have had the time off other types of work to focus on making new work during this recent trip to Europe. Now I'm quite engaged with the editing process, and revisiting all of these places through my images.

Strandarfjall (January 19th, 2015) © Jessica Auer

Contemporary Photographer Series - Ben Huff

 from the series The Last Road North © Ben Huff

Ben Huff is a photographer and professor who lives in Juneau, Alaska. His project, The Last Road North, took 5 years to complete and consists of images all shot on a 4x5 film camera along Alaska's Dalton Highway. Huff has traveled hundreds of miles to capture a unique series of images that gives light to the relationship between wilderness and industry along the highway. He was recently interviewed by Annie Buckles for our Contemporary Photographer Series (CPS).

Did you specifically move to Alaska to work on The Last Road North? What about Alaska and the Dalton Highway made you decide to spend such an extensive amount of time exploring the region?

My wife and I moved to Fairbanks in July 2005 for my wife to go to graduate school studying arctic chemistry. Initially, I was overwhelmed and challenged by the landscape, but ultimately confused by my new home. I would go out on the weekends, and the space was pure National Geographic stuff - hiking, rafting, skiing. But when I came home to Fairbanks, this dirty little town on the edge of nowhere, I had a really difficult time reconciling the two together. Making pure, sweeping landscapes felt disingenuous in a way. I wanted to badly not be a tourist. I wanted to see things clearly, and try to work out artistically, the dichotomy that interested me. Ultimately, the haul road became the backdrop that scratched that itch.

On your five-year journey across Alaska, I'm sure you encountered a variety of individuals. What drew you to the specific people you chose to photograph and how were you able to decide which portraits to include in your project?

In a way, I approached portraiture like I was casting for a film. I never wanted the work to be a documentary project - I was looking for something lyrical. So with the portraits I wanted a degree of melancholy. The project has a weight to it, and I wanted a look with the portraits that felt more regretful than celebratory. Not boom, but bust.

from the series The Last Road North © Ben Huff

The miles you traveled along the Dalton Highway must have felt quite intimidating and lonely. Did you ever wonder why you chose to partake in such a wild adventure or did you find yourself entranced in the experience?

I knew on my way home from my first trip up the road that it was a place that I would spend an exorbitant amount of time on. I could see it so clearly, and I wanted so much to make a contemporary portrait of the space, which spoke to the things I was struggling with. Each drive brought anxiety and excitement. As the work was largely self-funded, most times I'd come coasting back into town on fumes, exhausted and burnt. I wanted the work to reflect that.

from the series The Last Road North © Ben Huff

Would you consider relocating for a future project or do you think Alaska will provide you with enough content to create future work?

I'm here to stay. There are a hundred lifetimes worth of work to do in Alaska and I'm committed to making work here. I live with a constant anxiety that I'm not doing enough and there are drawbacks to living in Juneau, and Alaska in general, but the opportunity to make work here is something I try not to take for granted.

from the series The Last Road North © Ben Huff

Is there any specific advice you would give to young photographers starting out who are interested in creating a body of work while traveling on the open road?

Curiosity and diligence are everything. You're making something from nothing, and your unique viewpoint, quirks, intelligence, instincts, fears, work ethic - all of this is your foundation. Use it all. It all begins and ends with you.

Contemporary Photographer Series - Shawn Records

from the series Owner of This World © Shawn Records

Shawn Records is a Portland-based contemporary photographer. His work is in the permanent collections of the Portland Art Museum, LightWork, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography and has been published in The Wall Street Journal Magazine, New York Times Magazine, Contact Sheet, and DoubleTake. He was recently interviewed by Amanda Musick for our Contemporary Photographers Series (CPS).

Your family is found in many of your projects, it is evident that family relationships are important to you. Your sons are frequently seen in Flaming Energy Ball 2, your project centered around basketball. In At a Loss, you are photographing scenes and moments related to significant changes within your family. How do you take moments that are so personal to you and make them relatable to viewers?

One of the main driving forces in my work is simply the authentic curiosity / fascination / sincerity of my relationship with the subject. One of the things I’ve learned along the way is simply that one trick to making work that people are actually interested in is simply being honest enough that they believe you. Flaming Energy Ball 2 was a little scary to put out into the world, simply because I thought the concept, on the surface anyway, was so self-indulgent and possibly even dumb, that there was no way anyone would care. I put it out there anyway, simply because the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was honest and mattered to me. The work itself became a therapeutic exercise in a way. I was really pleased when Blue Sky Gallery chose to show that work a couple of years ago.

Who are some contemporary artists that inspire you, or from what other areas of life do you draw inspiration?

Within the photo world, there are many who I still pay attention to and regularly find myself inspired by - Alec Soth, Ron Jude, Joel Sternfeld, Mitch Epstein, Doug Dubois, Zoe Strauss, Gregory Halpern, Melissa Catanese, Ed Panar, Robert Adams, oh man, I could go all day… I’ve also got a few friends whose work regularly challenges and inspires me - Alexis Pike, Nicole Jean Hill, Doug Dertinger, Laurie Blakeslee…  Outside the photo world, I’d say that I’ve listened to enough hours of This American Life and Radiolabthat there’s definitely some sort of influence there at least in the sort of narrative structure that I’ve been playing with for years. I think there’s also something in that narrative structure that comes from the world of graphic novels - Chris Ware, for example.

from the series Flaming Energy Ball © Shawn Records

Your work, both commercial and personal, has a poetic thread running through it. You seem to observe moments and situations similarly, but I’m wondering if you approach your commercial work differently from your personal projects?

When the stars align, the approach is one and the same. Unfortunately, the stars are rarely in alignment. I’ve got one great commercial client who, in hindsight now, represents the perfect commercial relationship. They're a local real estate development company, who reached out through word of mouth years ago. They needed someone to photograph their buildings, but didn’t want the standard architectural pornography with its saturated colors and extreme angles. So, we’ve kind of figured things out over the years and now they give me lots of freedom to basically just do whatever I want and make on-demand books for each of their projects… I photograph each of the projects they work on before, during, and after construction. But the work’s not just exteriors and interiors- it includes portraits of the workers as it’s going up and lots of still life and detail shots. Basically, I get to put on a hard hat, shoot whatever I want at these sites, and then make books out of the pile of pictures. I do need to keep their final goals of marketing in mind, but really, this has turned into a really fantastic situation for both of us as they’re getting something unique and special and I’m getting some pleasant and steady work out of it that can then help hone my skills and finance my more esoteric projects. On the art-side of my photo life, my financial goal has always been to simply break even. I've had a couple of years where I ended up with a little extra in my pocket at the end of the year, but that’s pretty rare.

Another example of when everything is perfect is years ago when I did a commercial job through Wieden & Kennedy… a big ad agency here in town. They were great to work with and did things exactly as I realize now, they should work- they simply brought me in, showed me a half-dozen of my own photographs that they’d pulled off my site and said that they wanted to spend a couple of days driving around to some specific locations and making photographs that look like those. I was terrified the whole while, but really, it was great. Since then, I’ve learned to relax a little more.

That said, it’s not always that dreamy. Sometimes assignment work is simply too far removed from what I’d normally do that it requires more of a stretch of comfort. I try to avoid those situations by being really upfront with potential clients about how I work. For example, I tend to show up as just a guy with a backpack and a tripod… not a guy with two assistants and a van full of gear. I make that clear when I talk to editors and art directors. When they hire me, they’re not hiring a big crew and a production, but a guy with a camera bag and a tripod who’s happy to spend all day figuring things out.

from the series Hero © Shawn Records

I've read that your project Hero was about trying to find a connection between your own life and the journey of a classical hero that is often found in literature and film. Owner of This World also has a strong, more obvious, connection to cinema. What films and/or literature do you most draw inspiration from?

Inspiration suggests an apparent link. I’m not sure that I can name one, with the exception of Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm. Really I think there’s something inspirational in those shows in the way that they a) draw attention to the mundane and b) play with narrative, jumping from one thing to another, and eventually circling back to the starting point at the end. These are definitely things I play with, but without a laugh track. I’ll admit, sometimes there is a punchline though.

from the series Owner of This World © Shawn Records

Do you have any advice for an art student, specifically a photography student, who is about to graduate college?

Sure - don’t worry so much about what to make work about. Instead, tap into what you actually enjoy doing and care about and let the medium follow your life and interests. That is, quit worrying so much about being a photographer and just photograph your concerns about being a person. If you work on living the life you want to live, the curiosity and analysis you put into that will give you something to make work about.

On a more practical level, I’d also advise that there’s absolutely no shame in having a pleasant, low-stress day job to pay the bills.