Daniel Shea, makes us happy.

Our Weekly, biweekly, interview series continues with our interview with East Coast “Dreamboat Photographer” Daniel Shea.

Daniel is a 2007 Grad, who has currently been doing work with a subject matter that we find fascinating. Earth; and our impacts on it.


© Daniel Shea

Daniel offers a interesting perspective as well on his blog. Wish him luck in the future, Please take the time to check out his work, in all its glory.



Q1. We see you are a recent graduate and on your website it states you are a K-12 Arts Teacher. Do you plan on grad school? Why not tell us more about yourself for the people who don’t know?

I graduated from art school a year ago, although it feels a lot longer than that. I've worked 8 jobs since, on top of being a freelance photographer, so it's been a hectic year. From August through October of 2007 I went to the Appalachian region to make Removing Mountains, and when I came home to Baltimore I eventually found myself substitute teaching at an amazing arts-based school for students with learning disabilities. A position opened up for a full-time art teacher, and seeing that the school is a private institution, I didn't need a Masters in Education to teach, so I jumped at the opportunity. It's been one of the most rewarding jobs I've ever had. As I type this up my 12th grade Portfolio Class and I are in the media center exploring the PBS Art 21 site. The potential for me to expose students to a variety of artists, both traditional and non, is amazing.

That's my current situation, the rest of my life isn't really that interesting or unique. Basically I grew up in DC and Chicago, tried way too hard to fit in as a kid, gave up on that, was socially awkward in high school, discovered hardcore punk, radical politics, and good art/photography, and left boring civilian life happily behind, never to look back.


© Daniel Shea

Q2. Your work positively seems to be all over the place. We see portraits, landscapes, editorial, emotional, and conceptual ideas as themes throughout your work; have you had any negative feedback regarding the spread of work we see?

The most formative artists and photographers for me in college consisted of a variety of conceptualists (for lack of a better term) who made work using the medium that was most fitting for their explorations, as opposed to sticking to a medium and subsequently making work that indirectly embraces its inherent constraints. So for me, when I started to make work that was even remotely successful, about half way through college, photography became very much about photography . However, I've somewhat reluctantly acknowledged my primal love for photography, and, to put it tritely, the pure joy in composing and making a photograph through a camera and lens. This can at times present a working predicament, however inflated that may sound.

But yes, essentially I make the type of image/series that is most conceptually consistent with my idea and subject matter. My current work, which is relatively traditional in many ways, "straight photography," if you will, is built upon a rigorous examination into the historical delineation of landscape, both in painting and art. I brought that knowledge and interest to Removing Mountains. Some of my earlier projects in college were straight social documentaries addressing some politicized issues that I was fired up about. My new work really coalesces the two; the historic significance/power of the social document, built on a strong understanding of the historic motifs that are, by default, referred to in the images.

With all that said, I'm not necessarily interested in anyone knowing that. It ends up convoluting the main intention of the work, which is to look and respond emotionally, politically, and artistically. I write all this to sort of explain my working process.

I think that answers your question in a tangential way. In terms of negative feedback, the best I've received really questions the more ethical issues that are inherent to being a privileged outsider photographing what can be interpreted as marginalized people. However, I try to play the agency card, and photograph in a way that allows the subject to take control of that space between viewer and interpretation. I basically try to uphold any and all integrity that exists on the stage the subject is being photographed on.


© Daniel Shea

Q3. The focus we really see is of your interpretations of land use in and about coal mining. Are you familiar with the Center for land use Interpretation? What is your ultimate goal with this work?

It's interesting that you bring up CLUI, a group that really represents a new interest in extending public discourses in multidisciplinary manners, which I think is a very, very important thing to do today. CLUI functions in several ways, all very subversive, considering their image and pragmatic phrasing, which is awesome.

The ultimate goal is for people to see this work, in book form (which is how I've envisioned it all along), in galleries and non-traditional physical art viewing spaces, and on the internet. All the stuff that happens in that process I'll answer in the next question...


© Daniel Shea

Q4. Can you explain your concept “to build a narrative out of context...and then more context. After all, I consider this body of work to be art about a political issue, not political art. By default, many associations will be immediately made, but my hopes are that the viewer will eventually look at the group of photographs as a complex series of potential contingencies, much like the issue being dealt with.” This seems like a pretty big task to take on photographically, do you plan on writing about and or doing any motion documentary work within this concept?

I guess in a way it comes down to the question, "Is (your) art political?" which is a question worth asking, and often not worth answering, due to its seemingly rhetorical nature. I have very strong feelings about what's happening in Appalachia because of coal mining, but it's important that I keep that to myself while on the road, and often when talking to other people (I'm really bad at the second part). In the end I absolutely want people to walk away from an exhibit thinking about American power dynamics in this day and age. My intent is for the dialogue to be initiated by the images, not handed out as a mission statement, which is where I'm going with the quote in the question. From the viewer response of my first exhibit, I think people are really thinking about the issues, and going home and researching mountaintop removal and coal history, which is great. Deep down, this is what I really want more than anything, people to think, but I still want to make art that isn't politically in your face. Subtlety and context are probably the words I use most in artspeak.

I've written extensively about this issue, and I'll have a significant amount of writing in the book I'm working on. I don't see myself working with video/film any time soon, but who knows. I'm mostly obsessed with photography. The medium of photography itself is historically crucial for this type of work, and the way people respond.


© Daniel Shea

Q5. How do you go about gaining access to the mines you have photographed? Are they interested in your overall concept? Or are they protective?

When I was on the road, I was still trying to figure out what I was doing. I toned down my ideas a lot when talking to people, not because I didn't think people would understand, but for practical reasons. The access I gained was because I was a "non-biased social documentary photographer." I told people very bluntly that I was just interested in looking. I gained access to the mine sites by frequently tagging along with one organization's outings, which led me to encounter West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) agents. One man in particular (the guy with the outstretched hand standing on the mountaintop removal site in one of the photographs) really wanted to show me the whole operation start to finish. The day we went and did this, I couldn't help but feel he was trying to demonstrate sheer power and advanced technology. For him, this was the American legacy and thus justified. I agreed with him on the former. That was one of the most intense days of my life, to witness energy extraction in it's unfiltered essence. It's something we all take for granted, and I still do to this day.

Protective doesn't even begin to describe the level of secrecy that surrounds some of these mine sites. Before getting "official" access with the DEP, I spent a lot of days hiking mountains and trespassing, something I wouldn't recommend. I gained invaluable advice from talking to countless locals who grew up in the mountains and knew them front and back. The action of me trespassing was maybe an ethical point of conflict in retrospect, not because I give a shit about corporate interests, but the presumption that a city kid can come in and do what people have done all their lives, carefully and skillfully, isn't a good attitude to have and purport. I didn't have this attitude at all. I was always very respectfully, but I was very conscious of these dynamics, and did my best to stay within my boundaries as an outsider.


© Daniel Shea

Q6. What have you learned from the comments about your work on Flickr? Do you find the commenting system on Flickr as a positive or a negative? Does a system like this help you as a professional?


Flickr is some serious business! Flickr is what it is. I have absolutely nothing to add to the argument for or against it. I use it because I'm anxious and love uploading work as soon as I scan it. I guess that makes me a child of modern convenience. I've honestly made a lot of amazing contacts/friends on flickr, and subsequently have been exposed to a lot of good work. As for comments, I don't really like them, but, flickr isn't supposed to be taken seriously. I'm worried about Yahoo having unconditional rights to images, something I'm fundamentally against, but at the end of the day I care more about other things than to dwell on flickr politics. I sound like a jaded asshole sometimes, I'm well aware.


© Daniel Shea

Q7. With our acerbic take on youth and photography, what would you like to interject regarding the future photography? Do you see an influx of technology and Internet connections as a positive? Where do you see the future of this influx going?


Your acerbic attitude is welcome, trust me, I'm sure I speak for all those outside the circle-jerk internet photo/blog world (and if I don't, sorry). I have strong opinions, but one thing I've never been into is predicting the future and direction of art. Plus, we all see the trends. No need to regurgitate them here. I will say that the internet, in its incarnation 2.0, has a profound impact on the medium, if not shaping a new medium of photography that perhaps should be aptly named something clever. Hopefully a majority of this contax-inspired, soapy-boobage, self-love myopic horse shit will bury itself in google archives in 10 years, but a trend is a trend for a reason. I love the internet, but not as much as books and prints.


© Daniel Shea

Q8. You are the first photographer that we have ever seen a comment on a website that states “...this website is most definitely not copyrighted. however i do retain some rights, theoretically. if you are ethically confused about what to do with an image of mine that you may or may not want to use, read here. or contact me.” What do you think about the role of new photographers and the ideas of ownership?

Ownership is a sedation tool for the masses, among many, many other things the smart capitalist swine come up with. Really though, props to them, they've really got us fighting over the stupidest shit. I'm being semi-rhetorical with what you quoted, I could have just said "don't be an asshole," and have said the exact same thing. I don't have any illusions of grandeur, and I'm not trying to be revolutionary, I just don't believe in copyrighting, at least ideologically. In terms of art discourse development in the last century, it seems a bit reactionary to get hot and sweaty over the fine print (unless it's a c-print, cha ching!). I understand the importance of having the rights to your image, I just chose to distance myself from the politics. Basically I stand behind creative commons.

Q9. Whats the deal with all the cool people living in Baltimore?

It's a fucking cool place, simply put. The resources and conventional institutions that exist in more established art scenes don't exist here. So by default, the art scene is run by the artists, which is how it should be everywhere, in my humble opinion. In Baltimore people build what they want from scratch. DIY still means something, which is rare. I love Baltimore, but after a dutiful 5 years, I'm moving to Chicago in the Fall, where I spent my high school years, to eventually go to grad school and yell in hardcore bands.

Q10. According to a comment on your blog, you are a photo dreamboat.
What do you have to say about this?



Q11. Whats next for Daniel Shea?

I'm working on a couple of new projects, particularly a long-term multi-faceted take on Baltimore. This project will hopefully serve as a polemic, but I have to be careful with what I'm planning. I'm also going to start applying for grants to do an extension of the mountaintop removal work, in the Ohio River Valley, where coal is being burned. I have a project that I'm really pumped on, that I plan on executing in about 3 years, but I'm keeping it a secret, because secrets are fun, and I don't want anyone else to do it (speaking of ownership). Also, Removing Mountains will be published as a book in early 2009, but I'm not releasing the press name yet, and trying to keep it on the down low.

Q12. Any questions we forgot to ask?

Don't you want to know what glass I'm using??

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you Daniel.
Keep up the good work, we look forward to seeing it.

As for us at F.O.T.

Next week we promise to start another argument, dialog, banter, etc etc.

But first, anyone know how we can get ahold of this dude?
Rather then us “cold emailing him” because he is one busy guy.
We want to interview him next.

Get ready to comment, because we really want to have some dialog.
I we don't care if it is good bad or ugly.

Plus, we are going to be taking about this topic

if you made this comment

“Yes, can we have a post on trying to get into the art world without an MFA and said program getting you your first shows?

I've been to MOCA, LACMA, MOMA, SFMOMA, the Prado, Reina Sofia, and Thyssen over ten times each and to the Lourve and Tate twice. I've gone religiously to gallery shows ever month wherever I've lived to see virtually everything showing in the contemporary market. I shoot daily and have poured over countless hours on the internet to educate myself.

But I guess I'm just not as well prepared or legit as these kids.”

we would like to talk.
contact us!
fartingonthunder (at) gmail.com

we asked about,
and need to respond appropriately.

please do email us with any questions comments or
work you want us to give our 8.5 cents about.

Billon Pixel Camera

to wet your apetite till tommorows interview with mr.shea

Billion-pixel panoramas — from your own camera

GigaPan

another “thing” we “need” to compete with professionals.
not to be cynical or anything.
we do see amazing potential for something like this, but
enough already. How are pros going to stay legit?

Waking up next to Liz Kuball

Like we promised. Our interview with Liz Kuball, she recently has been doing interviews with artists (photographers) and we thought, hey, we need to interview the interviewer.

She is a promising (young) photographer, whom is at a riper age then most of the young photographers that we see stream into our consciousness.

Go read her blog to find out this age, I know that it may not be kosher to mention the un-mentionables. She brings a fresh honest perspective on what she is learning and is going thru as she is trying to make photography a bigger part in her life.


© Liz Kuball

And please do, look hard at her work. We don't think she will be a runner-up-honorable-mentionable-2ndplace for much longer.


© Liz Kuball


Q1. We love your directness in your blog regarding your experiences about wanting to become a “working” photographer. Why did you decide to go a traditional education route at first, other than the thought of it driving you crazy? Did you have pressure from your family that being an artist is not the way to go? Why not tell us more about yourself for the people who don’t know.

When you say “traditional education route,” I think you mean just that I went to undergrad at a Big Ten school and got a bachelor’s in English and history instead of going the art-school route. Yeah, well, the best answer to that question is that I had no clue that I wanted to be a photographer when I was 18. I’d always been interested in photography—I got my first camera, a Kodak Disc, when I was 10—but it never seemed like anything I could actually do in real life.

My grandpa died when I was 15, and I inherited his old Minolta SLR. I wanted to use it—I really did—but I didn’t understand the whole concept of apertures and shutter speeds, and all I knew is that my pictures looked like crap. Sophomore year, I took a photo class at the local art center, but I just got swept into other things. For me, high school was about being on the swim team and going to football games and making out with my boyfriend in the cornfields near my house.

He was going to grow up to be a civil engineer like his dad, and crazy as it sounds to me now, I thought we would get married right after college and I would work for a while and then have kids and be a stay-at-home mom. I’m typing this in complete awe at the way my priorities and goals have changed in the time since then. But the fact is, that was all I knew. I grew up in a small town in Michigan, where my parents had grown up. My dad was (and still is) a dentist there, and my mom stayed at home with my sisters and me. I mean, I knew that there were women who worked, but other than my teachers, I didn’t know any of them. And I guess I just assumed I’d have kids, because, obviously, my parents had them, and wasn’t that what it was to be a grown-up? All this meant that I needed a job that would be easy for me to do for a little while and maybe go back to someday, so I figured I’d be a high school English teacher.

By the time I was maybe a year or two into undergrad, I really hated the School of Education courses I was having to take, but it was completely foreign to me to even consider changing horses midstream. So I just kept at it and finished my degree. After I graduated from college, I was offered a job at my hometown high school, and although it was a good school district and the pay was good, I just couldn’t seem to make up my mind. So I thought I would use my copy of the master key to the school district (which I had because I’d been a painter for the district every summer in college) and go into the classrooms where I’d be teaching to try to get some kind of a sign. When I put the key in the lock and turned it, the key snapped off. That was it—I knew I wasn’t supposed to be a teacher there. I still have that broken-off key on my keychain, just to remind myself to listen to my gut, because all along, my gut was telling me that I didn’t want to teach.

Instead, I went and got a master’s in English (because being a student was all I knew how to do), and that killed a couple years. And when I got out of grad school, I had to find a job. I was offered one as a copyeditor for a publishing house in Indianapolis, but I turned it down because I couldn’t stand the thought of working in a cubicle. As the summer dragged on, and I was doing everything from mowing golf courses to weighing ammonia tanks for farmers, I realized I needed the money. So at the end of July 1997, I started working as an editor.

I stayed there 18 months, then worked for 6 months as a technical writer for a consulting firm in Indy, and when I showed up one morning to work and started crying in the parking lot, I knew I needed to quit. I started freelancing as an editor in the summer of 1999, and I’ve been freelancing ever since.

I stayed in Indy for a couple years, and then I realized I could freelance from anywhere, and I didn’t have any reason to stay. I thought about and visited all kinds of places but eventually decided on Los Angeles, for no real reason other than instinct. After I’d made the decision to move, I applied to the graduate writing program at USC—I’d thought for years that I wanted to be a writer, but I wasn’t really writing anything, so school seemed like a way to force myself to write.

Grad school at USC was frustrating, in many ways, because I was basically trying to be Joan Didion, without the big sunglasses and the cigarette, and any time you’re trying to be someone else, you’re bound to fail miserably. Plus, all my classmates seemed really into their courses, into writing, and I hated it. I wanted to have written; I didn’t want to write.

Toward the end of my time there, I did an independent study with S., who asked me what I wanted to focus on that semester. I didn’t have a clue, so he said, “Well, what are you interested in?” I said, “I’ve always liked photography.” And that was the start really. I spent a semester reading a series of books and essays about photography—all assigned by S.—purportedly to analyze the authors’ writing styles, look at the way they communicated, etc. The next semester, I started working on my master’s thesis, a series of essays on photography. And my thesis became entirely about my slow realization that I didn’t want to be a writer, that I wanted to be a photographer. I spent $40,000 to figure that out—and I think it was worth every penny.

I graduated from USC in December 2004. And I spent 2005 trying to educate myself about photography on my own. I read history books and critical essays, as well as just plain old textbooks on the technical aspects of how to operate a camera. In January 2006, I started taking classes at Santa Barbara City College, and I did that for the entire year. In December 2006, I was trying to figure out whether to continue on at SBCC with more coursework, or whether I’d be better off on my own. I was afraid that I’d let my photography slip away without some structure, so I decided to start a blog on January 1, and to force myself to take a photo a day.

Blogging is really where I’ve gotten my education. I learned at SBCC how to use a camera; I’ve learned through blogging how to be a photographer. Connecting through other photographers via their blogs has been an incredible learning experience, and I can’t even imagine what I’d have done without it.

Sometimes I wish I could’ve come to the realization about wanting to be a photographer earlier, that I’d known when I was 20 or even 25 what I wanted to do. But it wasn’t until I was 31 that I figured it out, and I think I needed that time to see who I was, before I could figure out what I wanted to be.

Q2. Did entering your 30s make you less crazy? Is it not evident that everyone is one now? or wants to be one? (one = photographer) Why now?

Less crazy? Ha! I don’t think so. I don’t know what entering my 30s did for me really. I know I’ve been happier in my 30s than I ever was in my 20s, and a lot of that has been because I know what I want now.

Is everyone a photographer or a wannabe photographer? God, I don’t know. Honestly, when I was coming to this realization in my own life, I was completely unaware of how huge photography was. I really was in my own little world. I didn’t even know that photographers had blogs when I started my blog. (I’m not kidding.) Not long after I started blogging, American Photo had an article about photographers with blogs, and they mentioned Amy Elkins and Alec Soth, and I remember going to check out their blogs and then clicking through to all the people they linked to, and all the people they linked to, and on and on, and it was like falling through the rabbit hole.

The bottom line is, I don’t give a shit how many people are photographing or want to be photographing. All I care about is that I’m doing what I want, making work I’m pleased with, finding answers to the questions I can’t get answered any other way. That’s all it’s about for me really.

© Liz Kuball


© Liz Kuball

Q3. Below we would like to take some of your blog’s statements from you and re-question their ideas.

Don’t get me wrong: I want to earn people’s respect, and I don’t think it’s a small accomplishment that Ms. Simon has earned the respect of so many. But if that’s all I elicit through my photographs—as it was all she elicited in me—I think I’ll have done something wrong. I feel about Ms. Simon’s work the same way I feel about Susan Sontag’s writing. Respect, definitely. But that’s the extent of it. I don’t feel anything when I read Sontag, and I don’t feel anything when I look at Simon’s photographs. I think things, but I don’t feel. I respect Ms. Simon for her skill, her commitment, her follow-through, her ability to get a camera into some pretty unusual places. But I found that I rarely moved past the question of “How’d she get access to shoot there?”

After making these comments and reading/thinking about them almost ten months later, do you still feel this way about Taryn Simon’s work? What do think and feel when you look at the works of an ultra-conceptual artist like Jeff Wall? What do you feel when you read John Berger, who is a big influence on us? (That is, if you’ve read him.)

Yep, I think that still pretty much sums up my response to Taryn Simon’s work. Immense respect, but no feeling. I haven’t picked up An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar since I finished looking at it the first time. My copy of Richard Renaldi’s Figure and Ground is getting worn from being looked at so much. There’s a reason for that. I’d rather be a photographer like Renaldi than a photographer like Simon. But that’s just me.

I saw a Jeff Wall exhibit at the Art Institute in Chicago last summer, and I liked it a lot. I don’t think I’m opposed to concept necessarily. I just think the bar for me is, “Do I feel something when I look at this image?” Simon’s work feels distant to me, like a mannequin in a window, and Wall’s is like being crammed into an overcrowded subway car. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but I guess I’d rather be jammed in a subway car than staring at a window display.

I haven’t read John Berger, but you’ve made me want to order the book from Amazon. If I weren’t on a self-imposed shopping fast, I’d have ordered it already!

Q4. Here we again want to take some more words of yours and this time we will recontextualize them with new words inserted.

Writers [Artists] generally don’t set out to write something with those isms in mind; they set out to tell a story. The isms come after, and they often have nothing to do with the writer’s [artist’s] intention.

What do you think about this statement now recontexualized. Do you think we see this happening today?

Actually, in the post that you’re quoting from, I go on to talk about artists specifically. I’ll quote from myself:

The academics seem to have a stronger hold on artists than they do on writers. Artists think and talk in terms of critical constructs that you just don’t hear writers using. It’s not just about the artist creating; the artist has to have a concept for her work. Concept, schmoncept. It’s as though the scholars and critics have gotten into artists’ minds, and the artists have bought in to what the critics are saying. Don’t get me wrong—I think there’s a place for the kind of intellectualizing that academics groove on. I just wonder whether it has any place in the realm of creativity. How much can you possibly produce when you have all that theory—all that stuff that should come after you’re finished with your work—floating around in your mind?

A month later, though, I wrote a post that called into question everything I said above. That’s the good thing about blogs, isn’t it?

As for how I feel about it now, I try not to get too bogged down in this kind of stuff, actually. I think, for me, what I’m trying to say often comes in the editing. I mean, I think I’m aware of what a project is about in the beginning, but I’m such an editor to my core that I need to turn off that internal dialog until I’m done. If I were thinking too much during the process of photographing, I don’t think it would be fun for me anymore. It’s not that I’m without thought, of course.

I’ve been sitting here trying to come up with a description of what’s going through my mind when I’m making pictures. I guess it’s sort of like what I’m thinking about when I do yoga. It’s like thoughts passing through my mind, but not lingering, a focus on the moment, that kind of thing. Months later, when I’m staring at my computer or looking at work prints, that’s when I start to think more critically.

You asked about what we see happening today with artists. I can’t really speak to other artists’ processes, and I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to go about your work. I think in that initial post, I was expressing a frustration because I was assuming that, just because I was reading lots of highly conceptual artists’ statements, that meant I needed to think that way, too. In the time since then, I’ve come to realize that I don’t need to think any way other than the way I think.

As for the isms, obviously it helps to have a sense of the historical context of a particular piece of work. You can look at the work of William Eggleston and Stephen Shore differently knowing that they were among the first to work in color (or at least achieve some recognition for their color work). Still, for me, that’s not what matters. That kind of information is interesting and enriches the experience of looking at their work. But when I look at Los Alamos or Uncommon Places, I’m not thinking about their place in history or concepts or what they were trying to do or say. In fact, I’m not thinking much at all. I’m feeling. The photography that means the most to me is more poetry than prose, more about feeling than thinking.

What the art critics write about something after the fact is interesting, the way a movie review is interesting. But what matters is the art, and how I feel about it. For me, a film is successful when I’m completely in the film, in that world. If I’m thinking about the actors’ performances, or paying attention to the cinematography or the editing or the sound, it’s not working. And that’s how I feel about photography. If I’m standing in a gallery wondering how someone got that shot, what kind of camera she used, what the lighting setup was, what he’s trying to say in his work, it’s not working. That kind of thinking and wondering can come later, but if it’s the first thing on my mind, there’s a problem.


© Liz Kuball

Q5. About your blog post regarding Expectations. You say:

Besides, to think that a person could possibly approach a photograph, any photograph, without expectations is unrealistic. Break it down: If I tell you that I’m going to show you a photograph, instantly you have an idea about what a photograph is. Your expectations will depend on who you are and what experiences you’ve had with photographs (as well as on who I am and what you know about me), but no matter what, you will have expectations.

Do you think this hurts or helps the general viewing public (i.e., when you walk into a gallery, you expect something as well from the work you will see)? Do you think that expectations and name recognition gets people places they need to be, or people are too in awe regarding work from people who may not deserve it?

I think I pretty much answer your question on whether expectations hurt or help in the paragraph before the one you quoted. I wrote:

I read this and the line that stuck in my mind was “an expectation that (just like any other expectation) is not very helpful.” Really? I think expectations are inherent, and for good reason. Each of us is filled with expectations—expectations are part of what it is to be alive. We expect all kinds of things from ourselves and from each other, and those expectations are what not only get us into trouble but bring us joy. If we had no expectations, we could never be surprised. Part of an artist’s job is to challenge people’s expectations. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say that, without expectations, art might not exist.

As for “awe regarding work from people who may not deserve it,” who’s to say who deserves it, really? Does anyone?

I think it would be naïve to think that name recognition doesn’t play a role. Of course, it does—but that’s true of everything, not just photography or art. The thing is, everybody with name recognition came from a place of no name recognition (unless you’re talking about Suri and Shiloh et al). They made names for themselves through their work. So whenever I hear people griping about some big-name photographer and all the attention he gets and how he doesn’t deserve it, I’m always thinking, “Well, then why don’t you go out and make a name for yourself so you can have all that attention?” I know there are incredibly talented people who will never get the solo show in Chelsea, never publish a book, never do whatever . . . but that’s life, isn’t it? What’s the point in complaining? If you’re doing the work you love, the accolades should be icing on the cake, not the cake itself.

Q6. Let’s say someone sends you a large-format camera, some film, and some Polaroid? What would your process be? Would you think differently then you do with your digital process?

I’ve used a Polaroid before—I have one somewhere around here, but I guess it’ll be nothing more than a good paperweight soon. And I shot film for years before I switched to digital. My move to digital was entirely about economics—I was learning how to use a camera, and I was spending a fortune just buying all that film and getting contact sheets made. I did the math and figured out that I could buy a Canon 5D and some nice glass for what I would be spending on film and developing in one year. I love my 5D, and I can’t imagine going back to 35mm film. I know there are film loyalists out there, and more power to ’em. But I’m happy with what I’ve got.

I would like to experiment with large format, though, just because I’m curious how much the format affects the photographs. Some of my favorite photographers right now are shooting only large format, and I’ve wondered what kind of work they would produce with 35mm. I know large format affords a clarity that you just can’t replicate with a smaller negative, but I tend to think that the format doesn’t make as much of a difference as they think it does. Let me put it this way, if it’s the format that’s making the photographs good, then they’re not really good to begin with. If you send me a large-format camera, I could be forced to eat my words, but that’s where my mind is at the moment.


Q7. You started but then seemed to backtrack on a resolution early this year of what you called “photographic sluttery.” Do you still think of yourself as a slut?

Really? You think I’ve backtracked on that resolution? Interesting. I guess I think I’ve stuck to it pretty well, actually. I don’t think of myself as a photographic slut anymore. I think I’m focusing more on projects that I care about.

Q8. You had some good comments from Jörg M. Colberg regarding your work, and to push you into interviewing whom you want to. What do you believe his role to be in the future of photo criticism? Is he your Szarkowski?

Oh, god, I’m the last person to ask about photo criticism. Much of what Jörg does, it seems to me, is point out the work of people who aren’t yet widely known. He doesn’t write all that much on his blog—it’s mostly stuff like, “I quite like X’s work” or, “Check out the photography of X.” I don’t even know that he wants to be a critic in that Szarkowski sense—you should ask him!

As for him being my Szarkowski . . . I don’t think so. I’m not sure why he asked me to review my portfolio, now that I think of it. I took him up on it, because I was curious what he’d say and I thought I would learn something, and I guess I assumed he was doing that for a bunch of other people as well. It wasn’t until he went live with the portfolio reviews he’s offering that I got a hint that I’d been the only one—I’m still not entirely sure of that. I think he has an interesting perspective, but I don’t agree with everything he says, and I ultimately went in another direction with my In Store project than what he recommended. What his portfolio review did was help me define, for myself, what I was trying to do.

The reality is—and I think Jörg would be the first to admit this—a blog is not a museum. Sure, he has a huge audience, and he’s been invited to judge contests and write and interview, and I think that’s great. But he’s toiling away in a day job just like I am, and he doesn’t have the power to introduce a photographer to the world on the kind of stage that Szarkowski had.
Q9. We think your work could be helped along with some mentoring/editing from other photographers. Do blog/work comments or real-world constructive criticism help? Who do you decide to trust when it comes to editing your work? Yourself or others?
In general, comments on my blog don’t really help me all that much, unless they’re from people I already know or have some kind of relationship with. (By “know,” I don’t mean in a big way—it could just be that I’ve e-mailed with them.) And people don’t generally leave comments that are extensive enough to be much help. “Nice photo” doesn’t really tell you much.

Real-world constructive criticism helps when there’s time. I went to Review LA in January and really got a lot out of that experience. Amber Terranova from Outside magazine spent ten minutes going through my In Store portfolio and pointed out weaknesses and strengths that I hadn’t seen at all. It’s taken me a few months to absorb everything she said, but there are times, in editing my work today, that I can hear her, and that’s a huge help. I now think that about two-thirds of what’s on my Web site in the In Store section is stuff I’ll end up cutting from the project and replacing.

I got a lot of help from Jennifer Loeber recently, when it comes to editing. She helped me to see ways that I could combine my fine art projects with my other work to make an editorial portfolio that I’m really pleased with. (That was all done by e-mail, by the way.)

I sometimes run stuff by people like Susana Raab, Ben Huff, and Shawn Gust, too. If I’m entering a contest or something, I’ll send them some JPEGs and see what they think. It’s good to get some sense of how other people are seeing things.

S. also looks at my work and comments, and that helps. And my sister Cara is a huge help, too.

But then, in the end, it’s really just me. I like to get other people’s thoughts, but the deeper I get into this, the more I’m trusting my own instincts.

Q10. Did your recent decision that your In Store work was possibly at a dead end have anything to do with your attending a trade show regarding the storage industry? Why not an exploration more into what is stored, rather than the structure itself?

I don’t think they were connected, really. The trade-show thing was more of a curiosity for me, and a way to maybe meet some owners of storage facilities who would allow me to photograph there. (Getting in to a storage place to make pictures isn’t always easy.)

I thought about photographing what’s stored, but for me, the structures are more interesting. I prefer to imagine what’s behind closed doors, as I say in my project statement. The places themselves are endlessly fascinating to me. The stuff, not so much.


© Liz Kuball

Q11. What’s next for Liz Kuball?

I’d really like to wrap up the In Store project this year—take more pictures, and then do a tighter edit, and see where I’m at. I might continue entering that in contests, if I feel like it’s worthy, or I might just leave it up on my site as an example of my work. I’m not sure yet.

I’ve also got three other projects in the works—in various stages. One project is set in my neighborhood in Santa Barbara, and it’s sort of about feeling like a stranger in a place and looking for things that feel familiar in a strange setting. That sounds vague, and that’s because I’m really just beginning the photographing of it, and I’m not sure yet where it’ll go.

Another project is set in a town a few hours away from here. I’ve taken a handful of pictures for it, and maybe none of them will be in the final project. I’m not sure. Right now, I’m hampered a bit by the cost of gas, so I’m not working as much on that as I’d like.

And then the third project I haven’t started photographing at all yet, but I’m looking for subjects. It’ll be entirely portraits, and that’s all I’m ready to say about it right now. (I hate when people are cryptic about this kind of stuff, but I really want to get a sense of where it’s going before I talk about it too much.)

So those are my three personal projects. And then I’m also in the preliminary stages of trying to get some editorial work. I’d like to see what I could do editorially, and I think it would really push me in new directions.

My ultimate goal is to publish photo books. Having work in a gallery is nice, but galleries don’t do for me what books do. When I’m in a gallery, I feel removed from the art. Looking at a photo book is a much more intimate experience for me, and that’s what I’m interested in. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have my work in galleries, but I think I’d rather they be shows in support of a book project, as opposed to a book project that comes out of a gallery show.


© Liz Kuball

Q12. Any questions we forgot to ask?

I don’t think so. I’m out of words—and that’s saying a lot.


Thanks to Liz Kuball. Big Clapping hands in the air.

Exciting news.

We are being read! (this still comes to us as a surprise)
and if you are new here.. make sure to start from the beginning!

No really, to celebrate this fact, we have 2 interviews coming up!
2 people who we believe to be future contemporary photo power houses.


Liz Kuball, whom we freaked out


©Liz Kuball

Daniel Shea, who has recently made us eat our words, which we appreciate.


© Daniel Shea


maybe just maybe we will make this a habit. read our first interview.


and we do want to address a comment regarding this post.
its close to our heart.

if you made this comment

“Yes, can we have a post on trying to get into the art world without an MFA and said program getting you your first shows?

I've been to MOCA, LACMA, MOMA, SFMOMA, the Prado, Reina Sofia, and Thyssen over ten times each and to the Lourve and Tate twice. I've gone religiously to gallery shows ever month wherever I've lived to see virtually everything showing in the contemporary market. I shoot daily and have poured over countless hours on the internet to educate myself.

But I guess I'm just not as well prepared or legit as these kids.”

we would like to talk.
contact us!
fartingonthunder (at) gmail.com

Shawn Records. Interview.

We are quite fond of many photographers.. and to show our readers we are serious about our love, and to show you that us, being “cynics” or “critics” or plain old truth tellers, or pandering idiots, we hope to start a series of interviews with photographers that have been ripping thru the photo blogosphere or whatever you call it.

I know.. a first for us.. “interview” it is a trend we do like to see. Giving all of us a greater perspective in our photo world and what makes us tick as artists and living being and why we are truly all connected.


Today we start with Shawn Records.


© Shawn Records

Shawn has recently been seen as being accepted recently in
Pause to begin, and Remain in Light and a few years back. HHS

We love that he got back to us, and wish him luck in the future.
Please do check his website out, because it's worth a look for both the photos
and more information check out his blog too..

Q1. On your website it's says “now with” “inner glow” what do you mean by this?

Every time I update my website, I try to do something slightly different with the dots on the main page. I might change the color, I think I tried squares once, I even animated them once long ago, and added the little rings around the outside, anyhow, the current setting for the dot style uses “inner glow.” Still though, I feel it too.

Q2. Tell us more about “Matthew Stadler's Personal Weblog”
What did you gain from this experiment? It seems very relevant today.

Matthew is a good friend with lots of great ideas. A while back he started that blog as a sort of experiment. Utilizing the Mechanical Turk, an online employment service that marries people willing to work for pennies with HITs: Human Intelligence Tasks companies need completed. These tasks include work like writing posts to shopping forums for 20 cents each, identifying golf course objects from satellite pictures for 20 cents, writing reviews for physicians, dvd players, books, etc. for pennies each time. Anyhow, Matthew offered ten bucks for someone else to write his personal blog. In the beginning, he’d give some parameters that made it somewhat about his life (mention Proust, travel out of Portland, etc.). I see his experiment, using the intricacies of the global economy to hand over the presumed authorship of his life as pretty fascinating.

Q3. Let me guess. You grew up in the Northwest? Am I far off? Your work has a very northwest look to it. Considering you live and work out of Portland, and if you did not grow up here, why live in Portland? Why don't you tell us a little more about yourself.

I was born in Caldwell, Idaho and graduated from high school three hours down the road, in Twin Falls. I’ve lived in three or four other towns in between. As an undergraduate, in Boise, I was an English student, but at one point, I took a photo class on a whim and bought a Pentax K1000 at a pawn shop for $100. That changed everything right there. After that, I dropped out of school, everything but photography, and just made pictures. Well, that's not exactly true, one distinction of my personal life is that I dealt with a lot of that family stuff early. I got married at 23 and we had our first kid when I was 25. For many years I just tried to balance photography with family, work (I worked in a coffee shop/bakery/ taqueria for most of those years) and school. Finally, I got to a point where I knew that I wanted to pursue photography enough that I completed my undergraduate degree just so I could go on to graduate school.

For grad school I went to Syracuse University. My approach to grad school was simply to look into the photographers I really liked and figure it out from there. Ultimately, Syracuse was where Doug Dubois was teaching, Ron Jude was nearby, and it was the kind of place, unlike New York, where I could move and sustain, and afford, having a wife, child, and dog. When I finished school, we simply drew a circle on the map within a one day's drive of all the people we really wanted to be near and chose Portland as our favorite city within the circle. Employment-wise, it hasn’t been the easiest place to make a living, but we love it here and can't imagine moving.

© Shawn Records


Q4. How old are your kids? Do you find inspiration from them? Why don't we see more photos of them in your work?

Sam is six (born while I was still in grad school), and Max is now 10. I find inspiration in them in the simple way that they make sense of and give meaning to my life. It's easy to get caught up in all the other stuff (career, money, balding, etc.), but my kids help put it all in perspective. I went on a whirlwind trip to Greece last week and the best part of the whole thing was using Skype from the hotel to have a video chat with Sam each morning and talk about what I'd eaten and how he'd spent the previous day.

Photo-wise, I feel like I make lot of pictures of my kids. Let's see, by my count there are at least 24 pictures of my children within just three different sections on my site (I'm sure there are more if I were to dig deeper). But the funny thing is that the pictures of my kids rarely function as pictures of my kids. More often than not, I use them as stand-ins, searching, digging, peering, etc. I wonder how my work would differ if we'd had any girls? Probably not much.

Q5. In a blog post a while back you stated “If I were going to lose money by producing photography related bumper stickers, the first sticker I'd make would be “DON'T TAKE PICTURES, MAKE PICTURES” for it's reinforcement of the call for individual action.” Could you elaborate a little more?

With students, I see photography as far too often considered a passive pursuit where the success of a picture becomes dependent upon its subject matter. That is, for a picture to be “beautiful” it must contain a subject easily recognized as such: a duck, a sunset, a weathered barn... What I try to do early on, is to get them to think about using that rectangle as a place to create relationships rather than simply record objects. To “make” a picture, one must be actively thinking it through, constructing the frame, considering the vantage point, depth of field, etc. “Taking” a picture suggests you can just snare an object by pressing the button.

© Shawn Records

Q6. In another post close to when you started your blog, you stated that
“Jen, my wife, recently argued that everything we do is ego. That ultimately, every action is an act of self-interest.” Have you learned or gained anything from having your blog? Or better yet, the wise words from you wife?

My wife is a beautiful and inspiring cynic who I can count on to shoot down my wildest notions, encouraging them all the while. I regularly call on her to cut through the bullshit when I can't recognize it for what it is, especially when it's my own. At the time I started the blog, I was underemployed and dealing with the beginnings of a Portland winter, a steady supply of gray and rain. I'd been reading lots of blogs and thrived off the sense of community. Photography's a pretty isolated pursuit, so it's nice to find that audience/community where the conversation's flowing. Without telling anyone, I just joined the party and kept it to myself for a month or so, until I felt like I could keep up the momentum. After a while, I sent an email out to a bunch of bloggers whose blogs I'd been reading and introduced myself. Though I've met very few in person, I feel like I've made a lot of friends with similar interests.

I guess one of the difficult things about the blog is that people seem to actually read it. Once I recognized that there was an audience paying attention, it's hard to not consider it when I'm writing. I want to keep the blog honest, but at the same time, don't want to feel like I'm alienating my friends with my self-indulgent grumblings. I also drew a line up front that the blog isn't a place to talk shit about work I don't like. I've got plenty of strong opinions, but I don't want to venture into asshole mode unless we're sitting down with one another and drinking a beer. Sometimes I'm excited about an opportunity or honor that's come my way, but don't want to feel like I'm bragging. Sometimes I'm pissed or mopey about a rejection that stings, but I don't want to come across like I'm whining. I don't know that there's any way out of it other than to just try to be clear and honest or to just shut up. But I don't really want to shut up, there's something really nice about having a voice, even if you can't sing well.

Q7. What’s your over all impression of student photographers. Do we have any hope in seeing any new work out in the world any time soon.
What tips do you have for upcoming photographers?

I primarily teach intro classes at community colleges, thus most of my students come in thinking that photography is about cameras. Hopefully, by the time we finish a class up, they're not interested in cameras, but in using photography as a way to examine their place in the world. New work? Yes, no, I don't know. I doubt even 2% of my students go on to even consider pursuing photography as a vocation, much less “art” photography. Even so, I bet 50% come away feeling that their lives are richer and more interesting once they've put some time in. But, aside from my students, I've got plenty of hope for the next generation of photography. Absolutely. I've noticed that a lot of great stuff I see in the blogosphere comes from students. Tips? Don't necessarily confuse making photographs with making a living through photography. I wouldn't mind having some other sort of marketable skill to rely on for income. There's no shame in a steady day job. I'd seriously consider going back to that bakery/taqueria/coffee shop if it was an option these days.


© Shawn Records

Q8. Your work has a very deadpan quality too it. What do you think of the people that don't get the overall concept of some of your work?

At one point in my undergraduate days, Brent Smith, my wonderful and trusted advisor in Boise, kind of pulled a picture aside and said that it was among the best pictures I'd ever made, and that no one would get it. I felt like he was pointing to that line I was crossing, where my prospective audience becomes smaller & more obscure; a handful of anonymous geeky photo enthusiasts who fart on thunder (insert emoticon of choice here). My work's never going to achieve a large audience, but that's never been the point. I'm interested in making work that acknowledges the inherent subjectivity in photography (thus the 24 pictures of my kids I suppose), yet is ultimately pretty subtle and quiet. There are the occasional crowd-pleasers, those pictures that kind of stand out as exclamation marks within a series, but I don't need them all to work that way. I'm interested in playing with ways of tying images together beyond the usual standards of geography, stylistic parameters, or repetitious subject matter. Sometimes I use these as starting points, but I try to play with them too.

Ultimately, I've received enough acknowledgment from people I respect that I'm not worried about an audience. Unlike the blog which is kind of new every day, I feel like I know who I am as a photographer and what's more, still really love doing it.

Q9. There seems to be a resurrection of class blogs ie..http://mhccphoto.blogspot.com/
What do you think students can gain with this experience?

A resurrection? I should pay attention. Maybe I could learn something. I used to have students keep a notebook where they were forced to respond to photos from a list of websites I'd give them. I think it's really valuable for students to spend time looking at and thinking about other work to not only get ideas, but to struggle with those technical questions that they're trying to figure out too. The notebook assignments were more often than not, pathetic and half-assed, done at the last minute to avoid taking a zero. Recently, I revised it so all of my classes now have a blog and basically are forced to do the same thing, but in front of the rest of the class. I’ve blocked them off so they only exist for class members and it becomes a kind of safe companion site for the classroom discussions. I also changed the grading and made it count worth a full 20% of each students course grade. It takes a little coaxing and coaching, but it gets that conversation flowing. The truth is, there’s a lot out there in the art world these days that makes people feel stupid. The reason so many intro students start by making photographs of flowers (myself included) is simply because they're trying to do what they think Art does: capture beauty. Really, that's not the worst starting point. But hopefully, in the course of class discussions and blogs they're forced to see things they don't understand or recognize and can figure out for themselves other ways that photographs work. Ooh, I know, can I post an example? Here’s what one student wrote about this portrait by Nicole Jean Hill:

© Nicole Jean Hill

This photograph really stood out as I was skimming through her portraits album. Everything is this picture seems to have very clean lines and be straight. The couple is standing straight up and down and have a somewhat stern look about them. Everything is up and down except for three things: the picture on the left, the rug in the middle, and then the vent on the right. These three objects seem to be strategically placed in those locations to balance out the vertical portions of this shot. Look at the woman’s neckline of her shirt, it too has lines about it.
The next thing that makes this photo interesting is the color combinations. Everything is beige, yellow, white, or some other boring color. Then you reach the oval rug in the center of the image and it has these bright colors that draw attention to the center and pull you in. The colors that are in the hanging picture on the left seem to coordinate with the colors of the rug. They tie each other together. Also, the base board that goes horizontally along the bottom of the picture breaks up the white wall and flooring. It gives your eye something to look.
On the wall there is this very busy pattern that makes you think if it is around the entire room. It is white with all these little splashes of blue and pink. Yet, the blue and pink spots are still being washed out of the entire image, they don’t jump out at you. This picture to me is somewhat somber. It makes me sad although I am not sure why exactly. I feel like the couple is hoping that somebody will see them and do something, but I don’t know what. It leaves me feeling puzzled and confused. Overall I really like this picture and I think that is gives you something to question…something to think about. I love the overall effect of the image and the feeling that it gives you.

and here's another student's comment:

I have to admit that I'm not very fond of this picture. I agree that the rug, baseboard and painting on the wall give splashes of color. However, the people themselves, the main subjects of the photo are both wearing beige, are white people, and standing next to white/beige walls with more beige behind them. Overall, it's hard to focus on the main subjects because they just seem to blend in with everything else.

However, I agree with the feeling that it leaves you with. It almost paints a story of these bland people living in this bland life waiting for something colorful or exciting to happen. They do look almost sad and when you do finally decide to look at their faces you feel almost sorry for them and just want to scream for them and move them to something colorful.

This reading, this conversation, is really great... the beige people, the beige lives, the questioning of the photograph's motives... You can see where the students have realized that they may not like the picture on a gut level, but they've thought it through and realized how it functions, that photography can do more than sing the praises of sailboats and tulips.

Q10.
Whats next for Shawn Records?

I'm just trying to find balance, juggling all the while. Really, every day is just a slightly different version of the same: teaching, shooting, blogging, basketball with the kids, marketing, etc. Sometimes I have a week where I need to print or frame. This week I'm trying to catch up with school. Next weekend I want to try to get away for a night so I can shoot a little. Oh, but another thing I've recently started doing is working with Photolucida, a non-profit organization out here that puts on portfolio reviews and Critical Mass, a really great big juried competition of sorts. Maybe I should put this back up when you asked about advice for students, but one thing I'm trying to do these days is to whine less and do more. I see Photolucida as a great organization with great people involved, a way I can actually put some elbow grease in to make a community I want to be part of.

Q11.
Any questions we forgot to ask?

Why you’ve never heard of ice cream sandwiches made out of Saltine crackers, vanilla ice cream and two layers of Nutella? The kids and I invented it last week. It’s pretty amazing. Freeze the Nutella on crackers first, then add the ice cream, and freeze again.


Thanks to Shawn!

next week we hope to interview someone new.. that has no idea we want to interview her.. but we hope too.. so if you are reading this.. get ready.. and if not.. warn her.

oh. forgive the dumbquotes if you know what I mean.. I’m tired and can’t fix them all

Anne must be stopped

Truly Brilliant

Youngme - Nowme Winners

a brilliant idea.
check out all the entrys

brought to you by Colorwars08
and the wild and creative crazy Zefrank

once again, we can reconnect with what it was like to be a child.
And the memories attached to it.