alan cumming, tony-winning actor from hamlet, macbeth, cabaret new york george takei, actor from star trek, the twilight zone, star wars, heroes los angeles meredith baxter, actress from family ties, all the president’s men, glee, family santa monica
I did a bit of psychology and they allowed me to get a perspective on people’s moods and expressions. I was interested in many things and all of them somehow informed my photography in one form or another. I think they are all relevant when I press the trigger and in what images I choose afterwords…Photos that look real and lifelike. Your style, especially in this book, offers such a unique perspective. It’s about the people in the images, but in a very interesting way, it’s not. To me, they are about capturing the entire experience of the environment as much as captur- ing the person in that environment. It’s really striking. Thank you. That was my idea. I do professional portraiture and architectural photography both and in some ways, my photographic style is a blend of the two. Conventional portraiture, obviously, is often focused on the person and zooms right in and wants a simple background that’s kind of blurred. I always try to include as much in the frame of the camera as is possible, to sort of challenge people’s eyes. I’ve always been attracted to clutter, as well. (Laughs) I’m interested in people’s homes and interested in what you can tell about someone based on their spaces. That’s another fascinating thing about the photographs in your book I’ve observed. It’s almost like looking through the glass of an exhibit inside
a zoo. There’s this quick peek that you get into the private lives of those who reside inside, yet there’s a clear separa- tion because they are behind glass, or in your case, behind a lens. I’ve never thought of that analogy,
but it’s really interesting. Someone else mentioned at one point that it felt a little voyeuristic. I can see that because in a lot of the photos, the people are not looking out at the lens. They’re aware that I’m there of course, but it looks as if they aren’t. If you think about it, when you’re in someone’s home and photographing them there, you are sort of objectifying them, which is kind of what happens in a zoo, as well. We have these animals and there is a little bit of a “recreated environ- ment,” but we’re basically watching from a distance. Do you find that most of your subjects are comfortable with the process, or does it take a while for them to relax into being photographed so intimately? I often have to coax it out of them
and more often than not, many are a bit uncomfortable. Some are ill-at-ease or more self-aware when they’re being photographed. I would be too, we all want to look as good as possible. Part of my approach involves talking to them, getting them to relax, getting them to almost forget what is going on and that they are being photographed. I do that through constant dialogue and by making it fun by engaging with them, people kind of let
MARCH 2017 | RAGE monthly 31
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