Do you prefer the pinhole to an SLR, or point and shoot or other camera types?
I think you can do interesting stuff with any camera, whether it's an SLR
or a pinhole camera or grandma's 110-format spy camera. Good photos come from
strong ideas and a willingness to experiment, not from good cameras. The great
thing about pinhole photography is that you can imagine an image in your head,
then build a camera to create that image. What I'm saying is you're not limited
in the same way that you are with a store-bought camera, where the controls
are determined by the manufacturer. With a pinhole camera, if you want it to
be wide-angle, you build it that way. If you want it to go underwater, you go
swimming with it. There's no circuitry to F up or lenses to scratch or mechanisms
to break. If you back the car over your pinhole camera, then you shake it off
and root through the trash for some cardboard and you build another one that's
even better.
The gallery opening was cool - are you working on new stuff photowise?
I'm continuing to work with pinhole. I modified a polaroid camera to make
p-hole images which is nice because you get instant gratification. And who doesn't
want that? I have some other unusual cameras that I've collected which I'd like
to put to use. I really enjoy it when I show someone a photo that looks great
on its own, then I show them what I used to make it and their mind gets blown
again. These days, you have to hit people coming AND going. Any favourite photographers,
directors, artists? I get inspired by all sorts of people. As far as photographers
go, the Starn Twins were the first artists that totally changed my perception
of what photography could be. David Byrne, David Carson, Robert Frank, Peter
Beard, Kyle Cooper, Edward Ruscha, Sol Lewitt. (dropping those names should
give me some street- cred). There's loads of people doing cool stuff. I just
like to see people doing original work that's exciting to look at. I know it's
totally subjective, but I get really bored of seeing the same black and white
shots of naked bodies or flowers or homeless people. There's still this stigma
with photography that the subject has to be recognizable, perfectly cropped
and exposed, and all that. Or that a photo has to be poignant or have an underlying
message. It turns out that cameras are pretty great at making abstract images.
I think the best images are ones that have an immediate visual impact which
I guess I'd call beauty, but also have an interesting and strong concept or
process behind them. Like I said before, you have to hit people coming AND going.
You are about to meet the firing squad...any last requests?
No, I think I'm OK.
THANKS JON!
click each image
to open a larger version...
