Susan Burnstine: Between Worlds
Finding the right camera to express one’s vision is a challenge that every photographer must deal with at some point. When conventional cameras proved unsatisfactory for Susan Burnstine, however, she simply decided to build her own in order to channel the haunting, dreamlike imagery that has won her widespread critical acclaim over the past several years. The Los Angeles-based photographer utilizes an array of homemade plastic cameras in the creation of an ongoing, three-part body of work that fluctuates between various states of reality: “On Waking Dreams” (dreaming/subconscious), “Between” (sleeping/unconscious) and “Flight” (waking/conscious). Yet so confidently and elegantly is this vision realized that one is barley aware of the mediating presence of the camera. The images seem to spring straight from Burnstine’s psyche to the viewer’s.


Susan Burnstine

Which artists—photographers or otherwise—have been most important to your creative development?
As a child, I was most influenced by the Impressionists. At the age of eight, I tore pages out from books on the great Impressionists and taped their images on my bedroom walls. Monet, Seurat, Cassatt, Renoir, Degas—my room was wallpapered with their greatest works. Once I started studying photography, the first photographers who made the deepest impressions were Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Helen Levitt. In time, the Pictorialists deeply influenced my work, but it was the Impressionists that first influenced the way that I see.

Did you teach yourself the technical aspects of the medium?
Mostly. I studied photography in high school for four years. During that time I assisted a commercial/wedding/portrait photographer in Chicago. But when it comes to all the technical aspects of making homemade cameras, I’m self-taught.

How important was this period of apprenticeship?
I learned a great deal about the business of making photography. So much so that it became a detriment to my creative process much too early, as the message became that it was all about making money rather than art.

Why didn’t you go straight into a photographic career after graduating from college?
I had to take a step away, since I only aspired to make art and did not see how I could achieve that goal at that stage of my life.


Bridge to Nowhere (On Waking Dreams)

So you went down other career paths—filmmaker, performer and writer. Did any of them influence your photographic aesthetic?
Absolutely. I tend to have a more cinematic approach and try and tell a story with each image. When working with my subjects during the series “Between,” I’d frequently walk them through basic acting exercises and mediations in attempt to put them in the moment and give them room to get in touch with where they really were, rather than trying to direct them in a way that I thought served the image.

What prompted your return to photography?
After a series of events, starting with my mother’s death and dealing with an illness of my own, the illusions of living and working in Hollywood lost their appeal. I was burned out and wanted to do something that really meant something to me. I hadn’t seriously photographed anything in years, but always held onto my first real camera, a Canon A-1 my parents gave me when I was eleven. I started photographing my best friend’s children all the time. My friend liked nearly everything I shot and told everyone she knew to hire me as a photographer. Within a year, I had a headshot, portrait and occasion photography business. It was satisfying for a short time, but once again, those old demons came crawling back and the business of photography soured me. It was then that I started getting an overwhelming itch to create art.

Are there any points of connection between your commercial and fine art work?
Not really. One pays the bills and the other feeds my soul.


Suspend (Between)

Why did you start building homemade cameras?
I wanted to recreate how I see the world through my eyes in an authentic manner. Conventional, prefabricated cameras simply could not emulate my vision. Additionally, I wanted an original style or fingerprint that could not be found with standard cameras. For many months, I focused on toy camera photography due to its dreamy, Pictorialist style. But the look and style soon became repetitive, and I became bored by their limitations. I began tearing these cameras apart piece-by-piece, modifying them to photograph close-ups, telephoto, etc. Then I started rebuilding them from the inside out. This process taught me how to create a rudimentary camera, and I subsequently made my own box cameras and my own homemade lenses out of random household objects, molded plastic and rubber.

How have the imperfections of these cameras helped to define your style?
The cameras have only one or two shutter speeds and one aperture, and they frequently break, since they’re mostly held together by Duco cement, photo tape and glue. Having to work around these limitations has forced me to learn how to harness light in a way that I would not have learned with a conventional camera. It’s also taught me more about all aspects of photography than anything else.

Many photographers have jumped onto the plastic/toy camera bandwagon in recent years. How does your imagery differ?
My images are not from conventional, prefabricated toy cameras. I make my own cameras and lenses so that they have a one-of-a-kind look and style that toy cameras cannot achieve.

You’ve written that you suffered from childhood nightmares that led you to equate sleep with mortality. Can you expand on that as it relates to your artistic vision?
As a child, I suffered from severe nightmares that frequently stayed with me for days. Often I would see an image or symbol in my waking life but would not know if it was something real or from my dreams. Over the years, I’ve found that there can be a very thin line between dreams and reality, and so I made a deliberate choice to convey that line between black and white, yin and yang, and the conscious and unconscious worlds.


In Passage (On Waking Dreams)

The idea of photographing one's dreams is fascinating, and brings to mind the Surrealists, especially filmmakers like Luis Buñuel. However, the original Surrealist artists privileged the philosophical content of their work above its form. Your work seems more evenly balanced between the two. Any comment?
Besides the subject of dream content, I don’t see my work as having much to do with the Surrealist filmmaking movement. Buñuel’s take on surrealism was often based in the irrational. My images have a rational interpretation and are based more on Jungian dream interpretation than the Surrealist movement.

Surrealism was also above all else a revolutionary movement, though that aspect has been largely forgotten today. Do you see your work at all in this light? I ask because photography is rooted in the temporal, but your images superimpose a metaphysical layer onto that. Is part of your approach rooted in a concern or predilection for conceptual subversion?
There is a rich metaphysical layer to the work, although that’s a tough subject to discuss. But its inclusion is both conscious and unconscious. If you’re asking if I intentionally keep a distance from conceptual thought, the answer is essentially yes. It’s my hope that my work can be experienced in a primal, emotional manner prior to intellect and conceptual thought setting in.

Is your use of dreamlike imagery also a way of achieving a kind of spiritual or emotional liberation?
Yes, absolutely.


Run (Flight)

The mood in your images is always ambiguous; do you consciously try to keep the tone from becoming too dark?
Yes … and no. The content of the image always dictates the tone. I never outwardly or consciously direct what comes out from a subject or event. I can only react to what I see through my own eyes by clicking the shutter at a time that speaks to me. It’s my way in life and in art to always find the balance of positive and negative in everything. I suspect that’s why the images never become overly dark, when they very well could. The interpretation tends to be left open, because in essence that’s who I am and how I try and see the world around me.

The figures in your “On Waking Dreams” series are seen mainly in silhouette and at a distance, lending them more of a symbolic than individual presence.
Your interpretation is correct. The silhouette is about solitude, the struggle of being alone in the conscious and unconscious human condition and the inward and outward struggle of either going forward or back. Additionally, the figures represent the archetypal images I have been haunted by in my dreams for years—many of which are silhouette figures.

You often place these figures in corridor-like settings: staircases, bridges, roads and the like. This gives them a feeling of being in transit, whether physical or spiritual. Frequently, they’re moving towards or away from an area of light, which seems to imply transcendence or rebirth.
Absolutely. My work is often about the question, choice, and/or decision to move forward or back in the physical and spiritual realm.

You speak about your work in terms of metaphors, but your imagery isn’t didactic in the sense that you try to impose a particular interpretation. How important is it to accord viewers this kind of freedom, and are you surprised at some of the things people read into your photographs?
I find this essential to making an image. I don’t want to impose my personal interpretations on each picture to the point that it’s the only possible perspective, for fear that viewers cannot have their own experiences. I very much enjoy hearing people’s reactions, as they can be vastly different from my own. Many have jokingly said that my images are a type of Rorschach test, especially within the series “Between.”


Grasp (Between)

There’s a more direct engagement with people as individuals in the “Between” series. Although our view of them is still obscured by blur, silhouetting, textures, etc., we are invited to identify with them on a more emotional level. What triggered this difference in approach?
“Between” is a very personal series for me. I photographed subjects, but in essence it is a self-portrait about a very difficult subject and time in my life. The work is all based in emotions that can be interpreted as positive or negative depending on individual perspectives. The previous series, “On Waking Dreams,” was based on my own conscious and unconscious world, but it frequently applied to mass consciousness of dreams and metaphors. In other words, one series is about looking at the world from the outside in, while the other is about looking at the world from the inside out. What triggered the difference? Dealing with the tragic loss of my mother, the overwhelming fallout of 9-11 and facing my own mortality due to a health concern. Additionally, I do not like repeating the same content from series to series. Each has to pose different psychological and/or technical challenges, or else there is no reason for shooting another.

You’ve described “Between” as evoking the space and time that exists between living and dying. What other themes or ideas are you trying to express through it?
I am one that never sees anything as simple as black and white. I believe that what is most important is what lies between the two. One might say the series is about living within shades of gray.

Do you worry about exhausting the creative possibilities of a soft-focus, blurry aesthetic? Can you foresee experimenting with sharper-edged imagery in future?
I think it’s natural for an artist not to want to become a parody of themselves. I will continue working with homemade cameras for as long as they continue to allow me to expand and grow as a person and artist. I know many viewers prefer to easily identify an artist by a certain style, and that has been a concern, but I don’t like to put limitations on the tools I use. What’s most important is the content and finding the correct tool to convey what I’m trying to say. My first love was documentary photography. Who knows, I might do a 180-degree turn to conventional lenses sometime.


Threshold (Flight)

Do you find much visual inspiration in Los Angeles, or is it hard to find the kind of images you want?
I prefer nondescript, vast, timeless locations, so Los Angeles proper poses a serious challenge. This last series was not dependent on visual surroundings—part of the reason for this shift was because I got to a point with the previous series that I had shot much of what I found evocative about the city. My feelings about visual inspiration in Los Angeles go in ebbs and flows. Currently, I am mildly uninspired by my surroundings, but I suspect that has to do with being in a transition from one series to another and trying to define exactly what I want to say more than the city and atmosphere that surrounds me.

Is the light in Los Angeles difficult to work with?
The light can be tricky since it’s so brilliant and harsh most days. I prefer to shoot in the shade or a cloudy atmosphere, but those days are few and far between in Los Angeles, even in winter. But there can be exceptions. The series “Between” was shot during May to November 2007, and part of my challenge was shooting during the harshest sunlight of the year.

Many of your photographs border on abstraction, but for the most part your subject matter is rooted in the representational.
I don’t like to put limits on directions and subject matter for future work. The emotional content determines the direction for each individual image. It’s hard to say where that will lead me with the next series, since I like to work without predetermined limitations or expectations.

(I wrote about Susan Burnstine for the September 2008 issue of B&W. To embark on further explorations of her otherworldly imagery, please visit www.susanburnstine.com.)

Marc Ullom: Time and Transformation
At the heart of Marc Ullom’s photographic odyssey is a fascination with how we negotiate our sense of self through our bodies and our environment, a process that unfolds on both the conscious and unconscious levels. This dynamic is most powerfully evoked in his “Transience of Self” series, comprised of elegant and ominous self-portraits taken in derelict buildings in advanced states of decay. Ullom’s photographs raise challenging questions about who and what and why we are. Answers are optional.


Marc Ullom

How did you become interested in photography?
I first picked up a camera when I was about three years old, turned it around, looked down the lens and took my first self-portrait. I still have that photograph. It wasn’t until the “Transience of Self” series that I began shooting self-portraits seriously, however. In 1985 I became interested in photography as a hobby, and soon thereafter I was able to purchase my first SLR, a Canon EOS 650. It was with me all the way through high school, and the experience led me to consider pursuing photography as a major in college. In short, it was a series of disjointed experiences that built upon my love of creating crystalline moments out of time. Besides, I couldn’t stand the idea of a normal desk job.

What specific aspects of photography make it your preferred medium? In other words, how does it allow you to communicate themes and ideas in ways that painting or sculpture, for example, are unable to?
In the beginning, I was simply fascinated with the idea of capturing things—of seeing in new ways and of framing the world, boxing it up, taking a piece of it and putting my mark upon it. I didn’t know that at first, but I did know my interest in photography and of looking at photographs was not a fleeting one. In college, I was obsessed with the darkroom, printing hundreds of images each semester, performing endless toning experiments, and shooting my own work in addition to class work. One day I realized that creating images didn’t feel like work—it felt like the greatest fulfillment of what I was meant to do. That sounds dramatic, but it’s true. In dealing with the more traditional methods of self expression, I always felt stifled, like my hand could not fulfill what my mind’s eye desired. And so, with little innate talent in the traditional fine arts, I was happy to stick with photography and became fully immersed in the challenge of making the little box work like I wanted it to.

You’ve written that you cannot make a photographic image from memory, as you can with painting or sculpture. Yet doesn’t photography lend itself to suggesting memory more effectively than either of those mediums?
I don’t know if it lends itself more readily to suggesting memory, but I know that what photography has always done is control time. Yes, it records, reduces and separates small slices of time from the fluid experience of existence, but we tend to associate those two-dimensional representations as a fact of place or time. With that being said, I realize that writers and critics can argue it either way. My use of photography in the past was linked to objects, places and structures, but over the past five years or so it has evolved to dealing with the emotional connection of being in the places I photograph, whether it’s a landscape or self-portrait. It’s an important distinction. My work has taken a fundamental turn: It has moved from what the camera does so easily, recording the fact of a place in a beautiful way, to working in conjunction with my ideas, my emotional connections, and most importantly, my state of mind to create work that is intended to be something more than the individual parts.


Exploration #94

Has your environment influenced your work? I sense a certain fascination with decay, which often seems to be the case with photographers from the Midwest and eastern regions of the country.
I believe that environment always influences the work an artist produces. I grew up on the East Coast, and spent much of my time in the country exploring old houses and other uninhabited places. You are correct that I have a fascination with spaces that have lived beyond their useful life and are being reclaimed by nature. I have not identified where that fascination comes from, but I do know that when I am fascinated with something, my interest sometimes fades when I figure out why.

What was the catalyst for the "Transience of Self" series?
This two-year project started innocently enough with a single thought: “How does the camera see my physical form compared to how I think I look?” It rapidly evolved into a more well-rounded group of ideas that coalesced into an exploration of how our physical bodies interact with our environment, and how they change with the environment. There are many layers to how the project can be viewed, but the basic inspiration was simply wondering why I looked like I do. The initial title of the work was “Looking Out, Looking In.”

How closely, in your view, is our relationship with our environment bound up with our sense of self?
How we see ourselves is a complex blending of our childhood environments, the places we spent time around as adolescents, and those places we choose to live in as adults. These externally experiential surroundings subtly mold how we identify with our inner sense of self. The work I have created in “Transience of Self” explores both man-made and natural environments with an injection of a human form in both. The spirit of the two environments is profoundly different and intended to draw a strong response from the viewer. How all of this ends up influencing my sense of self is at once subtle and profound.


Exploration #73

Is there much of your childhood represented in the Transience imagery?
No intentionally, but I’ve always had a love of the mysterious and unknown, so a literal exploration of these spaces is tied to that interest.

Conversely, are you trying to connect somehow with your future?
I think that by coming to terms with the physical changes to my body over the course of this project I was also attempting to come to terms with my future. This acceptance of the way things are, and will be, occurred largely outside the process of making the work, mainly by thinking through the process. I realize this group of photographs will engage each viewer differently, but for me the experience helped me to feel more connected with and at the same time detached from my body.

I sense a kinship with Ralph Eugene Meatyard, to some extent visually, but primarily through a kind of secular spiritual and emotional tonality.
It’s interesting that you mention this. Arno Rafael Minkkinen, one of my mentors on the project, said some of my images reminded him of Meatyard, and it’s also interesting that I fail to see it. This is something that I am going to be looking into, as it is possible that I am merely not that familiar with Meatyard, even though I have seen quite a bit of his work. Clearly, research is needed.

The work is beautifully ambiguous and obviously lends itself to a wide range of interpretation. In your bio, you state that it involves “an observation of the transient nature of our physical form in relation to our environment.” Are you basically saying that our interpretation of self, as well as our interpretation of our environment and how the two interact, is in constant flux?
The interaction we have with our environment and with our physical form does change over time. I wrote at one point about this project being a flag planted in the river of time, a testament to those who see it in 50 years. I will be interested to see how I view the work in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, to see if it’s the keystone of my understanding of self, or if it’s merely a single block in my experience. Work can become more powerful to the photographer as time moves on, or it may lose its luster. I’m interested to see how it pans out.


Exploration #06

The interiors in which you photograph exhibit an advanced state of physical decay, which is a form of transition. Beyond providing a visual echo of the body’s physical transformation through time, are you suggesting other correlatives between our bodies and our immediate environments?
You have touched on the main intent in how the environment and the physical body interact.

Would you care to comment on some of the other narrative motifs, such as the link between past and present consciousness; or the personal journey through time and space?
The more I worked on this project, the more I became aware that the essence of who we are is so much more than our physical bodies. Maybe this isn’t news to anyone else, but it was a profound revelation to me. It was this realization that allowed me to become much more accepting of the current and future state of the body. It helped me to find my center as well. I don’t feel like I’m drifting anymore, but more like I’m anchored in an understanding of the nature of where our identity lies, and it is not, at least for me, in our physical bodies.

Your work is intended to raise questions for yourself and viewers alike about the temporal nature of existence, but without necessarily providing answers. Is it enough to just raise questions? Do you experience any frustration at not finding answers?
I definitely believe it is enough to simply ask questions. The question is the most important thing. Answers will change, and many are relative, but the question is the thing that engages the mind and creates an insatiable curiosity that leads to personal insight and understanding. I have found some answers, but those answers are mine alone. Imposing my view on the work may cheapen it for others, so it’s my intention to simply to allow the work to speak for itself, while also provide a loose starting point for interpreting the work.


Exploration #87

Did you shoot everything in a single or multiple locations? The consistency of detail and texture seems to suggest the former.
Actually, the work was created in several states and approximately four different buildings. The exterior images were photographed in New Mexico, Colorado and Utah, while the interior images were taken in Michigan and West Virginia. Thousands of miles and hundreds of hours were poured into this project. My exploration of the unknown and mysterious was a significant factor in the choice of locations.

The physical atmosphere in these photographs is somewhat ominous, like a setting in a Harold Pinter play. Also like Pinter, I think they communicate as much by what they hide as by what they reveal. Is this intentional?
Ominous is a strong word, but a legitimate one. Yes, the hinted-at environment, or the things I left out, is quite intentional and helps add to the mystery.

The figure’s nudity lends these images a provocative aspect, but it also seems to imply vulnerability.
My mentors on the series strongly suggested that I should be nude in the work. I resisted this initially, and wore shorts, but the clothing created too much cultural context, so the nude body became a necessary step to remove the last shred of separation between body and environment. It’s not intended to be provocative, but vulnerability, intimacy, raw exposure, these descriptors work better. Nevertheless, I understand that some people cannot get away from the fact that there is a nude body in the photograph.

This may be a reach, but are you also trying to convey any kind of subtext equating decay and death or sexuality?
Not at all.


Exploration #20

By imaging yourself in terms of shadows, blurs, reflections and fragments, you seem to evoke instability on a number of levels: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.
Mostly the instability of our physical form, and an exploration of the body in a constant state of flux. I can see how people may see these images as morbid or depressing, but that’s not my intent. There is a spiritual connection, as this project challenged me to carefully review my own conservative Christian upbringing, and in the end I think I understand where I came from and who I am better now because of these challenges. There is a strong connection in the work to the idea of memory and the idea that we really live in our memory, that every moment instantly becomes memory—so the mental instability you speak of can be seen as simply the constant change within our brains as we move through time and absorb our environments and experiences.

How spontaneous are these images? Are they pre-planned to any degree, or do you find yourself reacting to the physical environment at the moment of image capture?
Towards the end of the project the creation of the work was fairly spontaneous, mainly because I took so many images over the two years that the technical considerations became second nature. Self-portraiture of this nature is not easy if technique is lacking. Working in dangerous buildings without clothing requires a fair degree of methodical planning, but over time the process became more spontaneous. The post-production phase was more contemplative, in that I modified the environments through burning and dodging.

I like the tension between the images’ visual simplicity and thematic complexity, something I see in your other series as well. Do you have to think much about this balance, or does it emerge organically?
The visual balance in the work evolved organically because of my lifelong love of balance and structure in the photographic image. These visual characteristics are an innate part of who I am as a visual artist.

Have you achieved all you set out to do with this series?
I feel that I have closed the chapter on this particular body of work. I may return to it in the future, but for now I’m content to move on to another genre.

(Marc Ullom is a professional photographer and educator currently based in Michigan. A radically abridged version of this interview appeared in the June 2009 issue of B&W magazine. For more on Marc’s work, visit www.marcullom.com.)

Krzysztof Pruszkowski: Photographing What Doesn’t Exist
Initially trained as an architect, Polish-born Krzysztof Pruszkowski took up photography after moving to Paris in 1965. He did fashion, publicity and documentary work for several years before feeling the constraints of what he perceived as the expressive limitations of single images. He subsequently devised a method of extreme multiple-image creation beginning in 1975 called Photosynthesis. Inspired in part by Jacques Derrida’s concept of drawing numerous interpretations from a single text, the dense visual layering of Pruszkowski’s images is mirrored by their kaleidoscopic allusions to all manner of philosophical, cultural, sexual and political issues. His recent projects include a look at media representations of terrorists and their victims, as well as a series focused on myths of the 20th century.


Krzysztof Pruszkowski

Poland has a rich history of experimental and politically engaged photography. Although you had moved to Paris at 22, do you feel that Photosynthesis is linked to this tradition, if only in spirit?
No. I created the “total vision” concept of Photosynthesis in opposition to the dogmatic concept of the “decisive moment” formed in the middle of the 20th century by Henri Cartier-Bresson. That aesthetic became the “canon obligatoire” in photography, and it also became a nice product for the export of French culture and lifestyle. The paradoxical fact is that the exceptional quality of Cartier-Bresson’s reportage, and the quality of documentary photography in France in general, brought photography to a standstill—like painting in the 19th century—and inhibited French photographers from developing a modern vision.

Leaving aside Cartier-Bresson, have you been influenced or inspired by any other photographers?
I’m very impressed with how Julia Margaret Cameron approached the “essence” of photographic truth, and found a psychological dimension in her portraits. I appreciate the work of Baron de Meyer for the transparency of his light, especially in his nudes. I’m fascinated by the maximalist perspective that informed Bill Brandt’s creativity—using extreme wide-angle lenses for his nudes and portraits—and by his moral conscience in making politically engaged photographic documentation of English workers. And at the beginning of the 20th century the famous Polish writer and painter S.I. Witkiewicz created an amazing series of auto-portraits and portraits of his girlfriends, which, with evident will, discard the distance between photographer and model.


Sevilla, Spain

How did you develop the idea for the Photosynthesis process?
When I worked in fashion photography I soon realized that clients and modeling agencies selected only certain kinds of female models. In order to understand their selection principles, I began to make composite portraits of models with different physiques. That inspired me to apply this composite approach not only to portraits, but all kinds of subject matter, thereby creating visual “prototypes” for a photographic dictionary of a new visual language. Then I began to create materializations of ideas rather than objects or events.

Were single images not expressive enough for you?
Single images are boring. We can learn from those images nothing more than what we are able to see directly. They are dead. In contrast, Photosynthesis emits fabulous energy arising from the tensions that exist between different forms concentrated deep in the photographic surface of the image.

Is the layering done in camera or in the darkroom?
The miracle of image creation that Photosynthesis represents is performed inside the camera, where it is possible to easily composite countless space-time situations. I have built more than 200 special cameras with instant developing capabilities for this purpose, including an 8x10 Polaroid reflex camera. As a tribute to the ingenious inventor of Polaroid they are named Prusland cameras.

What does this layering represent to you?
It is something very special. I take photos of things that have never existed, do not exist, and will never exist. It is not the result of my imagination or someone else’s imagination. The final form of the image is not even the result of my initial intention. The form of these photographs is always “negotiated.”


15 Miradors, Madjanek, Poland

What exactly are you trying to communicate through these densely layered “negotiations?”
I want to share my experience with others. I create on photographic paper a virtual diagram resulting from the interplay of forces and energies existing between the forms and myself during the Photosynthesis experience.

The layering seems to be a way to undermine overused visual tropes so as to force viewers to look beyond the physical surface of your subject matter.
Absolutely. The process of penetrating into the surface of a photograph in order to see and understand something deeper is fundamental. My goal is for viewers to pass into the other side of the mirror like Alice in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland.” I want them to lose themselves and penetrate the subconscious, in the process becoming a little freer in their way of looking at and thinking about the world around them. But on the other hand, the image deconstruction that Photosynthesis creates is very open-ended. In every instant the viewer retains the possibility of coming back, of leaving the surface of the paper and detaching from the generic image.

Is the visual disorientation in the images meant to evoke the instability of modern life?
Yes, but it also concerns the difficulty of communicating the possibility of a complex situation existing in time, space and mind.


Ramses II, Luxor, Egypt

Many of these images draw on your architectural background to reference how ancient and modern structures have been used as an assertion of autocratic authority.
Yes. The image “15 Miradors,” of the Majdanek German concentration and extermination camp near Lublin, Poland, is a study about typology, the architecture of power, and the philosophy of domination. The image of the statue of Ramses II standing between stone columns is a similar expression of absolute rule.

Is it important that your work always have a strong social and/or political component?
I don’t care what is currently “important.” I work by intuition regarding problems that I am concerned about. I try to take pictures of existing things. If I express myself through art, it has to be strong. In fact, everything in life is social and political.

(Images kindly furnished by I Photo Central, on online photo gallery and collecting resource that represents Krzysztof Pruszkowki’s work. Contact: info@iphotocentral.com)

Saul Leiter: The Quiet Iconoclast
Saul Leiter has been redefining the parameters of street photography since the 1940s. Working in both black and white and color, he exhibited from the beginning of his career a distinct visual grammar that features off-center perspectives, compressed spatial dynamics, and a predilection for breaking up the frame in unpredictable and exciting ways. His color work, which went unrecognized for decades, is perhaps even more radical in its asymmetrical visual rhythm and defiantly unsaturated tonalities inspired by Johannes Vermeer. Leiter’s work is further distinguished by its indifference to decisive moments of human intercourse. In fact, Leiter might be regarded as the master of the “indecisive” moment – those in-between moments when nothing of much importance seems to be happening but which resonate with a profound if understated sense of interior drama. Leiter is one of photography’s underrated masters, and a living testament to the maxim that the greatest artists are often the most humble and self-deprecating. His black-and-white work was featured in the book “The New York School” and his color images in “Early Color.” The native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, still makes his home in New York City, where he has lived since 1946.


Saul Leiter

Most descriptions of your color work reference its affinity to painting. Do you ever tire of hearing that, even if it’s true?
No, I’m not tired of it. I think it’s meant as a compliment.

You’re also affiliated with the New York School of photography, but I’m guessing you never felt part of any school or movement. True?
Yes, I never did.

Did you associate with any of the New York School photographers?
I admired Louis Faurer’s work very much. I thought he was unusual. There was a kind of poetry and quirkiness about his work that appealed to me. I admired Robert Frank’s work very much. I think he is a great photographer. What else can you say about him? His work is poetic and beautiful. Robert Frank asked me one day to help Louis Faurer on a fashion shoot. This must have been in the early 1950s. I went to his studio and it was complete madness, so I left. Louis was very angry with me for leaving and didn’t talk to me for years. I knew Diane Arbus. She lived across the street from me. I want to mention the fact that I learned from her biography that I helped her with her laundry one day. Did I really help her with laundry? I’m not so sure.

What kind of response did any of them have to your color work?
Very few people were aware of my color work. My friend Bob Weaver, an unusual artist and illustrator, and Barbara and Dottie and Bobbie would from time to time come to my apartment and see my slide shows.

I understand the painter Richard Pousette-Dark was an early influence, as was Henri Cartier-Bresson. How did their work impact yours?
Most of my friends were painters. I really knew very few photographers, aside from Ray and Diane Whitlin, who I am afraid are not known today. Richard Pousette-Dart was a friend of mine. I liked his work but it was in a total different area. There was an element of Pictorialism about it. He liked enlarging and bleaching and manipulating. But I really don’t think I was influenced by anyone. I think I will leave it up to someone else to determine who influenced me. I admired a tremendous number of photographers, but for some reason I arrived at a point of view of my own.


Harlem, 1960

Did your family and upbringing affect your decision to become and an artist?
No, they did not. My mother thought I could be a rabbi and still paint on the third floor. “Who would know?” she would say. My father thought photography was done by lowlifes. My family was very unhappy about my becoming a photographer—profoundly and deeply unhappy. That’s not what they wanted for me, but I don’t want to go into it.

Did you continue to paint after you took up photography?
Yes. I did. I’ve painted ever since. I have the largest collection of Saul Leiters in the world. There are a few thousand of them. Quite a few of them need more work. I need another 10 years to complete them all. [Laughs]

What was the biggest challenge in developing a personal style?
I wasn’t challenged. The style, if there is any, was just the result of working in photography. I wasn’t immersed in challenges.

You shot fashion for many years for such magazines as Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar. Did you enjoy working in this genre?
Sometimes I enjoyed it very much and at other times not so much. I consider fashion photography to have an honorable position in the history of photography and it doesn’t need apologies. It was a way for me to earn a living. I needed to pay my light bill and my rent and I needed money for food.

Were you able to infiltrate your personal vision into your fashion work?
The answer is yes. I think it was obvious to me that there was a connection between my fashion work and my personal work.

Conversely, did your fashion imagery have any effect upon your personal work?
Yes, surprisingly. My work in fashion sometimes suggested ideas for my personal work. Sometimes I pursued those ideas and sometimes not.

Why did you decide to do street photography in color, when the overwhelming majority of photographers preferred black and white?
I never felt the need to do what everyone else did. And I wasn’t troubled by the fact that other people were doing other
things.


Walk with Soames, 1958

Color is obviously a big part of your aesthetic, yet I think it sometimes obscures other concerns. For example, the people in your photographs are often hemmed in, fragmented or isolated from one another. Do you see the urban environment as a kind of alienating or isolating entity?
I never thought of the urban environment as isolating. I leave these speculations to others. It’s quite possible that my work represents a search for beauty in the most prosaic and ordinary places. One doesn’t have to be in some faraway dreamland in order to find beauty. I realize that the search for beauty is not highly popular these days. Agony, misery and wretchedness, now these are worth perusing.

Your pictures are both fluid and discordant. Were you conscious of that when you clicked the shutter, or was it more of an instinctive or intuitive response to the city’s visual stimuli?
I was not really aware that my pictures are discordant.

Is it fair to say that you were more interested in evoking the character of New York City’s people rather than its architecture?
I didn’t photograph people as an example of New York urban something or other. I don’t have a philosophy. I have a camera. I look into the camera and take pictures. My photographs are the tiniest part of what I see that could be photographed. They are fragments of endless possibilities.

How would you characterize the emotional tone of your color work?
I must confess that I have never devoted five seconds to thinking about the tone of my color work. Although I understand that people feel differently.

Many of your images have a compressed spatial perspective. Was the telephoto your preferred lens?
I liked different lenses for different times. I am fond of the telephoto lens, as I am of the normal 50 mm lens. I had at one point a 150 mm lens and I was very fond it. I liked what it did. I experimented a lot. Sometimes I worked with a lens that I had when I might have preferred another lens. I think Picasso once said that he wanted to use green in a painting but since he didn't have it he used red. Perfection is not something I admire. [Laughs]. A touch of confusion is a desirable ingredient.


Haircut, 1956

The flattening of the image gives much of your work a cinematic feel. Again, was this an effect you consciously sought?
I don’t plan things. As a rule I prefer to see what happens. If I were to speak of influences, I did at one point have a collection of books put out by an Italian publishing house of stills from a number of famous early movies. I think these books may have had a certain amount of influence on my photographs. That happens to be true. I was more attracted to those sorts of things in terms of my work than other photographers’ works.

I’m intrigued by the fact that you would often use expired color film for its unpredictable effects. With digital imagery, some of the spontaneity and surprise seems to have gone out of photography. Your feelings?
I don’t need to belittle the work of present day photography. I see quite often things that I like and admire. I do digital photography myself. Certain people of my generation decided that the past was better than the present. I am not sure that that is true. I don’t want to be one of those people that says the world has come to an end.

The vast majority of your color images are framed vertically. Can you say why you favored this perspective? Is there something about leading the viewer’s eye in a vertical rather than horizontal manner?
Just call me Mr. Vertical.

The vertical images have a certain feeling of lightness, if you will, as opposed to horizontal pictures, which seem weightier from a visual perspective. Combined with flattened perspectives, they seem to evoke (at least spiritually) Japanese scroll paintings. Were these another influence?
I don’t know if they were an influence, but I did own a collection of Japanese prints at one point. I bought them from a dealer in London. I also had a collection of books on Japanese art. I love the whole world of Japanese art. I love Ogata Korin’s work and I love Tawaraya Sotatsu’s work.

Is there a philosophy or outlook that you have tried to communicate in your work?
I didn’t try to communicate any kind of philosophy since I am not a philosopher. I am a photographer. That’s it.

I understand that for much of your life, you did not make your color work public. Why was that?
At certain points I tried to interest people in my work, and they were not interested. And sometimes I offered to give someone a print and that someone forgot to take it. I was invited to show my work at certain point, but I never opened the letter, which, in retrospect, seemed to not be a very good career move.

What inspired you to finally make it available? Martin Harrison [art historian and the writer/editor of “Early Color”] admired my work. He called me up one day and came over. He got Ilford to pay for some of my printing. Over a period of time he tried to interest people in the work. He became a good friend and I owe him a great deal. Then Jane Livingston put me into the “New York School” book, and then I ran into Howard Greenberg and his gallery. Then, after many attempts, Martin persuaded Steidl to publish the book on early color, which was, I believe, well received. And Martin will work very soon on a book on my early black and whites.


Foot on El, 1954

Do you feel that color was a more congenial medium for you than black and white?
At the moment, people know more about my work in color than my work in black and white. I can understand that some people may prefer the color. When the black-and-white book appears we’ll see. There’s a different sensibility at work in my color than in my black and white. I hesitate to suggest that my black-and-white work is inferior. We will have to wait and see. I don’t even know my own work.

Are you still taking photographs?
Yes. Sometimes color, but mostly black and white. I use small digital cameras because I am very old and weak. [Laughs]

Do you feel that you still have new things to communicate?
No. I am washed up and finished, but I will continue anyway. [Laughs] I still do everything that I’ve always done in one way or another.

Does it become easier or harder to make compelling imagery as time goes by and you compile a larger body of work?
It’s very easy. I haven’t forgotten how to take pictures.

Have you gotten used to your newfound fame?
I am not immersed in self-admiration. When I am listening to Vivaldi or Japanese music or making spaghetti at three in the morning and realize that I don’t have the proper sauce for it, fame is of no use. The other way to put it is that I don’t have a talent for narcissism. Or, to put it yet another way, the mirror is not my best friend. [Laughs]

(I profiled Leiter’s work in the April 2009 issue of COLOR magazine. His work is represented by the Howard Greenberg Gallery, which I would like to thank for providing images.)

Matt Black: A Commitment to Truth
Freelance photographer Matt Black is a native of rural California, and grew up in the San Joaquin Valley, a rich agricultural region that, ironically, is also home to a number of impoverished ethnic communities, among them immigrants from Mexico, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, as well as a dwindling population of black sharecroppers that migrated to California during the Dust Bowl era. Since 1998 he has been documenting such communities through the interrelated thematic prisms of migration, agriculture and rural poverty. Inspired by the socially committed photographers of the 1930s, Black specializes in the extended photo essay, spending months, sometimes years photographing a particular place or community. His powerful, dreamlike and unflinching images serve to raise awareness of overlooked and marginalized populations for whom the American Dream is on permanent deferral.


Matt Black

Where did you grow up?
In the town of Visalia. I live nearby now, in a town called Lemon Cove.

Were you visually oriented as a child?
I may have been. But the arts weren’t really part of my family’s history, and photography is something I came to later, on my own.

What started you off on photography?
I discovered it in high school and learned enough to get a night job at a local newspaper. The darkroom became my second home.

Did the environment in which you were raised help shape your photographic concerns?
I don’t know. I think that we all come pretty much pre-programmed with a certain way of seeing the world, and engaging with it. On the issue of why I am doing this in the first place, or why here, it became a question of: Why go traipsing halfway around the world, when the thing I want to explore is right around the corner? It’s that simple, really, and to a certain extent I felt duty bound to begin this work here.


Saint's Day celebration. Oaxaca, Mexico

How do you choose your projects? Are they all self-assigned?
Yes. I have a place or a group of people that I want to explore and I get started.

Why do you focus so intently on immigrant populations, small towns and rural environments?
It’s a world that attracts me, both as a photographer and as a person. These people and places resonate with me, and I’m fascinated by all of it. Also, I think it’s important that they be paid attention to. But I’m not driven by some sort of activist or political agenda, other than an attempt to engage and address what I see.

Your work exhibits a strong concern for people who are generally ignored by the media except in ways that are stereotyped and condescending. This lends your photographs a political component, albeit one organically embedded in the visual narrative. How important is the need to instill a sociopolitical message in your photographs, and why is photography the best medium with which to do so?
I simply try to show the thing I am photographing as honestly as I can, being true to what’s there and to my own feelings as an observer. I think of it as emotional honesty. To try to turn everything into symbols or to have some sort of overarching message is too simple for me. If there is a guiding message, it’s right there in the images: that paying attention to these sorts of places is worthwhile. The process of photography continues to fascinate me, but it’s really more a means of addressing things, a way of engaging. I rarely think about it outside of that, in any kind of abstract terms. I just try to keep focused on sharpening it, on strengthening the acuity of the portrayal.

Where does your empathy for disadvantaged populations come from?
I’m not really sure. I like and deeply respect the people I photograph. There’s a real affinity that is a part of me and which I can’t fake, and I want the pictures to reflect that. I understand the rules of the world that they are coming from, and respect them. I also have lots of respect for hard work, which is kind of the prime factor in these sorts of places.


Texas migrant at home. Allensworth, California

You depict these subjects with dignity, but also honesty, showing their faults as well as their virtues. In other words, you present them as individuals, not nameless statistics. This, of course, is a fundamental tenet of good photojournalism, but one that’s perhaps not adhered to as often as it once was. Is this something you’ve thought about much, or is it more intuitive?
I just try to stay focused on producing something that rings true, that doesn’t pander. There are an untold number of photographs taken in rural places in which it’s obvious that someone has swooped in with the sole purpose of propagandizing some cause or another. Sometimes that’s all well and good, but I think ultimately that kind of approach leads to shallow, clichéd and unconvincing work. The cause might be a worthy one—and might even be one that I sympathize with—but that is not the role of my work. I take things as they are, and work to put the photographs in the service of stating that as strongly as possible.

The photograph of the cotton migrant at home is a beautiful example of utilizing environment as metaphor to comment on your subject’s circumstances. Do you consciously look for metaphor, or do you channel it intuitively?
I think all that comes later and I think that’s more for the viewer to say than for me. I go there and I react and I hope that I’m being sensitive and perceptive, and that what I’m producing rings true. The pictures are just the result of that process. Of course, I have certain goals in my mind while I’m working, but they tend to be broader, more cumulative.

One of the recurring themes in your work seems to be the attempt to retain a sense of community in spite of crumbling infrastructures and lack of opportunities—employment, cultural and social—even if that sense of community is limited to one’s immediate family. Any comment?
Frankly, I haven’t thought of it like that before. It’s just a different world with a different set of rules and different ways of doing things.

Is it fair to say that yours is a vision of America most people are unaware of, or don’t want to know about?
Mostly, I think they are unaware.


Louisiana migrant. Teviston, California

Your pictures seem to emphasize the traits we all have in common rather than those that set us apart.
I am a believer in the idea that all people are essentially the same; it is circumstance that determines the rest.

How important is it to get the general public to pay attention to these overlooked corners of the country?
It’s quite important. I think that the collective understanding of this country is very superficial, and big parts of it are just left out, deemed unimportant. It’s not just about being unfair; it’s something that makes for the kind of places where things are allowed to fester. It’s a whole other world, an alternate America. To the extent that my photographs can play a part in addressing some of that, I’m more than proud.

Do you think it’s possible to break through the wall of inertia and ignorance with which we insulate ourselves from unpleasant truths?
I believe that when you present something that’s real, that’s well done, and told in an honest way, people are moved. I think the bemoaning that this has been lost is more often used as an excuse for not doing the work, or for excusing poor quality: “Oh we can’t do this because no one cares anymore.” I think that’s too simplistic, too easy a way out.

Does photography retains its power to move people today, considering how many images confront us daily?
Yes, I do. I think people can tell when something is real, and done honestly. Maybe the proliferation of images can help to set serious work apart, because it so obviously stands out from the rest.


Three Rocks, California

I was intrigued by your statement in another interview that it’s not necessarily important to understand why you are drawn to photographing a particular subject.
We all have a particular place, thing or idea that resonates with us, and to which we are drawn, because it just feels right. It’s the same with taking photographs. The strength of photography is based on spontaneity and intuitiveness, and going in laden with preconceptions or formulaic approaches can get in the way of that. I try to simply absorb as much of a particular place as I can—all the little things that maybe can’t be photographed—internalize them, and let that feeling guide me. Ultimately, it’s the degree of affinity for what’s in front of you that determines the quality of your work: how in tune you are, and how deeply it moves you. I think the pictures reveal all of that.

How much time do you generally spend on a particular project?
The beginning and ending dates get kind of fuzzy for me. I go to these places regularly, but generally, I’ve spent anywhere from six months to a couple of years working in some of these towns. Sometimes things come quickly, and sometimes they don’t. I try to be open and just show up.

How does the work you’ve done in Mexico, Guatemala and Bolivia intersect with your San Joaquin Valley projects?
Latin America has always held a fascination for me, particularly Mexico, where I have spent the most time, because of the obvious links between here and there. It feels like a direct connection, a continuation of the same world. Working there is for me the exact same thing, addressing the same concerns.

Who are some of your photographic influences? I ask because your pictures remind me a bit of Josef Koudelka’s gypsy photographs. There are visual parallels in terms of how you both group people within the frame, push grain to the extreme, and impart a mood of mystery and ambiguity. His work also had a strong yet discreet political edge.
Well, that’s very flattering. I have to say, though, the amount of time I spend thinking about the mechanics of photography, how pictures are put together, is very small. It’s more general than that; I just have an itching notion of the world I’m trying to represent and I try to be attuned to that, rather than try to impose some sort of “photographic” approach on the situation. To me, a picture is something that happens, and my part in the process is simply to be receptive, to be open. I don’t think you can force things. All of the photographic aspects—camera, lens, film—are pretty much settled for me. Now, it’s just about using it as a kind of language, of sharpening the portrayal.


Dawn. Firebaugh, California

Some of your images seem to flirt with a subtle visual surrealism, which makes me wonder if you’re open to introducing subject elements to what is essentially documentary photography.
If certain images register as surreal it’s because surrealism is part of that world, and represents a part of life there that I want to convey. I’m not injecting anything; I’m pointing out what’s there, hopefully in a strong way. In other words, I’m trying to build a world in the photographs, and subjectivity is part of that process, I suppose, but I don’t use that as a license to turn everything into something about me. That’s a bit too simple, an excuse people use when their portrayal is out of tune. For me, it’s about confronting my subjects with a camera and them confronting me with their reality. That puts things on an equal footing, and lets them establish the rules of their world. Because it’s clearly their world, not mine.

Speaking of grain, do you push your film to enhance the mood of the images?
I don’t think about it that much. Like I said, I have been using the same film and everything for a fair amount of time. To me, it just looks right. It’s just how photographs should look.

W. Eugene Smith felt that to be a successful photographer, one had to have conviction that nothing was more important than photography. Do you also feel that way?
God, I understand. All that I can say is that I think you get to a point where you know what you want out of your work, and it’s hard to let something go until you think you’ve accomplished it, until it satisfies that initial ambition you had. That can lead to all sorts of complications, but I think if you stop doing that, stop the pursuit, you’re done.

(Visit www.mattblack.com to expand your perceptions of an America largely hidden from view. An abridged version of this interview appeared in the September 2008 issue of B&W magazine.)