projects

Photographer Interview: Steve Gray

Steve Gray comes from a world a way, and captures his landscape and surroundings in a lovely way. I first learned about Steve through his Borderland project, but I’m recently digging his Postcards from Cambridge, MA series.

Where are you and what do you do?

I am based in the county of Herefordshire in the west of England, close to the border with Wales. It is a region of rolling farmland, wooded hills and (close to the border) dramatic upland moor. I am very fond of this landscape and it features a lot in my photography.  My initial interest photographically was in taking what I guess you could call a traditional approach, working slowly with a tripod, using filters and trying to be out in dramatic light and the start and end of the day. I soon realised thought that this wasn’t really for me and latterly I have pursued a more contemporary, documentary approach to my work (always handheld these days!) – whether shooting in an urban or rural environment.

How did you get started in photography?

My interest led me to enroll in a beginners black and white darkroom evening class back in 2003. I knew next to nothing about photographic technique and so it was a pretty steep learning curve. Very quickly, however, I knew that I was hooked and photography has been a huge part of my life ever since.

What do you like about your photography?

It has taken many years of experimentation and many failed images and projects for me to feel comfortable with my own work, but I’m happy to say I now do. I think it is really important to develop an approach and style that works for you, produce images that make you happy and not worry if others like them too. That said, I do really enjoy sharing my work and hope that some of my images create a positive reaction. If pushed, I guess I would say I like the freedom in my approach to image-making – I work quite spontaneously with little planning. I’m also very partial to photograph patterns, shadows and shapes I find interesting. Lastly, it really appeals to me to have such a personal means by which to share how I see the world around me.

I like that your work explores different locations. Where do you get inspiration for your style/ideas? 

My local landscape is definitely a source of inspiration. I believe the best approach is to photography what’s around you, what you know or where you happen to be, and try to find ways to make interesting pictures. This is in contrast to the trend to travel to well-known and much-photographed beauty spots. I’m not criticising that approach, I’ve simply come to realise it’s not for me and doesn’t produce results I feel happy with.

You’re “Yashica Steve” on Instagram – using film to express your vision. What kinds of themes do you explore with your work? How does film help you accomplish that? 

I set up my Instagram account as @yashicasteve to share new film work when I started working with film again last year. I have really loved photographing this way over the last few months, using a Yashica T4 35mm compact camera loaded with AgfaVista 200. I’m don’t support the notion that film is better than digital (or vice versa), it’s just that I find the feel of the pictures, the atmosphere, really pleasing and it seems to suit my preferred subject matter. I am increasingly enjoying walking around urban environments with no planned route or expectations and simply photographing things I encounter that interest me. I also love the deferred gratification of seeing the images after getting the film developed – digital has made everything so instantaneous this is a real pleasure!

Any upcoming projects or shoots you’re working on?

My focus over recent months has been on a project called Borderland: where England meets Wales, documenting the often forgotten rural hinterland I call home on the border between the two countries. The landscape there is changing in many ways as (very slowly!) this rural landscape modernises and traditional ways of life decline. I think it makes for a fascinating and timely subject and I’m hoping others agree! I have managed all aspects of putting the book together and promoting it myself and am delighted to have sold most of the limited edition of 100 copies. There are some still available, however, and the whole series can be viewed and orders placed on my website.

Follow Steve on Instagram and Twitter, or check out his website for more work. 

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Reminders For Days

China City - Jackson, MI

Reminders basically rule my life. Since my first iPhone, I’ve let a combination of to-do tasks and calendar pop-ups tell me what to do, and when. Everything from taking my daily medication to taking out the trash – I assign a robot to tell me things that I would otherwise forget. It’s a mix of Absent-Minded Professorness and outboard brain reliance.

I know that if I want to build a habit (exercise), or tell myself to do something later in a day (call the cable company), or if there’s something I just can’t or shouldn’t forget (a doctor’s appointment), I have to set a reminder. Otherwise, my brain won’t hold on to the information.

Now, I’m using a reminder system to keep my daily project going. It’s simple: twice a day, Day One tells me to make a new entry. That’s my signal to keep my photo project going – usually at 4 p.m. (before I leave work) and 7 p.m. (before the light disappears).

Why Day One? For me, it serves as both a reminder system and a daily log for the photo I take and the camera settings I used. I can even include a reference photo as a visual clue.

Day One has served me well since the birth of my daughter in 2015. Then, I used it as a journal to record her growing up – personality developments, funny sayings, a photo, that kind of thing. It came in handy when I made her first year photo book; I could look back and see, chronologically, how she was turning into a toddler.

The app doesn’t really matter. You could do something similar with a calendar or a text file. The point is that I rely so much on reminders that I’m using them to keep my daily photo project moving along. I’m both reminding myself and logging my progress as I go. Over time, it may become a habit, and I won’t need to think about it.

But probably not. I know myself well enough to keep a system like this in place until the project is done.

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For My Next Project

 

Bronica ETRSi

Details are starting to come together for my next community project.

For this next one, I want to experiment with some studio space, and making the portraits on black and white film. To do that, I picked up a Bronica ETRSi from Jon Wilkening – a fantastic kit, full of potential. And it includes a learning curve, which is the part I’m most looking forward to.

(One of the benefits of picking up photography as a hobby is that you get to tinker, and learn new equipment, while you’re making photographs. That puts it in the same realm as classic computers or engine repair as much as art.)

I hope to set up a quick photo studio to practice with the Bronica, including making photos with friends and family, just for fun.

Restrictions are simply creative challenges. Using medium format film for a portrait project is a restriction that, I hope, leads to interesting results and good photographs. It forces me to learn something new, while lending a timeless feel to the whole endeavor. Should be fun.

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Old Michigan Avenue

US-12

Fun look back at the history of US-12 at Concentrate Ann Arbor:

Michigan Avenue has been recognized for its significance as a Historic Heritage Route. Given the fact that it’s persisted so long and been so essential to the state, it seems more than fitting to refer to this road, which spans the entire east-west length of the state, as Michigan Avenue.

US-12 has fed a life-long fascination for me, and is becoming a long-term photography project. It’s a road, and an area, rich with history.

Parts two and three are up, too.

 

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Thirty Six

Thirty Six

Today is my birthday. I turn 36.

Today is also the start of a project – one that I’ve thought long and hard about since the holidays. It involves taking a photograph every day for a year and not sharing it with anyone.

Then, at the end? I’m not sure. I’ll figure it out when I get there.

That number keeps circling around my brain: 36. Thirty six. More than halfway to Old Man.

An idea is brewing.

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Still Life Photography: Beating the Winter Blues

Still Life - Berries

Keep yourself busy, that’s what I say.

Last winter, off my big portrait project, I needed something to keep me entertained during these cold Michigan winter months. I needed a photo project to keep my mind and camera busy, and something that I could do inside.

When Sandhill Crane Vineyards invited me to be their featured artist for May, I felt like I needed to show some fresh work in their gallery. Wine would be fun. But what if I did more than wine still life photos? What if I made it bigger?

It ended up being my big still life project.

A few months back I was invited to speak to the Jackson Civic Art Association about the project. One of the members, Carrie Joers, dug my still life shots. More than liking them, she wanted to paint them, and figured a how-to session on setting up a still life setting would be good for her drawing and painting friends.

Here’s what I told the group in terms of restrictions and things to think about:

  1. Look at good still life paintings and photos to get an idea of what you like. I started with the Dutch masters, and went through to good product photography. Keep an idea board (I used Pinterest).
  2. Get yourself a theme. Doing random stuff is fun, but I found a theme (seasons, with food as the focus) easier to keep myself focused and organized. Pears go with winter, acorns go with fall, and colors matter, etc.
  3. Look for materials and items around the house, and keep texture in mind (the more, the merrier). Figure out what you don’t have on hand, and then go bargain shopping: yard sales, thrift stores, stuff in your parents’ attic, that kind of thing. Fabrics, containers, decorations – all that stuff can be had for cheap. To get the fresh ingredients, I went grocery shopping.
  4. Set up near a window for good light, and make your own backdrop. This was a lot of fun for me: I got to experiment with painting on a canvas, and setting a mood (here’s my simple set up at home).
  5. Experiment and practice. Move stuff around. Try a bunch of shots. Take 50 photographs to find the one killer shot.
  6. Challenge yourself. I went with one camera, one lens – and a 100mm macro lens at that. Set restrictions, stick to your theme, and don’t make it easy.

I’m making my slideshow (with notes) available as a download (PDF), since I can’t give my presentation to you, the reader. It should give you some background, some ideas, and some inspirational crumbs to follow.

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War Against Seeing

Moving Sale!

Rob Walker in “How to Pay Attention“:

From looming billboards to glittering shop windows to the myriad distractions flowing through the pocket-sized screens we carry everywhere, vast and sophisticated efforts prod us to look in specific directions, at specific things, in specific ways. Taken together, they add up to a kind of war against seeing. I try to be part of the resistance.

Walker’s tips are all good strategies for design, writing, and photography exercises. What do you spot that’s interesting, new, or unseen? There’s a photo project in the making.

Notice things that aren’t meant to be noticed creatively – “attend to some recurring thing that is ubiquitous” Walker says – and you get one of those cataloging projects that are such a joy. For myself, that includes handmade yard sale signs. It’s a little thing, but it’s fun.

(via Austin Kleon)

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Photographer Interview: Barry Phipps

I first learned about Barry Phipps’s Iowa photos project on Feature Shoot, and, as a fellow Midwesterner, could hardly contain my excitement – it’s my kind of project, full of story and place and changes.

Where are you and what do you do?

I’m in Iowa City, IA. Moved here four years ago from Chicago, where I lived for 22 years. I’m a working photographer and artist.

How did you get started in photography?

I studied photography at The Kansas City Art Institute in the late eighties. I’m old, so we were taught how to shoot, develop, and print film.

What do you like about your photography?

I’m very hard on myself, so it’s hard sometimes to say I like my own photography. That said, I enjoy a means of communication that isn’t blatantly about me. It’s more impersonal and less directly emotive than, say, making music. I’m a former musician who finds it gut wrenchingly difficult to listen to a song I’ve recorded and released where I’m singing, but have no problem digging through old photographs and finding enjoyment doing so.

You cover weddings and portraits along with your Iowa series. Where do you get inspiration for your style/ideas?

I enjoy weddings and portrait work. I still shoot film and approach it in the same way as my Iowa Photographs series, and tend to work for artists, photographers, writers and the like. I don’t really look much at other wedding photographers for inspiration. My studio portrait work isn’t really influenced by other work. I’m inspired by Richard Avedon and kind of jealous of Terry Richardson. I like looking through Vanity Fair and those types of magazines as I’m waiting to get my hair cut. I’d love to do fashion stuff, but not going out of my way to make that happen. I do live in Iowa, after all.

I like that your photos, especially your Iowa series, have a sense of place and purpose. What kinds of themes do you explore with your work?

Thanks! Actually, I feel the Iowa Photographs series gave my photography a sense of purpose, focus, and direction. I photographed lots in Chicago, but moving to Iowa four years ago really gave me a sense of direction. I’m really drawn to this place. I initially just started taking day trips in every direction from Iowa City, just to see what was out there. It was exciting to be in a new place. I assumed I would live in Chicago for the rest of my life. Chicago can be a challenging place to leave. You can drive for two hours and still be in the city sometimes. Here, it’s liberating to be able to just get in my car and drive in any direction and be somewhere new in just a few minutes. Iowa is populated with a million small towns, most never more than six or seven miles from the last one. Iowa was mostly populated within a few years, mostly by European immigrants. So, these towns formed, thrived, peaked and later declined as the original purpose of servicing farming families dried up. There’s a consistency town to town, but also a uniqueness. I’m always surprised by what I find.

Any upcoming projects or shoots you’re working on?

The Iowa Photographs series will continue, but I have wrapped up my initial phase of the project. I’ve photographed every county in Iowa and have accumulated what I consider a fair representation of the state of the state. I’m currently putting a book together of the best stuff from this phase. It will be published by The University of Iowa Press around 2019.

You can purchase Phipps’s Iowa Photographs series in volumes, and follow along on Instagram. Check out more of Phipps’s work at his portfolio site.

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Good Ideas Deserve to Exist

On Self Doubt

Last week I participated in an area authors book publishing forum. Me and two other local authors spoke about our book projects, and what it took to get them into the read world. After a brief introduction, we opened up the forum to audience questions. One question really got me thinking, from a thoughtful lady:

“What did you do to keep away the self doubt?”

All of us agreed that self doubt played a role in our projects. What if our books didn’t sell? What if we couldn’t make it work? Was it a big waste of time?

Perhaps more frightening: What if no one cared?

For my part, a large part of my project went into the pre-planning. As I’ve shared before, I thought about having a built-in audience, using my connections to get the word out, and relying on marketing to make my project a known thing.

Even deeper and scarier than getting the word out, however, self doubt means wondering whether a project even deserves to exist. What’s the big idea, and has it earned an audience?

Plenty of artists deal with self doubt. I wonder if there’s extra pressure on those who put physical things into the real world. Ones and zeroes can exist virtually and bother no one – but a book? That takes materials, space, and time in the universe. There’s gravity associated with it.

Good Ideas deserve the atoms that make up a book or print or sculpture or whatever. Getting rid of (or at least easing) self doubt means convincing yourself that yours is a Good Idea.

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