Interview by Melissa KowalczykWhat got you interested in photography?
An art project in my AP Art 3 class senior year of high school. We made pinhole cameras and had to develop the photos ourselves in the journalism darkroom. I was hooked the moment I stepped in there. I had always been a science geek beyond my obvious passion for art, so stepping into a darkroom, where art and science mixed, was a beautiful thing for me.
Do you prefer digital or film cameras?
I really don’t prefer one or the other per se; I love working in both film and digital. Both formats have their pros and cons that help in deciding which format to shoot a particular piece with. Film is pricey, but the clarity is immaculate and produces a tangible negative that can be reproduced very large with little loss of quality. Digital is quicker, with no running to a lab for processing or developing. It’s virtually a free process once you’ve bought the equipment - though the equipment is considerably more expensive - and higher end dSLR’s are still producing poster sized prints for me that rival my film prints. It’s kind of a win-win deal for me.
Why do you take fashion photography?
That’s a good question. It’s hard for me to pinpoint where my first interest in fashion work came to me but I suspect it was from my love of Anton Corbijn’s work, though I don’t think he would call himself a fashion photographer. He shoots musicians mostly - including my favorite, Depeche Mode, celebrities, and the like, but his portraits have always had a unique element and flare of beautiful fashion in them. It was then that I started to notice how what we wear in a photo can impact the mood of the entire scene. A big part of it for me now, since I’ve been shooting fashion for a few years, is a love and appreciation for the art of fashion design. These garments don’t just make themselves. The designers who bring them to life pour a lot of seriously creative, draining, time-consuming work into their vision for a piece. As I got more involved in the industry, I felt an obligation to show off the fashion in my photos rather than the photography itself, because it became the fashion that inspired me most, not so much the chase of a beautiful photograph. With that mindset, I find that everything comes together. I get a beautiful image I’m proud of, and whomever has done the wardrobe styling or designing gets to see their work in a new perspective.
When you hear “fashion,” what comes to mind?
Mostly a lot of visuals, and not so much in-depth philosophy about the industry. I’m not much of a fashion buff as far as knowing the unabridged history of it, who everybody is, or what everything is called. What I know is what I like to see and what makes things beautiful. When I hear the word “fashion”, I see runways, models, clothing, makeup, lights, facial and body expressions, locations, etc. Then from what I see in my mind’s eye, hopefully I pull something from it that I can turn into reality and photograph. I have been known to write “Think Fashion” on things I carry around with me, to serve as a constant reminder to look at my surroundings with my fashion and photographic senses.
You’ve had some challenges to overcome from a medical incident. Would you mind sharing about that?
Certainly. I’ve got a medical history dating back to March of 2002, days before my 20th birthday. I was hospitalized due to a substantial loss of sight in both of my eyes. Half my sight in both eyes was gone. The diagnosis was that I had had an intra-cerebral brain hemmorhage due to a malformd artery in my brain that had been there since birth. The bleeding destroyed part of my optic track and cut away 50% of my sight in both eyes, resulting in my having no peripheral vision to my left, and a split image (only seeing the right half) when looking directly at an object. Almost eight months later, I had surgery on my brain to prevent further symptoms, which included death. When I awaoke from surgery, the left side of my body was paralyzed. Now, almost three years, later, my sight is still impaired the same. The doctors tell me it’s unlikely it will heal because the blood did so much damage to the optic track. I’ve regained functional use of my leg and am able to walk again. My left arm remains paralyzed from the elbow down, with no solid task-oriented use of my hand. That’s the summarized version of what happened, but people understand it’s not a tragedy in the end when they get to know me. It was quite an adjustment to make, but now, I’m so used to the new way of doing things half-blind and with one hand, that when I’m ‘in the zone’ while shooting, I hardly notice it.
When that happened did you think that you wouldn’t go on doing your art, or were you motivated enough to just move forward? I was only extremely worried the bleeding might render me100% blind... or dead. I knew that if I was alive and had some amount of sight, I would still be shooting and creating. I know that I was put on this earth to create and share my vision through my art (cheesy as it may sound), and with what has happened, I may have limited sight, but I’ve got a lot of vision. I’ve taken more from this than it’s taken from me.
I’m sure there are quite a lot of people that are happy that you pushed forward the way you have. How do you choose a model? What do you look for? Model selection has always been an interesting process. The first ‘model’ I shot was a friend in high school, Jordan Hall. Maybe she’ll read this one day and laugh. At that point, I was shooting anybody I could convince to come to my apartment-turned-studio. I was even shooting myself with my camera on a tripod when I didn’t have anyone else around. That gave me tons of good practice that I recommend to who’s trying to develop their photography. I’ve approached waitresses in public about shooting. Sometimes, I shoot people candidly in public and still get something decent out of it. In a model, i mostly look for unique facial features - strong lines and organic curves, and an edgy attitude when necessary. These days, anybody can be a model, though. I don’t think I’ve ever done a shoot with a ‘real model’ or even just a ‘stand-in’ friend, that I haven’t gotten something I liked out of. We all have a side of ourselves that the camera is itching to capture, which we didn’t know we really had.
Do you tell them what to wear and how their makeup should be, or does someone else take care of that?
It’s generally a collaborative effort, either with the model and myself and what resources we have, with a fashion stylist who can pull wardrobe from a collection of their own, or from a department store or boutique they might have a relationship with. Makeup artists are always looking for new photographers to shoot with. I’ve met and used several freelancers for shoots in the past. It’s a good idea to talk to the makeup artist who does the bride’s makeup in your friend’s wedding to see if they’re interested in collaborating. The wedding circuit may seem like a drab place to find one, but those artists generally have a pretty diverse book that shows they do more than just weddings. Another good practice when developing your vision of a shoot is to pull images from magazines that inspire you, which you can use to communicate to your team of stylists and artists your feelings for the shoot. Tack them up on the wall, go over them, get the others’ feedback. Don’t be afraid to show and tell your team what you do not want to see as well. There are a few good resources out there on the web and around town that will help you find people who are interested in doing what you need done. And in time, after watching your team do these things, you start to develop a knack for it yourself, and you’ll soon be doing some of your own makeup, hair and styling. Sounds intimidating, but it all just falls into place.
About how long does this whole process take?
To be honest, that’s a shot in the dark. This industry is notorious for running behind schedule. There is so much room for ‘incidentals’ - things that come up out of nowhere unexpectedly and cause delays - that lots of planning is a good practice. Planning on my part begins usually with coming across a piece of wardrobe I’d like to shoot, then finding a model that fits the piece, a location to shoot, a makeup artist, a hairdresser. These things can take weeks to solidify. This is why it’s less daunting to take charge of what you can and work with what you and your model have collectively. Models generally have a pretty decent-sized closet full of wardrobe to use, and beauty products as well. In a case like this, you can get some good stuff out of only a few hours of shooting and maybe a day or two worth of planning. Improvising like that is healthy in keeping you sharp on reacting to what you have available to you. After all, what happens if your makeup artist and hair dresser carpool to your shoot and get held up in traffic or in a wreck that keeps them from making it to the shoot altogether?
Do you have backup people to call or do you usually just take over and do whatever can’t be done by the original people?
There might be a few reserves I could call to fill in, but rarely is it easy for someone to pack up all their make up, wardrobe, or hair products to make it to a shoot at the last minute. In which case, I do what I can and have the model do what he or she can. Those are the kinds of things you have to plan for. It doesn’t hurt to have all your own backup supplies for that kind of situation. It’s okay to own a makeup bag and go shopping for eyeliner! As the photographer, I’ve even dropped and broken a camera in the middle of a shoot. I have five cameras to use as back up, ranging from a Holga, a polaroid, and a 35mm Nikon. I always keep a few disposables around as well.
Now, totally off the subject, but a question that must be asked: what do you think about the color white... or the lack of color?
White is beautiful in its simplicity, but radiant with its contrast. I use it often as a background in studio shoots, as inspired from Richard Avedon’s use of the white background. Avedon spoke of his use of the white background for his subjects as a means of strictly concentrating on the subject, putting them in there, with no props, no surrounding, what you see is what you get, nothing to pull you away from who they are. White, being a lack of color, it is the canvas we paint the visual world on.