Anthotype Dress

Christine Elfman

Interviewed by Kija Lucas

What is the role of history in your work both in terms of concept and process?

History tells me what a thing is made of, its origins, past, meaning over time.  I am interested in how things are made and where they come from. Many of my projects have been inspired by family history. If I am able to trace a lineage, the strangest ideas may become comprehensible. Historical objects are a piece of exacting evidence, and also a placeholder for something unknown. In Avignon I saw a 14^th century painting by Lippo Memmi of Mary Magdelene holding Jesus [pictured left].  All that remained of the baby Jesus was an empty place marker.  His image had been removed.  Mary Magdelene seemed to be nursing emptiness.  History takes on meaning for me when there are empty spaces, places to fill in my own story.  I don’t know what happened to the painting, why the child was missing.  As a storyteller might say, “Let’s just skip that chapter and leave it a mystery.”

If history is embedded within objects over time, then objects may be witnesses of time past.  While they are physically solid, they remind me of everything that once surrounded them. When I use a historical object as the model for my work, I am interested in showing the passage of time.   I’m trying to turn things inside out, to show their underlying affect.   When I encounter a historical object that tells an incomplete story, I am impressed by the presence of absence; remembering that for everything still visible there is even more that remains invisible.

My process often involves researching how things were made and why.  My inspiration to learn old crafts comes from an attraction towards intricacy visible in careful making rather than patina.  I like to consider the accuracy and faithfulness of materials and processes as much as possible.  If I were to follow this train of thought, I could spend my entire life working on one project.  Then I ask myself, where do I draw the line: should I grow cotton to spin and weave into cloth for a dress?

How did this body of work begin and how does it fit into the overall scope of your work?

This work began in the late summer, when I was collecting Queen Anne’s lace and reading Nathaniel Hawthorne.  While studying 19^th century photographic processes a few years ago, I learned of The Fading Committee, which was founded in 1855 in hopes of discovering a permanent photographic print, as the albumen print was already showing signs of instability.  Eventually, the carbon print was invented.  I was intrigued by this obscure piece of photographic history, which illustrated the ongoing desire to capture fleeting impressions.  For me, it seemed somehow fitting that the photographic material would fade, since the subject matter of all photographs inevitably changes over time.  In terms of my interest in the tension between permanence and impermanence, the Anthotype process had also struck me as especially relevant.  Within the context of photographic conservation, the Anthotype is one of the least popular processes. The Focal Encyclopedia defines it as – “A process suggested by Sir John Herschel in 1842 that used the colored extracts and tinctures of flowers and vegetables to sensitize paper.  Objects such as leaves, lace, and other thin materials were placed in contact with the sensitized paper and exposed to sunlight.  Anthotypes were not fixed or stabilized, making them impossible to display except in night albums, for evening viewing.” The Anthotype process is particularly striking; it yields a photograph that cannot be fixed.  Not only does it contradict the goal of permanence, it is made out of impermanence.

Why a dress and why this dress?

The decline of the dress is a relatively recent phenomenon. Dresses have become anachronistic, worn on special occasions.  They are among many things: impractical, romantic, restricting, old-fashioned, and sentimental.  While reading Hawthorne’s stories I recognized the puritanical lineage of repressed emotion still lingering today.  The Anthotype is like a secret to be kept hidden from exposure, as something intimate.  As the inner lining of the dress, it is protected from the sunlight’s continued fading by a modest exterior.  Every time the Anthotype lining is physically revealed to the viewer, it is sacrificed.  The more it is seen, the faster it fades away.  I chose this design in particular because it is suggestive of the puritanical environment described by Hawthorne. The fabric is no longer produced, but it was an all-purpose textile common in the 19th century. Its roughness serves as a protective shell to the delicacy of the silk.

Why is it important to show documentation of the original plants, process and final product?

I am interested in showing the process of capturing things.  I like to think of taking photographs as like picking flowers.  In order to capture something, it must die.  Everything seen within a photograph has since passed.  Any attempt to capture an image or a representation of life, whether it’s painted, printed, sculpted, etc, is made commemorative by the cold fact that nothing can be preserved forever.  This is related to my practice of making things out of their own substance.  This is the temptation of realism, or indexicality, and the more exactly I try to depict something, the faster it fades away.  The documentation of the Queen Anne’s lace, pokeweed, and sumac are evidence of that attention to material sincerity.  The plants are photographed like the ingredients of a cooking recipe, to show what the photograph and dress are made of.  It’s the desire to believe that the photograph can actually capture an essence.  I want to make images that are made out of their own subject.  This time consuming process is decidedly impractical.  And for all the time it takes to be so precise, they fade away even faster.

With an Ordinary Movement
David W Johnson

interviewed by Kija Lucas

Where did this body of work stem from?

I’d previously been working in series, or progressions of multiple images, as a way of marking the subtle changes in a given environment over time. I would shoot an entire roll of film from a tripod in a fixed location, never touching the camera settings, letting  nature take its course. What I would end up with was a sort of    precise documentation of a place over a set amount of time. On a side note, I happened to be reading all kinds of articles in my dad’s leftover monthly science magazines at the time, and I was noticing a lot of similarities between the scientific processes that I was reading about, and the processes, or “rules” that I had set up for myself in trying to capture these seemingly mundane events on film. I had a realization that I had been deliberately trying to omit any evidence of my own presence in the situations I was photographing. This felt suddenly a bit dishonest to me for some reason, as if I’d been doctoring the results of an experiment in order to more accurately predict the outcome. I wanted to somehow acknowledge that there was in fact an observer that was also a part of the documented setting. So rather than finding a place to shoot, I resolved to shoot continuously as I moved through these settings, making two consecutive images that could “bookend” the transition from one point in space to the next, letting one’s own sense of spatial perception fill in the space and time between the two. They require a kind of “activation” in the mind of the viewer, like a mental/kinetic illusion of sorts.

Talk about your interest in space and time.

I think something in me has always been fascinated by the idea of time and time-travel. The more I learned about the subject however, the more my definition of “time travel” expanded until I came to the conclusion that all of us are always traveling through time without really thinking about it. Things are constantly changing and moving around, and everything’s movement or action has some irreversible consequence. The world around us is basically this giant improvisational choreography where one thing leads to another, and if you were to be a perfect observer, you could theoretically trace any event back to the events that caused it, on and on into infinity, like dominoes. I’m hardly a perfect observer, and I’ve had to become content in my limited understanding of all of this orchestration. I have to simply observe, participate and record these things as they happen. I just think it’s really interesting and strange to picture my own path or trajectory through time and space, and how my choices, even my very existence will end up changing events further down the road.

Are you hoping for the viewer to concentrate on the images or the space/time that exists between them?


I tend to deliberately pick subject matter that is sort of ordinary or simple, but with the intent that they might somehow remind someone of a place or a point in their own time-line. The context between them, or the relationship between the two images is more what I am hoping the viewer walks away with.

How did you come to use still photography to talk about these ideas?

I guess it just seemed to be the most fitting way to concisely demonstrate the concept. I wanted this series to be as clear and simple as possible, so as not to complicate it with any non-essential information. Over the past few years, I’ve come to think of “time” as this sort of piling-up or stacking of information, like the previously-read pages of a book. When you make a photograph, it’s as if you’re able to pull out a page of information to keep with you long after you’re done with the book. Photography is just such a unique and versatile medium, and I think it’s allowed me to really explore and experiment with a lot of time-related things that seem to exist just outside of the range of our natural human perception. It’s like finding evidence of something that you know is there, but can’t access with your own senses. That’s a really exciting thing.

Why did you decide to use the diagram?

I think our first impulse when looking at a photograph is to look at it formally. Especially because this work uses diptychs (which is obviously a strong formal element), it was important for me to immediately interrupt this impulse for the viewer. I wanted the primary emphasis to be placed on the concept. And while these formal elements are unavoidable to a large degree, I wanted to make sure I pushed them as far out of the viewer’s mind as possible. As I said earlier, I was reading a lot of articles on physics and perception, and it always seemed to impress me how all this dense scientific data was so easily explained by a simple chart or diagram. So with this in mind, I drew up a couple of different sketches, mostly I think as a way of clarifying my own thought process. I showed them to a few people, really just to see if they would make sense to an outside observer. My second draft seemed to really click, and it was really exciting to see the work being read in its intended context. I started considering how I might be able to actually integrate the diagram into the work as it actually existed on the wall. I thought about how the plaques in history or science museums have to act as a primer of sorts, to inform you of what your about to look at. It seemed logical for these images to have a similar kind of introduction, so that a viewer must first pass the “key” before proceeding on to content. In the end, I decided to treat the final diagram in the same fashion as I had treated the photographs, lightbox and all. The information it contains is really the thesis of the series as a whole.

Talk about the importance of beauty in your work.

When I was a kid, it seemed like it was easy for me to just sit and watch things, no matter where I found myself. The quality of that experience, of just looking, had so much more value in it than it seems to have as an adult. I think as we age, we tend to lack the attention or focus that it requires to see the beauty in the things around us. I’m not sure that as a child, I would have described what I was experiencing as “beauty”, but can remember how ordinary things appeared to be so much more active and fascinating to look at back then. I feel like in order to make sense of the world as an adult, I’ve had to assign meaning or symbolism to almost everything, and perhaps this is something that corrupts, or inhibits our ability to actually perceive the things around us.
 I think about this a lot actually, and I suppose a lot of my artwork is really just an attempt to somehow reconnect with that mode of experience.

How has moving between still and moving images affected the way you work?

I’ve worked with video for quite a while now, as a kind of parallel body of work to my photography. I feel like our experience of watching a moving image is more captive for whatever reason. Movies seem to bypass the “critical thinking” parts of our consciousness, so that we can keep up with the visual stimulus and be taken on the ride. Conversely, I see the still image as something a person may stay with and relate to in a very present, non-linear way; almost transcendent of the passage of time. I’m not really so much concerned with why this is so, but I’m aware of it, and I actually spend quite a bit of time sorting out which of my ideas are better suited to exist as photographs and which should exist as movies.

This being said, I think that watching and making movies has inevitably shaped the way I envision making photographs, especially when working in series. Making a movie sort of forces you to work within the framework of “progression” or “sequence”, and after a while you begin to see the world in that way. Looking now at the images I’ve made over the last few years, I’m kind of surprised at how I’ve subconsciously pushed these two things together.

Why lightboxes?

There’s just something really seductive about lightboxes. I think it’s the same thing that draws our attention to a television or movie screen. Since the subject matter I typically use tends to be on the mundane side, I felt very strongly that they needed to have a kind of dramatic or “cinematic” quality to their presentation. It was also important to me that these images have their own unique viewing environment, almost like you are in a dark space looking out of a window with a very specific vantage point. I intended the viewing of this work to be a distinctly different experience.

Black Boots Ink will be represented at this year’s San Francisco Zine fest.
Please come check us out if you are in the area!

We were happy to take part in the Camera Club of New York‘s  Second Annual Zine and Self-Published Photo Book Fair organized by Lindsey Castillo on Saturday, July 16 & Sunday, July 17, 2011, 12-6pm.

The zine and self-published photo book is a contemporary approach to photography in its published form, celebrating the book as well as offering artists a vehicle to spread their art and ideas.The public will be invited to come, browse, purchase and meet the people involved with the burgeoning zine and self-published art world.

 

Dan Farnum

Interview by Kija Lucas

How do these images fit into the overall scope of your work?

These images are all part of a new project called Young Blood: Michigan’s Urban Youth. Young Blood looks different than some of my previous work, but I still feel that there is an overall connection. Two major differences in this project of course are that it is in color and deals more with portraiture. One thing that I feel ties Young Blood to most of my other work though is that it focuses on characteristics of a certain location that I have a personal connection to.

Whether it is a city like Detroit or an anonymous suburb, I look for situations that uniquely comment on the cultural implications of where I am shooting while also finding an intimate bond to the place. For example my project Growing Up focuses on both an introverted recollection of my childhood while also commenting on a universal representation of maturation in suburbia. Similarly in Young Blood there is an obvious social dilemma in Michigan that is happening, but I also have a personal connection to the people/places in that region since I grew up there.

How did this body of work begin?

Young Blood was a response to one of my other recent projects called The New Country: Modern Life in a Rural Landscape. New Country was mostly shot in Missouri where I currently reside. I live in a college town, but there is basically a two-hour radius in all directions before there is another significant city…so I started a country project.

Anyway, I realized that I am more of a city mouse. On my trips back to Michigan in the summer I made a point to shoot in urban areas like Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, and Grand Rapids. The images I made on these trips initially were about the buildings and the landscape in those cities. I had this realization though after having continual run-ins with people that I should take pictures of them as well. I hear amazing stories when I take pictures of people in these places. I even have moments where my subjects and I know the same people from 10 years ago.

What were your expectations when you began making these photographs? How were they met and how did they change?

When I first started the project I aimed to depict the trauma that people have endured in urban Michigan. As I mentioned before there are a lot of stereotypes associated with this state. Unfortunately there are also statistics associated with the economy, crime, unemployment, and the shrinking population. For example, there was an eight-year period when my hometown Saginaw had the most violent crimes per capita in the country. Flint and Detroit are of course notorious for the same reasons.

After shooting for a while I became fascinated with the residents who still live in urban Michigan. Seeing the faces of people who are generally stereotyped or feared intrigued me. I also found that some of the people where actually doing optimistic things in the community such as starting urban farms, initiating community centers, writing positive rap music, and repairing buildings. I want to capture the new generation of residents who have the potential to turn things around. The project is still in process. It is moving more towards portraits, but I still plan to keep location shots in the mix as a contrast to the people.

What is your connection to the community you are photographing?

As I mentioned earlier, I grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. It is a blue-collar town that was embedded in the auto industry. I grew up in a “suburb”, but it was an older community. My childhood was spent skateboarding all over town. I hung out in vacant lots, schoolyards, and “bad areas” looking for stuff to skate. Saginaw unfortunately is very divided economically and racially. The Saginaw River is a literal line that separates a financially crippled area from the rest of town. Saginaw is a smaller version of Flint, which is 25 minutes away.

I next lived in Ann Arbor for five years. It is a very beautiful college town that is about 40 minutes from downtown Detroit. After I started getting into photography, I frequently made trips to Detroit To take pictures. Ann Arbor and Detroit are dramatically different. I felt obligated to shoot in Detroit and highlight the plight of the city. Some of these early images are actually on my website in a project called Dwell. During this time I also participated in a group at the University of Michigan called the Detroit Project. This organization made trips to the city to clean schoolyards, tear down old houses, and to tutor students.

I feel that my experiences as a teenager and young adult provide an intimate connection to the cities in Michigan that I now photograph for Young Blood. My personal and family history is rooted in this region. Also, I have seen how places like Detroit and Saginaw have changed over the course of time. It allows me to look beyond the devastated buildings and landscapes. There is a lot of work being down about Detroit by outsiders and Europeans. Although this work is beautiful at times, I feel that it is perpetuating a stereotype and isn’t telling me something that I haven’t heard or seen before. I want to do something different from an insider’s perspective. I am documenting my home.

India

Shane Powers

Tell me about your “India,” series. What lead you to India? What did you learn from your travels, people, environment?

A:  I spent nearly 4 months in India in late 2010, early 2011.  I was teaching classes in a private photography college nestled among the tea plantations high in the Southern mountain ranges of Tamil Nadu.  I lived in a nearby town of about 20,000 people with another instructor who was Indian and had graduated from the school in 2002.  I also took advantage of a 3-week winter break from classes over Christmas, which I spent traveling around Rajasthan and visiting friends in Mumbai.

I learned a lot about the vast difference between WORKING in India and TRAVELING for leisure.  I was well-warned of the chaos of India and advised to just give in and go with the flow, which I’m good at.  Traveling was a breeze.  I stayed in seedy little hotels, walked countless miles carrying my DSLR and my Rolleiflex Twin Lens with 25 rolls of 120 film, and even trekked into the desert on a camel and slept on dunes under the stars and full moon on Christmas Eve.  But trying to deliver lectures and demonstrations to 38 students every week while I was working was much more difficult.  I can be pretty flexible in any work environment, but it became very difficult to plan ahead and see the fruits of my efforts when the school lacked structure, planning and consistency.  I have to admit that I did learn to relax a bit and ENJOY playing hours of table tennis with everyone from the students to the school’s founder/director.  But by my last class in January, the lack of communication and structure was wearing me down.

Lastly, I was surprised at how few of the students seemed genuinely interested and motivated to completely support themselves as full-time professional photographers.  There’s been a lot of talk recently of how rapidly India’s economic landscape is growing, and even more talk amongst my Indian colleagues at the college of how the need for good photographers is EXPLODING.  But of my 38 students, probably only 30 would complete the program and maybe 5 or 6 of them would become full-time pros.  The director of the school assured me that this was typical over the 10-year history of the school, and it perplexed him as well.  Nearly all the students came from wealthy families, most of them were moderately passionate about their photography work, but few of them saw a need to make a living from it.

You state your work begins with romance? Is this true for the India series? How do you begin your work and how do you know its complete?

A:  Anyone who has seen my work up to now, especially the toned cyanotype series I did of the Dolphin Swimming & Boating Club in San Francisco knows that I really gravitate toward “old-world” subject matter.  Things really changed for me when I worked in 2002-2003 for editorial photographer Andy Anderson.  He gave me an old Graflex 4×5 box camera with no back, a 70-year-old Kodak lens and a Polaroid film holder/processor.  I taped the holder to the back, bought one box each of Kodak color and Polaroid Type 55 film, and a whole new world opened up to me.  EVERYTHING looked beautiful and mysterious and sexy through an old lens on that ground glass.  Some of my first photos with that camera were of old abandoned autos in a salvage yard near Boise, Idaho.  They looked majestic and monumental to me, still do.

Soon after that, Andy and I drove to the wilderness of Eastern Idaho and photographed a man who had been living in a cave since 1947.  I was completely overtaken with desire for that place, that situation, it was so rare and precious, like finding a creature long thought extinct.  I seriously considered quitting my job, selling my few possessions and renting a nearby cave from this man (he make a point of offering, if you can believe it, for $25 a month).  He passed away in 2009, and I still feel a sting of regret for not following through on that impulse, even if only for a few months, maybe a year.  What an experience it would have been!

Since then, my goal has always been to make images that make me long for the initial seduction that connected me to that place and time.  I still look at those old auto photos with desire.  India is FULL of old-world charm and abandoned things and places.  There were countless opportunities within a 20-minute walk of the faculty housing where I lived, and it was kind of overwhelming.  The old “tip of the iceberg” analogy falls short for a photographer in India.  I felt like I never even stood on that little hunk of ice, let alone really explored it.  I hovered over it, in the dark, and shined a flashlight on part of it.

I feel pretty confident that THIS particular visit gave me a complete body of work for THIS experience I had there.  But I often long to keep photographing autos and cave-dwellers with my 4×5, and I do still photograph the people and place of the Dolphin Club.  I feel like projects can have TEMPORARY completions, but I can’t imagine that the STORY of any particular project is ever PERMANENTLY complete.

Why do you choose to use alternative processes to complete much of your portfolios?

A: Sometimes, it just works best to capture a certain mood of a place, such as some of the scenery photos of San Francisco on my website.  But in the case of the Dolphin Club, it seemed to not only capture the mood, but make the wood, sand and ocean physically integral with the prints themselves, as well as conceptually integral with the story of a place dedicated to old-world traditions.  This project initially set out to be editorial at its core and in its application — full-color prints with a bit of grittiness to them, provided by the old Rolleiflex Twin Lens, the film and some PhotoShop work.

But I came to realize that all through my “romance” with previous images, I’d taught myself how to make the photos look old-world with PhotoShop.  I wanted to prove that a project could still remain steadfastly EDITORIAL, but with a very FINE ART application.  I wanted to make old-world places truly look and feel old-world, but by using my two hands, simple chemicals, sunlight, wood, water and Earl Grey tea.  I’m very happy with the results, and I think I found the perfect way to tell the club’s story through a happy balance between editorial and fine art approaches.

What are you working on now? What is next for you?

A: Right now, I’m working on making a very large cyanotype print as part of a project commissioned by a family in Washington state, in which I photographed several families over 5 days on property they own together overlooking the Hood Canal.  I’m also catching up on portfolio work that languished while in India and working on the India photos.  I’ve also been chipping away at making toned cyanotypes of some of my early 4×5 work (such as the autos and the cave-dweller).  I’m also teaching several workshops at the Harvey Milk Photo Center in San Francisco and helping them in various ways to revitalize the center, which has been very rewarding and exciting.  Other than that, there are several projects waiting for time and money.  I seem to always have one or the other, but not both… 

Thanks!
Shane

We would like to thank everyone for coming out to join us at the panel discussion at San Francisco Camerawork to meet the photographers who participated in Magazine No. 2:  Shakti which featured the work of Nancy Ahn, Elena Carrasco, Rory Hejtmanek, Melissa Kitson, Eva Kokopeli, Karna Kurata, Jessica Lifland, Kija Lucas, Pernilla Persson, Karla Tarin, Rikki Ward, and Ariel Zambelich.

Kija Lucas lead the panel discussion with photographers Rory Hejtmanek, Jessica Lifland, Pernilla Persson, Rikki Ward and  poet Karla Tarin read some of her works.

Thank you Pernilla Persson for the images and we will see you all next time!

This question is one that I asked myself often when making this work. I questioned the use of the camera completely and experimented with the objects as installation.  The photographs that remain do something that only a camera can do: they force the viewer’s perspective such as the hole in the dirt in Passage, or the red perimeter and horizon line of Looking into Another Time;  they join two very different things such as abalone or deerskin and china; or they capture something that can only temporarily exist.  There is also a play in scale that is important to me.  Some of these objects could easily be dismissed as dainty or precious, however the photograph allows them to have monumental status, such as the image Jewlery in Burial Mound.  I do have a series of objects that are shown as installation instead of photographs, because experiencing them three dimensionally adds to the experience.  I also feel that my process of arranging the objects is just as important as the final outcome and the photograph exists as a document of  this process.  I feel very connected to objects and I collect quite a bit so in a certain sense I wanted to give life to these things in the way that I experience them, and the camera does this for me.

The light in these images is as substantial as the objects. What do you see as the roll of light in your images?

The work was made while reflecting about my experience of working on Native American burial sites. I began to think about ceremony as a living thing instead of some set of instructions or rules.  I am creating ritual and ceremony that is important to me and these images are an artifact of that.   I’ve realised that most of my work is about reconnecting with something or making new connections — that’s where Sinews comes into play as the idea of connective, non-linear tissue rejoining to make something whole again.  I’m haunted by what I’ve witnessed:  my ancestors being dug up, finding skulls crushed by jack-hammers and being handed bags of cranium dust, all for tract housing developments.  So there is no resolution, just a sadness that lingers.
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Beautiful Silence

Irwin Lewis

Interview By: Elena Carrasco-Bañuelos

What lead you to Japan? How long where you there?

This was my second trip back to Japan. What led me back was a beautiful, different, and kind family from Fukushima, the Ishii family.  The Ishii family had guided me, helped me, and inspired me in my life as well as in my photography. Like in some families and in some cultures, the Japanese find it very hard to accept strangers.  But, this family was very open and accepting of me, I got to eat with them, stay with them, and photograph them. I am very thankful and honored that I got to be a part of their lives, although I couldn’t understand what they were saying half the time.  I still felt I was apart of the family and was involved. I have known the Ishii family for about a year now and I became their friend first before a photographer. I stayed in Japan for three weeks, about a week in Tokyo and the rest of my stay in Fukushima Koriyama, with the family.

What stood out from your explorations in Japan? What was similar, different from the United States? What did you learn?

There were so many things that stood out for me, but one in particular that stood out was the people and how kind they were.  They were not just kind to each other they were also kind to their environment.  I feel that having respect for others and your environment is the most important thing in life.

I was on the train, one day in Tokyo and it was getting crowded. All the seats were taken. I saw this elderly man standing next to me. I got up from my seat so I can offer it to him. I told him “please sit.” He just looked at me and smiled, then he told me in Japanese that it was okay and for me to sit back down in the seat, I tried to offer him. I looked at him, trying to convince him to sit-down and that it was okay. But, he refused my offer and told me he was okay. So I sat back down, then a person across from me got up for his stop and left his seat.  Then the elderly man took the seat and sat down, he looked at me and bowed his head and said thank you.

At that moment I felt that he was just being respectful and kind.  My age had not mattered, nor what country I came from mattered to a man that simply wanted me to feel comfortable. I guess that is also the difference between the U.S. and Japan. If I offered my seat on a bus or train here in San Francisco to an elder they would take it without refusing me. I mean, I do anyways and I want them to feel comfortable but the elderly man in Japan taught me that you should be kind and respectful to everyone, no matter where they come from or what their age is.

I didn’t find many things similar between Japan and the US. I mean there were some little things but nothing to serious. There was one thing I did find similar between my culture as a Native American and their culture but in a more spiritual way. Though we pray to a different creator, I still felt there were something’s very similar.

Japan is recovering from an earthquake, tsunami and a nuclear crisis.  Will you return? What is your approach, response to a situation like this?

One of my good friends from Chiba, Japan sent me a magazine. The magazine had all these photographs of the people who were victims of the earthquake, tsunami, and the nuclear crisis.  All I could do was look at the photographs, donate, and pray for them. The images also made me realize that what I have in my life is something I feel very thankful for. If I do have a chance in the near future to go back to Japan I would love to.  But I wouldn’t go back for the obvious reasons; it would be more for my friends.  During the time when the disasters began, I got lots of emails and messages on IM.  Friends telling me that they were scared, hungry, and confused. They didn’t know why and how this was happening them; it was getting to real for them. They were also telling me that there would be black outs happening often and aftershocks.  All I could do was reply and offer them comfort with my words.

Again, if I have another chance to go back to Japan, I would. But not because of what’s happening or happened. But what the crisis did to my friends emotionally and physically. We never know what can happen to us in the future and when something does happen, bad or good.  We as friends, family member, and lovers should listen then share and make the person as comfortable as we can. Just to let them know that life can get better or that it can get more beautiful.

We traveled with you quietly through the city, into parks, temples, met children, elders and students.  Where will you take us next? What are your future goals?

Yes, I have shared with many people my journey and thoughts about Japan. And titled it “Beautiful Silence.” This project has not only opened up peoples minds about the way I looked at Japan but it also helped me find myself as a person and a photographer. Many of my friends from Japan were amazed to see what I captured in their own country as a gaijin (non-Japanese).  I had one friend, who told me. “Some Japanese people don’t think Japan has style, they want to move out of Japan. But, if they saw your photographs they would change their minds about being Japanese and be more Japanese.” She stated.

I was very happy and thankful for what she had said about my work. I think Japan has style and is very cool and hopefully one day I can go back and make new photographs.  I do hope that this project can help in someway for not just Japan but to others.

At the moment I am just working and focusing on this project Beautiful Silence. Trying to get it out, no matter if its just one photograph on a wall, or twenty on a website. It will just make me happy that people can see my work and learn something from it.

Special Thanks to:

My family

Ringlero Family

Ishii Family

Yuka Haruyama

Victor Prieto

The narratives in my work surface in the process of editing and sequencing a certain set of images. After making formal selections I look for patterns, associations, and possibilities of meanings that emerge.
“The Day I Set The Sea On Fire” is so far the largest body of work that I’ve attempted to sequence together. From the beginning I set out to create a book, and decided to allow myself to include images from as far back as 2004. This date might seem arbitrary, but it marks a certain departure in my practice, mainly no longer putting thematic restrictions on what I chose to photograph, except for one, to photograph that which I was intuitively an inexplicably drawn to. I think that the reason why I make art is to create a space or a world in which certainty is nonexistent, where mystery, ambiguity, and vibrant subjectivity fill every nook and cranny. This type of art has always inspired me, and it is naturally what I aspire to do as well. My only rule is to allow myself to be intuitive, to follow a personal and unexplainable logic in which I can fully believe.

After making my selections from hundreds of photographs taken over a period of six years, I began to see several themes that eneded up in three chapters and a prologue. This process was actually quite long and the book changed a lot over time. I began working on this project in late 2008 and made new images through out 2009 and 2010. The more recent works found a place in the sequence and expanded the narrative.

I actually see still photography having more of an influence on my video work than vice-versa. More often than not there is very little motion in my videos and usually the scene will remain the same through out the duration of the piece, with only minor details within the frame changing. I think of my videos often as moving photographs, and emphasize the stillness of the frame much more than the movement within it. I do this to play with the viewers experience of time, usually stretching it out and slowing it down. I think these these works also allow for a non-dogmatic experience of film based media, as these videos usually do not have a set beginning or end and require as much time from the viewer as they are willing to give.

Thematically all of my works have strong correlations. The private longings, obsessions, fears and desires; the precious moments of intimacy with loved ones; the elevating of the mundane and the simple, these strands of thought can be seen in the photographs, videos and the sculptural arrangements. However the structure of these thoughts and how they are communicated changes from medium to medium. For example I think I use video and photography in exactly the opposite ways. Whereas the photographic works must progress in a sequence of changing scenes to create meaning, the video works exist in a singular form requiring little or no narrative to communicate the ideas.

Currently my work is evolving in several ways. Formally I have been experimenting with circular and oval formats, as well as wider digital manipulation of my images. Thematically, I’m finding myself limiting the focus of some of my projects more narrowly and seeing how setting more limitations will affect my work. A more general future plan is to integrate together the different media that I use in a more seamless way.