Tomorrow I will be presenting my dear friend, Annie to my 9:30 philosophy class. We had to either talk about ourselves or an artist that we drew inspiration from. Something in my stomach sunk with boredom at the thought of talking about myself. I have so much interest outside myself, it seemed like a waste of time. So i set my thoughts into thinking of someone who I go to when I feel artisically dry. I barely had to think. My uncreative mind finds refuge always at Annie's well-supplied flickr site, in all those beautiful images.victory.I had thought of the perfect someone.(I'm only wondering now if i'll be able to stick to the time limit)So i sent annie all the questions that the teacher wanted us to address and waited for her mind to gently unwrap each one and show me, in some small way, what goes on under the chocolate head of hair to make such beautiful blends of color and form.here's snippets of the interview.
read it, even if i don't know who or what the heck i'm talking about!
when did you first become interested in your work? When I was eleven, my parents gave me a two-megapixel point & shoot digital camera for Christmas. I remember that I'd wanted it passionately, but oddly enough I don't remember why. The initial trigger for my interest in photography is inexplicably shrouded in mystery. I was a bland sort of eleven-year-old. As soon as I captured my first image I knew that this camera and I would be fast friends. With each depression of the shutter button I could feel little pieces of blandness hopping away, one four-by-six at a time. The freezing of time and facial expressions and spilt milk fascinated me.
why do you work in your medium?
I am attracted, first, by the challenge of composition. If I paint, I have the ability to compose whatever I'd like. With photography, I am working with what is real, what cannot be erased, and often what cannot be rearranged. The scene is set: I must find the most appetizing slice to capture.
I am also enamored with the human connection that a photograph can awaken. When I look at a photo of a person, I see a story--a true story. Even the most uneventful photos can be spine-tingling in their blunt, everyday human trueness.
And then you've got aesthetics getting all tangled up with subject matter. Is the old man's nose more important, or is the angle from which I capture the old man's nose more important? I can't have one without the other. I find this struggle fascinating and am always on the quest for equilibrium.
And then there's the mystery of it all! Even when I pretend to understand the mechanics of a camera, I am still overwhelmed by the thought that a fleeting moment seen by my eyes--a picture of reality relayed to my brain--can be replicated exactly as I see it into something two-dimensional and permanent. It is boggling and beautiful.
what would you like to improve?
I have a sort of problem that involves never taking photos of significant things.
It seems that one cannot talk about a starry sky without sounding cliche, regardless of how breathtaking it may actually be. When I am witnessing a noteworthy occurrence, I cannot bring myself to put my eye to the viewfinder. Instead I photograph unimportant moments and insignificant details, skirting around the main attraction by taking pictures of things related to said main attraction, but never quite getting close enough to define it. It's like playing twenty questions and losing. Twenty photos of details, and I still haven't gotten to the point. A real photographer would go for the meat, but I, regrettably, am content with the parsley.
who is your biggest influence?
I think I am influenced by many different people all the time, few of whom are very famous or critically acclaimed. Today I am influenced by a fifteen-year-old Icelandic boy named Thorsteinn Cameron. Yesterday I was inspired by an unidentified relative of mine, who snapped an interestingly off-center portrait of my great-grandmother sitting in a white plastic chair next to an enormous mound of dirt.
what kind of experience do you want the viewer to have?
Mostly I'd just like the viewer to feel as if he hasn't wasted any time in looking at my photographs. If he gets that far, I suppose I'd like him to experience the feeling of penpalship, insofar as I've visually written to him about the little nothingnesses of my everyday.
describe the process of your photo making. where do your ideas come from? do your photographs turn out the way you expected them to initially?
For the most park, taking pictures is just something that I am constantly doing! I don't think I have many premeditated ideas--at least not any that I'm pungently aware of. I fly by the seat of my pants. I don't expect anything from my photographs. I just bounce along and click the button when I see something that I'd like to see again.
do you always enjoy photographing?
No! In certain situations I do not enjoy photographing at all. When my mother calls me into the living room late at night and tells me to photograph my 140-pound dog sitting on the couch eating a stuffed animal, I get very grumpy. The resulting photograph would be neither aesthetically pleasant nor of any personal value--not even to her. She doesn't really want a photograph of the dog. She just thinks she does in that moment.
how long did it take you to take this picture? do you work for long amounts of time to find a good shot? do you bring your camera everywhere? or just to certain places?
I was on a bike ride around the neighborhood with my little brother when I took this pairing of pictures. I dangerously snapped them in a matter of seconds as I wheeled down Somerset Avenue. It had just rained and everything was so saturated and beautiful. I think I ran a stop sign. In that moment I was more immersed in life than I was in photography, and photography was engaging with the moment rather than separating itself as an aloof artistic interruption. I often find that these sorts of situations are the most rewarding. Though I sometimes spend significant amounts of time looking for or setting up a "good shot," I regularly find that the shots I like most are the ones that I took without paying attention to perfection.
does the piece hold particular meaning to you? did this meaning come out before or after you took the picture?
This piece means home and childhood to me, which I realized as I was taking the photos. Riding bikes around the neighborhood with my little brother is something that I probably won't get to do very often in the future, and this piece will always remind me of fond times.
do you consider this work a success?
I consider this work a success in my own eyes, because when I look at it I am content with what it is conveying: the marshy feel of my little hometown and the act of enjoying small, quiet moments.
