Elspeth Diederix is 39 years old and looking forward to 40.
MOSSLESS: I really liked your Supernatural series. Are you a believer in the supernatural and/or superstitions yourself?
ELSPETH DIEDERIX: I am not superstitious, but I do believe in a ‘supernatural’ kind of energy. Vague, but I do feel that there is something more than what you see. In my early work I would try to visualize this unseen energy in the photographs like ‘Portrait of my father 1996’, ‘Kubus mist 1998’ or ‘Family portrait 1998’.
ML: In your series Doride Ultramarina, you’ve experimented with taking images of objects under water. Where did the idea for this come from and how did you go about photographing these objects?
ED: When I started diving I was completely fascinated by this whole new world underwater. A world in which you become more aware of color. Colors slowly disappear the deeper you go, first the reds are gone and when you use a flashlight suddenly the most dreary brown looking objects become bright red!
Underwater the color blue is a physical experience. When you jump off a boat in the blue water which is not near a reef you could turn 360 degrees and not see anything but the color blue. You are swimming in a color.
I have always been photographing everyday objects which are somehow almost invisible to you because they surround you all the time. I want to photograph them and show them to you in a different light. It was a natural move to take objects underwater. Water transforms. Transparent objects like plastic bottles and cups become almost invisible except for that tiny thin line that reflects the light and makes it look like a drawing (‘Transparent still life 2002’).
Photographing objects underwater can be quite challenging. They are all made while diving, mostly in the Red Sea. You have to figure out if the object is buoyant or sinks and accordingly you tie it to a weight or let it hang from a flotation device. If you just let the objects go, they float to the surface or sink or are taken away by the current. It is a bit of a puzzle. Every photograph is a little installation.
ML: Some of your earliest photography dates back to 1996. Where you interested in photography before then?
ED: I started with painting at the art academy and then in later years I made small objects and installations which I would photograph. Then I discovered that with photography I get to do everything; paint, make sculptures of any material, use every location that seems interesting. I was not tied down to a studio and paintbrushes. All I needed was a camera and I could go around the world and make works wherever I was. I felt that there was so much freedom in photography. But starting out with painting has influenced the way I photograph. I sketch first, I photograph, then I redo it maybe because I need a better location or a different color. Like a painting my photographs are made up layer by layer.
ML: What is it like in Holland this time of year?
ED: Lovely. I have a studio with a big garden and it is lush and green and full of flowers. Some days are rainy but have a tropical warmth. Today it is fresh and sunny. As soon as the sun shines everyone is out soaking up each little sun ray. The streets are all decorated with flags for the world cup. It is festive.
12:00 pm • 31 July 2010
Gabe Kelley is 19 years old and watched a five year old stab a fly with a pencil today.
MOSSLESS: When and why did you first take a serious interest in photography?
GABE KELLEY: I first took a serious interest in photography in ninth grade because I signed up for a photojournalism class. I hated the class, as much as anyone could hate something. It was very limiting as we could only take pictures in the classroom, my mind was a bit bigger than the classroom and I couldn’t stand it. I loved the idea of photography after that class though because I realized that people could tell me what to do in photography and I could give them the big ole soaring middle finger and photograph what I want, the idea of being able to break through what people wanted me to do and explore my own limits really pushed my work further. I still hate that class though, but at the same time I love it for giving me that.
ML: You refer to your work as being “an attempt to allow people into my life, for that small brief second”. Why do you think people would find your life interesting?
GK: I think my reasoning behind saying that is actually the opposite of the question, I don’t think anyone finds my life interesting. Most of the subjects I photograph are very boring, showing my surroundings, but I feel as though I can sometimes shine a light on the boring and get a nice shot in the end, that explains how I glorify things in my mind.
ML: A lot of your photographs appear to be very spontaneous and yet others come across as being very thought out. Are you the type of person who carries their camera around with them at all times?
GK: I’ve got a Supreme leopard print camera bag on my belt pretty much all the time. I leave the thing unzipped so I can whip the camera out at anytime. If you see me on the street, please, steal my camera, I need to be taught a lesson of closing that thing, and saving film. If only I showed some of the spontaneous shots that I wish I could take back.
ML: You’re also a keen graphic designer. Where does your interest in this stem from?
GK: I actually am going to school at MICA for graphic design, but this year my love for photography shot back up, so that major is subject to change. To be honest I can’t think of why I started in graphic design, I think I had to take a computer art class to fulfill my degree for graduation, and I found myself liking it, and looking at it night and day, so I figured I’d try and give back a little bit to the world that I was enjoying so much.
12:00 pm • 29 July 2010
Michael Koch is 37 years old and is raising the curtains for his next exhibition in Autumn.
MOSSLESS: The images on your website are decidedly small - especially compared to their real size, printed. What made you decide to present them online this way?
MICHAEL KOCH: Surfing the world wide web is a spiralling thing to do - I just want the website to be kind of a preview to my work. I think the best way to experience art is to go to exhibitions and look at the originals. There are so many details in my work which can not be shown on the screen - like the surface and reflection of the diasecs and the shown materiality, skin, hair or clothes - or even the installation and combination of pictures, furnishing and other things in the room - you have to “get into the mood”. In my work I like to irritate. I am not looking for harmony. This is not possible to be shown on a screen without transforming it into a different artform. Maybe I will find an alternative someday…
ML: In many of your series you set portraits and photographs of nature side by side. Why is this?
MK: I love being in nature where I find a lot of harmony and inspiration. Maybe that is typical german and hopelessly romantic - but experiencing nature in my photographs is also a different theme - the landscape transforms to a stage or a backdrop and becomes something artificial. The combination with the portraits or still lifes is like an associative entanglement just to create certain emotions.
ML: You series I Never Promised You A Rose Garden is especially beautiful. How did you evoke such colours?
MK: I work with an analogue medium-format camera and printing and filtering colour in the laboratory is a a huge part of my working process. At university I learned to filter neutrally but I am more interested in colour faults to support the artificial. When I take pictures I use flash lights or artificial light in combination with natural light in order to get theatrical effects. And of course I choose the colours during the process of staging the details like setting, clothes or make-up.
ML: What’s playing on your iTunes right now?
MK: Kate Bush - Never Forever.
12:00 pm • 27 July 2010
Matthew Gamber is 32 and has digitized nearly 20,000 pages.
MOSSLESS: Did you ever have discussions with that colorblind student you were teaching color theory? It sounds like a really interesting scenario.
MATTHEW GAMBER: This particular student was concerned he would not succeed in the class. As he worked more in the darkroom, he began to identify individual colors as specific types of gray. By the end of the term, he could correct his color prints in terms of value and contrast. Most of us see color as a unified property, whereas he saw color as series of broken elements. He didn’t need to do the class exercises to understand color theory–he was living it.
ML: Please clarify this for me - in This Is (Still) The Golden Age you’re making photograms of what’s on the telly?
MB: The image is a direct transfer of the light radiating from a television’s cathode ray tube. By pressing the paper directly against the glass, you can collect the traces of light that remain when a television is turned off. What remains is an artifact formed by an illusion.
ML: Your series of chalkboards contemplates the idea of blank slates. Since chalkboards are rarely truly clean (as especially can be seen in your photos), what does this mean in terms of our lives?
MG: These slate chalkboards are products of our industrial heritage. These large objects are near the end of their utility, and the photographs are a record of their accumulated use. Paradoxically, a chalkboard can never embody the idea of a “blank slate,” as it inherently symbolizes the intention of the language that is to be written on it. In this sense, an empty chalkboard is forever imaginary. A useful chalkboard has no history; a used chalkboard is history.
ML: What’s the most interesting interview you’ve had on Big RED & Shiny?
MG: The most interesting interview for me was with Ken Feingold, an artist that creates sculptural installations using animatronic, ventriloquist-styled dummies. Some of his sculptures are based on his own likeness, and it was an uncanny experience to sit with him in person. His work is excellent, but this impression made the interview absolutely memorable.
12:00 pm • 25 July 2010
Bob O’Connor is 32 and prefers clouds to sun.
MOSSLESS: Those are some hella nice houses you’ve photographed. Did you always know you were going to be shooting interiors at some point?
BOB O’CONNOR: I never really planned on it, but looking back on things, it was somewhat inevitable. I went to school for architecture and that’s definitely shaped the way I see things. I’d like to be shooting more institutional/industrial interiors (the sort of authorless architecture that people spend a lot of time working/shopping/living in, but don’t really think much about), but I’ve got bills to pay and that sort of stuff isn’t that commercially viable, so fancy houses it is.
ML: Speaking of Hella, how was Iceland?
BO: Iceland was incredible. I can’t say enough good things about it. The landscape varies from rocks/grass/glaciers/waterfalls/hot springs without too much traveling. You can see them all in an hour’s drive. The light is always changing and it’s light out 24 hours a day in the summer. There are horses and sheep wandering everywhere. Everyone should go there at least once. It’s magical.
ML: How different is shooting interiors to shooting landscapes? Are there similarities?
BO: I’m always trying to convey some sense of space/scale in my photographs. So in that sense I treat them similarly, but interiors (residential ones especially) are often as much about the stuff they’ve used to decorate the home and the styling than they are the actual space. I think my color palette carries over between the two genres.
ML: How do you deal with clients? How much preparation do you go through before meeting them?
BO: I try to do as much research as I can. I’m interested in things like who they’ve hired in the past, past budgets, are they jerks to work for, etc. Once a project is assigned I tend to ask a lot of questions. Nobody likes surprises (me or the client) so I want to make sure everybody is on the same page regarding expectations from the start. As the economy has gotten worse clients are less willing to take risks. You pretty much already need to have shot the same thing they need before they’ll hire you. It’s unfortunate. There were some interesting collaborations in the past with a photographer from one genre photographing something outside of that genre - like using a people photographer to photograph architecture, just to have a completely different point of view on things. That doesn’t happen so much anymore. Now there’s a lot of safe/boring work out there that all looks the same. Hopefully clients will start taking chances in favor of more interesting work when/if the economy ever recovers.
12:00 pm • 22 July 2010
