street photography

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.

Songs About Being Forgotten: Kyle J. Kohner

October 25, 2020 in interview

Songs About Being Forgotten: Kyle J. Kohner

Andrew D. McClees (ADM): For those not familiar with you or your work, can you introduce yourself, and give us a brief introduction to your work?

Kyle J. Kohner (KJK): My name is Kyle Kohner; I am a 24-year-old street photographer from the LA area (La Mirada, Calif), but was born and raised in San Bernardino, CA. I picked up photography in my sophomore year in college, was hooked, and with the help of a couple of my professors and photography friends, I never looked back. I mainly do film photography, black and white 35mm to be exact. However, if I am on assignment for work, I will shoot digital. During my final semester as an undergrad, I took a darkroom photography class, and from the course came the genesis of my first body of work, a zine I've titled "Songs About Being Forgotten."

ADM: We're talking about "Songs About Being Forgotten" - where did the concept come from, and can you speak on the title?

KJK: I like to think of "Songs About Being Forgotten" as a not-yet reckoning of fear. This project's title and concept was birthed from fear and uncertainty that I've always felt but could never gauge through words alone. A fear of finality, death, and not being remembered was especially palpable during my final year of college, where years of mental illness peaked. The initial form/draft, which was created during my last semester, was a reactionary pushback to this fear. Still, I'm trying to push back against this fear, and this zine is the vehicle. I call the photos within this project "songs," mainly because music and photography meet at this very magical intersection for me. Combining the two seemed like the perfect way for me to convey this fear of being "forgotten.

ADM: Are there particular aesthetic considerations that you took into account while creating the project - I know the whole thing is in black and white - but is there a particular purpose behind it, and the tonality you used - I know the collage nature of the book is a nod to Phil Elverum (below).

KJK: The reasoning for doing black and white was pretty straightforward—it helps convey the impermanence of decay and things forgotten. Many of the photos are high in contrast, which renders the ephemeral themes dark and drab. As you mentioned, I wanted to give off a collage nature to the book, akin to not just Elverum, but inner sleeves and liner notes of physical music in general. With the very first iteration of this zine, the class project, I did not know much about design or sequencing. In fact, I boringly constructed it out in a simple pattern: page with lyrics, then page with photo, page with lyrics, etc. After a year or so of looking at more photo books and zines, I was able to better understand the importance of sequencing and design, which now, this version of the book compels more in comparison to my first-ever copy.

ADM: Is there a particular narrative form you used for the zine? - I noticed throughout you used some repetition and photocollages - alongside consistent written excerpts.

KJK: I love the concept of an album cover, yet the pressure of picking an image to capture the music inside is daunting. As mentioned a bit earlier, photography and music have always had this fascinating intersect, and the photos inside, again, are these visual songs—album covers even. The book is square, slightly bigger than a CD, and smaller than an LP or EP. Inside, I paired the images with lyrics from songs that have at some point in my life devastated me as I struggle through the concepts of finality and the high likelihood that what I say or create now won't matter 70 years from now. The visual layout, in fact, was largely influenced by the visual work of singer-songwriter Phil Elverum, aka The Microphones, aka Mount Eerie. I love how Elverum designs and incorporates his photography with his music. If you check out his latest album (which is just one long song) on YouTube, you'll see that it's just Phil laying down photos he's taken over the years, one-by-one, to reflect his journey as a musical artist over the past two decades. But he's also thoughtful when designing the album art for his LP's and CD's, inside and out. With most of his projects, he sprawls handwritten lyrics across a collage of photos. His design for The Microphones 2001 album "The Glow Pt. 2" particularly sparked that of my collection of photographs. I'd love to explain the sequencing and narrative, but I'm also a believer that we can create our own stories from photos within a body of work, separate from the artist's intentions, by merely perceiving them. So I'd rather have viewers of the zine to figure it out for themselves.

ADM: From that - what would you say the most essential images are to understanding the project are - what songs did you pair them with, and why?

KJK: This one is hard to answer as I tried not to pin the weight of this project on one photo because I try not to shoot with a mindset of capturing the best singular image or that "decisive moment." But if any, I believe the images of charred buildings speak to me and the project the loudest. These two photos were the genesis behind this project, and I was able to pair it with a song that I felt best captured to the idea of "being forgotten." The track that particularly called out to me—and I hesitate to mention it—was "Carissa" by Sun Kil Moon (Mark Kozelek). On the track, he sings of his second cousin Carissa who died in an improbable housefire. She was a regular blue-collar individual living in the midwest, and Mark barely knew her. And yet, despite how menial her life seemingly was, he wanted to impress meaning upon her life, long passed her death, with this song. I find this most beautiful and admirable. After including this song in my book (paired with these two photos), it came to light that Kozelek is a fucking creep and an abuser. I almost expunged the track from my zine, but then the final product would have been unauthentic and merely reactionary to what had happened. Though I have since removed his music from my life, I cannot deny the impact this song had on me. I would probably point to the image of shoes hanging from the telephone wire as my favorite. It's a bit cliche, but I love how the shoes are still emphasized even when crowded by the bushy textures beneath.

ADM: What do you think the biggest advancements you made were over the course of the project? in terms of sequencing, and also shooting?

KJK: As someone who studied journalism in college, I once held to this idea that I MUST be clear as possible for the sake of my audience. Heck, this level of transparency is and should be applied for a lot of photojournalistic work because vagueness is a sign of an untrustworthy author. But with this project, especially regarding the sequencing, I had to reorient my learned approach to create something more personal and trusting of my audience, instead. I've always feared being misunderstood and not being clear, yet the way I've sequenced and even shot the photos for this zine was a way for me to give that fear up. So I'd say the most significant advancement I experienced through this project was the willingness to trust my audience and trust that the photos would convey more words than I could.

ADM: What was your collaborative process like? Prior to the interview you'd mentioned working with Max Heilman and Brooks Ginnan.

KJK: This project is much more than the zine itself. In fact, I paired it with a split single—two original songs. One track titled "Stream Of Silhouettes" is a super atmospheric piece of post-rock, written and performed by Maxwell Heilman and his band Anhelar. The other is a raw, emotively lo-fi cut titled "The Devil Inside of Me," written and performed by Brooks Ginnan. Aside from being a musician, Brooks also happens to be an up-and-coming model featured in films, music videos, and even in Vogue Italia. Though the songs are two entirely different worlds—one brooding, layered, and room-filling and the other stripped-down, haunting, and intimate—they share the same desperate spirit that yearns through affliction. I've known both Brooks and Max for six years. Because I've stayed connected with them longer than any other friends, they are sort of this antithesis to the idea of being forgotten. They represent laughter, love, and long-lasting memories—things that push back against the danger of being forgotten. Because of this friendship, I had to include them within this project. To best capture the zine's essence, I sent PDF copies to the two of them, and they provided me music they felt best reflected what they viewed. "Songs About Being Forgotten" is the fruit of this collaboration.

ADM: Was there a specific turning point that pushed you to print the zine up and put it out there, publicly?

I think like many people who have created and released some artwork lately, the pandemic really pushed me to buckle down and say hey," let's get this done finally." If there ever was a time to release something into the world, now was the time. It was an opportunity to take what has been a disadvantageous moment in history for everyone, make something beautiful out of it, and collaborate with other brilliant minds. No, I wouldn't call this my "COVID Zine/book," as this photo project has been in the making for almost two years. However, I'm sure we will be seeing a saturation of COVID-related projects from photographers within the next year, haha.

ADM: You've talked about musical influences (though feel free to add more if you'd like) but are there any other visual or photographic influences on the zine?

KJK: Studying journalism in college, I took a few photojournalism courses. The professor who taught all of them wanted us, students, to learn from the greats, sequentially. I loved this approach because it allowed our photographically naive eyes to appreciate the trailblazers of street photography. That said, one of my earliest inspirations was Elliot Erwitt. People point to him and notice the humor and irony in his work (which I always try to draw from), but he inspires me because his pictures are emotion(s) rather than reflective of emotion(s). (Which in fact, he is quoted saying, "I want pictures that are emotion.") I picked the photos I did for this zine for the same reason—I wanted to curate images that are what they feel like. I can also pinpoint three current favorites of mine—some more known than others. As of recent, Charalampos Kydonakis, aka Dirty Harry, is the first that comes to mind. His photos literally jump at you with an uncanny energy. He has an unparalleled ability to capture the oddities of life in all of its mundanity, so beautifully. His work is so surreal and is so incredibly impressive because of it. The second photographer is Dylan Hausthor. Though his photos are clearly tethered to a specific place that my own photography is not familiar with, his work has a spiritual and mythical quality that I aspire to channel with my own (though my attempts do not hold a flame to the magic Dylan captures). His use of light is also unlike anything I've seen from another photographer, especially when illuminating the organic textures a place [like] Maine lends itself to. There are many more photographers and their work I enjoy right now, and I'd love to mention them all.

ADM: What advice do you have for someone taking a pre-existing project (like the one you made in class) and refining it or repurposing it like you did (ie turning it into a collaboration, and a multimedia project)?

KJK: My advice to someone who wants to take a pre-existing project and refining it/repurposing it, is to simply be honest with yourself. I think one of the most horrible yet beautiful things about creating art is looking back at the things you DID. Almost always, for me at least, I writhe in disgust over photos I took even as early as three months ago. But being able to look at your older material and critique it with honesty will allow you to tap into what you truly want to create. For this project, I carried over about half the material from the very first version because I hated everything else in it—though I thought it was the best damn thing when I first put the zine together, haha. But my advice is best served as a double-edged sword. I think that though one needs to be honest with themself, they also need to trust their work and build up the courage to publish that zine, book, series of prints, or whatever they are working on. There comes a point where if you keep waiting, you'll never be satisfied with what you create. Thankfully, I just missed that exit and was able to just say, "Fuck it." For me, that point came with the desire to bring in people I love and cherish into the fold to make it a gratifying experience.

ADM: From Stefan Byrom: Which photographers/artists out there do you admire other than the more well known ones?

KJK: I want to mention Justin Yun. Though he happens to be one of my best friends, I, along with many others in the photo community, would agree he possesses a rare talent for his age. Unfortunately, he tends to keep to himself and remains reserved when putting his work out there. There are countless photographers out there who try to explore the concept of dreams and memories. But no one is as in-touch with these ideas and how to artfully reflect them than Justin. The way he can tap into these dreams and memories has helped inform my ability to go into my own subconscious to take photos that, again, "are emotion."

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

KJK: Outside of other photographers and photobooks, where do you find inspiration for your own photography?

ADM: Thanks again for doing the interview! Any parting words or advice? Where can we pick up a copy of the zine?

KJK: Bring your camera with you at ALL times. If you don't like carrying one around, get a point-and-shoot for casual outings and errands. Support your photography friends. Love one another as yourself; you'll be a lot happier than you could be, I promise. Always be fighting injustice in the world. No matter how small or big the gesture—it adds up—not toward points, but a better world around for those who are disadvantaged. Listen to new music—always. The world needs escaping sometimes, and music is the perfect way to flee.

If you find yourself interested, you can purchase my zine at kylekohner.com/shop and can check out more of my work there as well.

You, Me, We, Them: Adali Schell

August 02, 2020 in interview

You, Me, We, Them: Adali Schell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

"You, A Great River That Never Runs Dry" or "The Stranger" : J. Han

May 17, 2020 in interview

"You, A Great River That Never Runs Dry" or "The Stranger" : J. Han (@all_gods_creatures_have_knives)

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

James Han (JH): My name is James Han and I live and work in Portland, Oregon. I started making color film photos in 2016 and in 2017 I attended a black and white darkroom class at the now defunct Newspace in Portland, Oregon. Since then I have been hooked. I love making black and white portraits of people, mostly strangers, where ever I go.

ADM: You just put out "You, A Great River That Never Runs Dry" or "The Stranger" which is a set of 5x7 darkroom prints that you've assembled into a book. What inspired you to make a book of your printed work? Is there a central thread that connects the photos contained in it?It seems as though books are the ideal medium for showing photographic bodies of work, rather than a website or Instagram. I enjoy the tactile experience of flipping through a book of photographs rather than scrolling through a website. Though scrolling through Blake Andrews' Tumblr account from beginning to end in one sitting did something to my brain. The central thread that connects the photos in this book is that every person (except one) was a stranger the first time I approached them.

ADM: What challenges did you have assembling your work, and printing it? Did the darkroom process inspire or shape the book heavily?

JH: Assembling the book requires a lot of time and effort; the time and effort it takes to print each page in the darkroom, editing the images and hand binding them together. It is a labor of love. Yes, the darkroom process inspired and shaped the book heavily. The darkroom process allows me to build the book from beginning to end. I do not need to pay a printer to print the books or have to live with a quality of print that leaves me less than satisfied. Some research was done and the quality of printing I was looking for was cost prohibitive or a large quantity of books would need to be ordered to bring the cost per book down. The end result of the darkroom print also shaped this book; once the printing was complete there was an additional edit and 5 photos were cut because the print quality did not match the others. I also enjoy the feeling of holding and flipping through a stack of 5x7 prints more so than copy print paper. The darkroom prints are heavy and thick and it feels like the photos and book have weight and substance.

ADM: The book seems to be made primarily, or entirely of portraits that are fairly intimate - what was your process like for getting your subjects to pose for you, and was there anything specific you had in mind while making the portraits?

JH: The intent at the beginning was an exercise in moving into the fear of people that was imprinted at such an early age. Each time there was movement into the fear and existence within it rather than remaining outside of it, the less power it held over me. It has been a very enjoyable and challenging process; one that has forced me outside of my tiny perception of the world and into a slightly larger one. At the beginning of the process I would approach just about everyone whereas now I am a little more selective as far as who I will approach. There are some triggers, but now there seems to be some energetic attraction that draws me to some folks. Some people are leery of me and the camera but once we get to talking most people will open up and allow me into their space to make a portrait of them. I've been called names and some people have yelled at me as if I had committed some great crime or insult. To this day, I am continually amazed at the fact that people will readily say 'yes' to having their portraits made by a complete stranger. There was nothing specific I had, or have, in mind while making the portraits, I would shoot without much thought or without some goal in mind.

ADM: Did you find or have any particularly big or moving experiences or conversations while finding and working with strangers? If so would you mind sharing?

JH: No, nothing comes to mind. Though one time this person thought I snapped a photo of him and he started yelling at me to delete the photo. I yelled back to him and told him I had not taken a photo of him. He started coming at me from across the street still yelling. Instinctively, I started towards him and in my mind I wondered why am I doing this and what is going to happen next. He then jumped up and bumped his chest against mine. Afterwards, and without thought, my left hand drops down to my side and the next thing I know I’ve got his leg in my hand and he’s hopping on his left leg. I then start to move him so that he is hopping backwards and soon he fell to the ground. I told him I was done. He jumped up and pulled out three or four knives and he threw each one to the ground, one by one and said “let’s fight for fun, no knives.” I responded “no” and walked away. Later on that day my buddy and I circled back around into that part of downtown and I heard “hey come here”. It’s the same guy and I could hear that there was no anger or malice in his tone so I went over and he thanked me. I asked him for what reason. He told me because I had held back and that I could have beaten him up and hurt him. Ever since then we have been friendly towards one another whenever we see each other.

ADM: The book, and by extension, the rest of your feed is in black and white, have you always worked in BNW, and if so is there a reason that you gravitated to BNW? if so how did you get there?

JH: No. When I started shooting photos in 2016 I did not appreciate the beauty of black and white photography and started with color film. In 2017 I attended a black and white darkroom class at the now defunct Newspace in Portland, OR and have been shooting black and white since then. I love the fact that I can roll my own film, expose the film, process the film in the kitchen and make black and white photographs in a darkroom.

ADM: In terms of influence, you mention Blake Andrews - but was there anything or anyone else that you found influential at the time - either as an active or passive influence. You also speak about people being attracted - bruce gilden actually talks about a similar phenomena - can you expound on your experience with that?

JH: Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus, Rosalind Fox Solomon, Mary Ellen Mark, Henri Cartier-Bresson (I spent so many hours looking at his portraits), Eugene Richards, Duane Michals and the list goes on. It seems to be a completely instinctual and an unconscious process. It is also a process of letting go of any preconceived ideas and wants and letting it all just happen. Then effort seems to disappears and there is just this doing and the doing leads to meeting people without consciously looking for something or someone specific.

ADM: What advice would you give to, or do you have for someone who might be new to street portraits, or approaching strangers, and attempting to make a portrait of them?

JH: Keep your heart as open as possible.

ADM: From Chris San Nicolas: What non-photographic thing do you find most enriches your photography/life?

JH: Commuting to and from work by foot and mass transit.

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

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

ADM: Where can people find more of your work, and purchase either prints or copies of your book from you?

JH: Instagram. Please DM me if there is any interest in purchasing a print or a book.

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.

Promised Land: Tom Souzer

December 09, 2019 in interview

Promised Land: Tom Souzer

Andrew D. McClees (ADM): For those in the audience who aren't familiar, can you introduce yourself, and talk a little bit about what the focus of your work is, generally speaking?

Tom Souzer (TS): I’m Tom Souzer, I live and make photos In and around the Pittsburgh area. I mainly focus on people, emotions, funny interactions, and the strange things that happen that people may not always notice. So I guess to answer your question I basically just take photographs that make me feel something.

ADM: You put out a really great zine this year: "Promised Land Vol.2" I take it that it's an ongoing series or project? Can you talk about what "Promised Land" is as a project, and how you go about selecting images for it?

TS: Thanks man! Yeah so Promised land Vol. 2 is the second one I’ve put out. I didn’t initially plan to have multiple volumes but I just really dug the name and I think it’s an interesting way to describe the world we live in. So promised land “strange daze” was a look at all the weird, funny, and sad shit I see on a daily basis. So I thought the name was fitting. The title for me can be looked at 2 ways. For me most days I try to mentally remove myself and look at situations as an outsider never seeing anything like earth before. I did this so often I sometimes felt like I was walking around in this weird daze. So I decided to change “days” to “daze”. In the literal sense it’s just strange days but I kind of feel like it has a deeper meaning for me if that makes sense? The image selection process is stressful but also fun. I usually go through my files on the computer, xerox print them, and then go through laying them out. I only say stressful because I’m insane and will change the layout so many times and then I will change it up again if I think It’s needed after I lay everything out on the computer.

ADM: You're based out of Pittsburgh, how would you say your city has influenced your work, is there a natural character to the city that you're trying document or capture in your practice?

TS: I love Pittsburgh although it’s a tough city to shoot in. It’s small and the originals are starting to disappear, the buildings are changing, and the tech/health companies seem to be taking over everything. So I think in that aspect it’s influenced me to be out there as much as possible taking photos as much as I possibly can. The downtown area is mostly where I focus on making photos but I normally have the camera with me wherever I am just in case.

ADM: One of the reasons I started following you on Instagram was for the black and white that you shoot, and the specific tone/contrast that you use. Is there a reason that you shoot in BNW exclusively?

TS: Thanks man! I used to shoot in color but it never looked right to me really. I like the grittiness, timelessness, and general feel that it gives an image. It’s less distracting in my opinion and lets me or the viewer to focus on the person, scene, or situation I’m photographing.

ADM: Are you working on putting together a new zine right now, or do you have a new project incoming any time soon?

TS: Project wise I’m always trying to work on something. I don’t get to travel much really so I’m just always shooting what’s around me, Just documenting things and thinking of zine ideas - Don Standing (@donstanding) and I are going to do a split zine together at some point (If you don’t know him check his work out!), the collective I’m a part of (@diffusecollective) is going to be releasing a zine soon, and I’m working on something for Tour Dogs (@tourdogs) as well. I’m also going to be putting a new zine/book out in the new year. Not sure what it’s going to be called but it will be hand bound and will have a mix of shots from the last 5 years of photographing Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas.

ADM: What advice can you give to anyone looking to get into street photography, especially if they're not in city like Pittsburgh?

TS: I would say just go wander the streets and shoot photos that make you feel something. Talk to people, hang on a corner, learn your camera, look at books, and have fun. You can make photos anywhere even if you live in the middle of nowhere.

ADM: That’s really solid advice! Thanks for taking the time to do this interview.

Where can people find your work, and pick up copies of Strange Daze?

TS: I’m on Instagram @tomsouzer and my website is www.tomsouzer.com

Thanks for the questions man! Enjoyed answering them.