Nathanael Turner is 23 and has eyes that change colors. MOSSLESS: What interests you the most about people?NATHANAEL TURNER: I am often attracted to people by their physical appearances, but then, after that initial crush has worn off, by what makes them different from myself. I just finished the first week of a five week trip through Scandinavia. I am staying with strangers the entire time, which gives me a lot of opportunities to meet interesting people and make lots of portraits. I have been staying with a French guy who moved to Helsinki about 3 years ago. We are completely different people, but after spending a week living together in his one room flat, hanging out naked in saunas and getting drunk together, I think we have formed a comfort level that has made it possible to make intimate portraits together that reflect something of his personality, being, ect. It is these kinds of personal experience that I love most about traveling and making photographs. ML: What keeps you shooting?NT: Sometimes it takes giving yourself five weeks away from work and friends to really concentrate on making new work. I am always shooting, but not always happy with the outcome. The worst thing I can do for myself is to get completely comfortable with my surrounds, where I am living, or where I am working. When that happens I tend to get lazy about making new photographs. I’m really excited about the rest of this year. I don’t have an apartment anywhere, I hardly own anything and I don’t have a job that ties me to a single place. It’s the feeling I get from this kind of freedom that keeps me going. ML: What’s the most heinous thing you’ve ever seen?NT: Hmm, The word heinous makes me think of something that is intentionally grotesque. I spent three weeks in Uganda when I was a freshman in college. I saw some pretty disturbing things while I was there, but heinous? Well, just this week I watched an extremely intoxicated young man try and pick up a girl at this bar in Helsinki. There was a punk show going on so he was yelling in her ear. I’m not sure if she could hear anything. While he was yelling at her, his beer slipped out of his hand and shattered on the edge of the table. Beer and glass flew all over the girl. She looked like she wanted to cry. He just brushed off some of the glass that was on her lap and continued to yell at her. I’m not sure why she didn’t punch him in the balls. After another 10 minutes of drunk blabbering he left her and came to sit by me. As he very slowly sat his drunk ass next to me, I gently pushed him as far down the bench as I could. I thought he might try and break his next beer on my lap. ML: Since this is something you’re very capable of: how do you think a photographer can project real sincerity into their work?NT: I’m glad you see some sincerity somewhere in my work. I want my photographs to reflect at least a hint of what I remember a person or a place being like. I’m not sure that reaching this works the same way for everyone. I try to not be too hasty about making a photograph of someone, but sometimes this comes back to bite in the end though. I think it has a lot to do with building some level of trust. This is where it takes time. For example, I knew Larson for two years before I made a photograph of him that I felt was “real”. But, its not like I wasn’t trying those first two years. All of a sudden, something happened, and we began to trust each other. It doesn’t always take that long, but for me, its not worth it if I don’t have a certain level of intimacy with the people I work with. Its hard to fake genuine effort and respect. 

Nathanael Turner is 23 and has eyes that change colors. 

MOSSLESS: What interests you the most about people?
NATHANAEL TURNER: I am often attracted to people by their physical appearances, but then, after that initial crush has worn off, by what makes them different from myself. I just finished the first week of a five week trip through Scandinavia. I am staying with strangers the entire time, which gives me a lot of opportunities to meet interesting people and make lots of portraits. I have been staying with a French guy who moved to Helsinki about 3 years ago. We are completely different people, but after spending a week living together in his one room flat, hanging out naked in saunas and getting drunk together, I think we have formed a comfort level that has made it possible to make intimate portraits together that reflect something of his personality, being, ect. It is these kinds of personal experience that I love most about traveling and making photographs. 

ML: What keeps you shooting?
NT: Sometimes it takes giving yourself five weeks away from work and friends to really concentrate on making new work. I am always shooting, but not always happy with the outcome. The worst thing I can do for myself is to get completely comfortable with my surrounds, where I am living, or where I am working. When that happens I tend to get lazy about making new photographs. I’m really excited about the rest of this year. I don’t have an apartment anywhere, I hardly own anything and I don’t have a job that ties me to a single place. It’s the feeling I get from this kind of freedom that keeps me going. 

ML: What’s the most heinous thing you’ve ever seen?
NT: Hmm, The word heinous makes me think of something that is intentionally grotesque. I spent three weeks in Uganda when I was a freshman in college. I saw some pretty disturbing things while I was there, but heinous? Well, just this week I watched an extremely intoxicated young man try and pick up a girl at this bar in Helsinki. There was a punk show going on so he was yelling in her ear. I’m not sure if she could hear anything. While he was yelling at her, his beer slipped out of his hand and shattered on the edge of the table. Beer and glass flew all over the girl. She looked like she wanted to cry. He just brushed off some of the glass that was on her lap and continued to yell at her. I’m not sure why she didn’t punch him in the balls. After another 10 minutes of drunk blabbering he left her and came to sit by me. As he very slowly sat his drunk ass next to me, I gently pushed him as far down the bench as I could. I thought he might try and break his next beer on my lap. 

ML: Since this is something you’re very capable of: how do you think a photographer can project real sincerity into their work?
NT: I’m glad you see some sincerity somewhere in my work. I want my photographs to reflect at least a hint of what I remember a person or a place being like. I’m not sure that reaching this works the same way for everyone. I try to not be too hasty about making a photograph of someone, but sometimes this comes back to bite in the end though. I think it has a lot to do with building some level of trust. This is where it takes time. For example, I knew Larson for two years before I made a photograph of him that I felt was “real”. But, its not like I wasn’t trying those first two years. All of a sudden, something happened, and we began to trust each other. It doesn’t always take that long, but for me, its not worth it if I don’t have a certain level of intimacy with the people I work with. Its hard to fake genuine effort and respect. 





Grégoire Grange is 37 years old and lives and works in Bordeaux, France.MOSSLESS: Tell me about how you grew up.GRÉGOIRE GRANGE: I grew up with my twin in a middle class French family. My father was a photographer and my mother an industrial drawer. I had my first camera round 5 or 7 years old. A Fex Indo imperia 127 and always shot pictures ever since. The second camera I had was Canon Ae1 Program, and I still shoot my pictures with this type of camera.ML: You’re often very far from what you take pictures of. Why is this?GG: Well these are generally persons or things that stop my walk and draw my attention for any reason. I then shoot that spot. I like the picturesque aspect given to those kind of framing, that make things quiet and still.ML: What’s your favourite kind of film?GG: I would say the French Nouvelle Vague, Godard and Truffaut but also Jacques Tati.ML: What’s the best thing that happened to you this month?GG: Taking a 15 day vacation in New York.

Grégoire Grange is 37 years old and lives and works in Bordeaux, France.

MOSSLESS: Tell me about how you grew up.
GRÉGOIRE GRANGE: I grew up with my twin in a middle class French family. My father was a photographer and my mother an industrial drawer. I had my first camera round 5 or 7 years old. A Fex Indo imperia 127 and always shot pictures ever since. The second camera I had was Canon Ae1 Program, and I still shoot my pictures with this type of camera.

ML: You’re often very far from what you take pictures of. Why is this?
GG: Well these are generally persons or things that stop my walk and draw my attention for any reason. I then shoot that spot. I like the picturesque aspect given to those kind of framing, that make things quiet and still.

ML: What’s your favourite kind of film?
GG: I would say the French Nouvelle Vague, Godard and Truffaut but also Jacques Tati.

ML: What’s the best thing that happened to you this month?
GG: Taking a 15 day vacation in New York.





Caroll Taveras is ageless and is a native New Yorker.MOSSLESS: A few years back you ran a temporary old-school portrait studio. What started the idea?CAROLL TAVERAS: It was an idea that had been brewing in my head for years. Inspired by the portraits of Peruvian photographer Martin Chambi, who had a portrait studio in Cuzco from 1920 through the 1940s. In January 2009 I was offered a storefront in downtown Brooklyn by Art Assets, which I had about 2 weeks to set up. This dream of mine to have a store front ‘photo studio’ was now suppose to come together within a couple of weeks. It was pretty crazy, but also amazing being able to pull it off that quickly.ML: How has it grown since then?CT: It’s actually been a slow process since then. It had originally been scheduled to travel to Berlin after Brooklyn but the funding fell through since it was right in the middle of the whole financial bust. Last month I set up the studio at our gallery in Chelsea for a little over a week. That was great, but different from the studio in Brooklyn. I have a few surprises in store for this summer so stay tune to it coming around again.ML: What are your favorite type of people to photograph?CT: I love photographing teenagers. There’s something really beautiful in the way they carry themselves. A sort of sensual awkwardness and curiosity.ML: You founded F.L.O.A.T. Gallery together with Meagan Ziegler-Haynes. What is a pop-up gallery and what’s the best thing about running one? CT: Well, we don’t really like the term pop-up gallery. We never really saw ourselves that way. When we initially opened F.L.O.A.T in Brooklyn about 7 months ago we were originally going to be in the space 6 months to a year. It was a donated space, but the property was sold so we began looking for another location. It wasn’t our intention of having a ‘floating’ gallery. It just happened, really.

Caroll Taveras is ageless and is a native New Yorker.

MOSSLESS: A few years back you ran a temporary old-school portrait studio. What started the idea?
CAROLL TAVERAS: It was an idea that had been brewing in my head for years. Inspired by the portraits of Peruvian photographer Martin Chambi, who had a portrait studio in Cuzco from 1920 through the 1940s. In January 2009 I was offered a storefront in downtown Brooklyn by Art Assets, which I had about 2 weeks to set up. This dream of mine to have a store front ‘photo studio’ was now suppose to come together within a couple of weeks. It was pretty crazy, but also amazing being able to pull it off that quickly.

ML: How has it grown since then?
CT: It’s actually been a slow process since then. It had originally been scheduled to travel to Berlin after Brooklyn but the funding fell through since it was right in the middle of the whole financial bust. Last month I set up the studio at our gallery in Chelsea for a little over a week. That was great, but different from the studio in Brooklyn. I have a few surprises in store for this summer so stay tune to it coming around again.

ML: What are your favorite type of people to photograph?
CT: I love photographing teenagers. There’s something really beautiful in the way they carry themselves. A sort of sensual awkwardness and curiosity.

ML: You founded F.L.O.A.T. Gallery together with Meagan Ziegler-Haynes. What is a pop-up gallery and what’s the best thing about running one? 
CT: Well, we don’t really like the term pop-up gallery. We never really saw ourselves that way. When we initially opened F.L.O.A.T in Brooklyn about 7 months ago we were originally going to be in the space 6 months to a year. It was a donated space, but the property was sold so we began looking for another location. It wasn’t our intention of having a ‘floating’ gallery. It just happened, really.





MOSSLESS: How long does it take to make these?CORINNE VIONNET: I have worked on the series “Photo Opportunities” since 2005. It took me around one week to create each image. I didn’t work in a systematic way but instead used the photos as a pallet to achieve an impressionistic image. ML: How do you feel about these tourist traps? Are you embracing them or is this a critique?CV: It’s not a critique, but rather a question. I’m unable really to translate my emotions and feeling in words, I share and reveal them through my images. Images have always been important to me. They surround me and nourish me.  Using collected vernacular photographs of famous sites, “Photo Opportunities” tries to conjure up questions about our collective memory. Through this personal interpretation, it also shows my own visual culture. ML: What do you think of Idris Khan’s work? How is your work different?CV: Of course, when talking about the technique of superimposing images these two works could be compared, but then so can many other works using the same kind of technique, such as Mike Mike’s work with Face of Tomorrow. Each of these works speaks about very different subjects and expresses something different. Also, the technique (camera, software, etc) is only a tool that enables me to translate and share some thoughts on a subject, questions that I have, or part of a landscape I’ve seen or emotion I had.  ML: I also love your Museum On Hold work. I always wanted to see what was behind these curtains and makeshift walls when I was at museums. Actually, I still do. Did you too when you were younger? Do you still feel that way after shooting this project? CV: Before I started this work I had many opportunities to see these “in between exhibition” moments. I was curious to see “behind the curtains”; everything changes fast. A person removes the letters pasted on the middle of a wall, another is already painting the beginning of it.  But there is a special moment when the art works are away from their supports or when a room is empty. It made me wonder about the legitimation of art through museums, but also the importance of the building itself, as today the museums are visited for their architecture as well as their artwork. 

MOSSLESS: How long does it take to make these?
CORINNE VIONNET: I have worked on the series “Photo Opportunities” since 2005. It took me around one week to create each image. I didn’t work in a systematic way but instead used the photos as a pallet to achieve an impressionistic image. 

ML: How do you feel about these tourist traps? Are you embracing them or is this a critique?
CV: It’s not a critique, but rather a question. I’m unable really to translate my emotions and feeling in words, I share and reveal them through my images. Images have always been important to me. They surround me and nourish me. 

Using collected vernacular photographs of famous sites, “Photo Opportunities” tries to conjure up questions about our collective memory. Through this personal interpretation, it also shows my own visual culture. 

ML: What do you think of Idris Khan’s work? How is your work different?
CV: Of course, when talking about the technique of superimposing images these two works could be compared, but then so can many other works using the same kind of technique, such as Mike Mike’s work with Face of Tomorrow. Each of these works speaks about very different subjects and expresses something different.

Also, the technique (camera, software, etc) is only a tool that enables me to translate and share some thoughts on a subject, questions that I have, or part of a landscape I’ve seen or emotion I had. 

ML: I also love your Museum On Hold work. I always wanted to see what was behind these curtains and makeshift walls when I was at museums. Actually, I still do. Did you too when you were younger? Do you still feel that way after shooting this project? 
CV: Before I started this work I had many opportunities to see these “in between exhibition” moments. I was curious to see “behind the curtains”; everything changes fast. A person removes the letters pasted on the middle of a wall, another is already painting the beginning of it. 

But there is a special moment when the art works are away from their supports or when a room is empty. It made me wonder about the legitimation of art through museums, but also the importance of the building itself, as today the museums are visited for their architecture as well as their artwork. 





Avery McCarthy is 24, received his BFA in photography from The School of Visual Arts in 2008 and makes work about the ways that people explain the world around them.MOSSLESS: I’m interested in your series Theory of Everything. How did you take these pictures?AVERY McCARTHY: The Theory of Everything is a unique project. It was created just as I was leaving school, and I had spent the vast majority of my time there working with analog darkroom processes. Until that year I had been a complete purist, rejecting the digital method entirely. Recently, I had given in and printed my color film digitally and it became clear at that point that digital was not only able to compete with analog work in terms of quality, but also had become the absolute standard for all things photographic. Many of the criticisms leveled at digital work became fuel for this and later projects: “Taking thousands of pictures is very different than taking one very slowly.”, “There are so many options, it overwhelms and the work just ends up colorful and pretty.”, and mostly, “There is no life or character to digital prints.”One day I began looking through my archive of images that I capture off of Google, I pulled out some of the more symbolic ones that looked like they could have been sculptures. I had been reading a book called “The Elegant Universe” by Brain Greene about string theory, and so the idea of large and small objects being equivalent was floating around my head at the time. The whole portfolio came together in one moment, with one idea, which was that I could work this project in reverse: I could make traditional silver gelatin prints from these digitally appropriated images. The approach borrowed from the best of both worlds, a limitless and incredibly malleable source of content, and a printing process that imbued the works with the nostalgia and gravity of traditionally created photographs. I set about isolating the images, creating digital negatives on transparency paper, and then printing them. It was the last project I produced in the darkroom, and kind of ended up marking the transition to working digitally for me. ML: What can you tell me about the picture Dark Matter in that series and why did you portray it like you did?AM: Each image in The Theory of Everything is presented as an equally sized object in a black void, except for Dark Matter. In my reading and research that led to the project, dark matter seemed to be particularly interesting because no one can see it, we don’t know what it’s made of, it is only evidenced by it’s gravitational effects, and yet it makes up about 80% of our universe. That’s an overwhelming number. When I began researching what it looked like, or how it was distributed, I started finding images that looked like spiderwebs made of electricity. I thought they were incredibly beautiful to say the least, so I capped them. When I was going through my images to pull potential works for The Theory of Everything, those images stood out as a potentially profound statement to add into the mix. Here was this concept, proven and visualized through purely mathematic means, that makes up almost everything in existence. That just blew my mind. It deserved to be in there, and the idea of having it be the only piece that stretched edge to edge seemed appropriate.ML: Your series X=? feels quite personal. How does this work tie in to your personal beliefs?AM: X=? is quite personal, it is my answer to the question “How do people explain, understand, and control the world around them?” I have been thinking for a long time about what I have to say as an artist, because I constantly feel that I dont have enough information on any subject to make an informed artistic statement. The more I look around, the more I’ve come to feel that no one has enough information—people piece together conclusions, link together observations, and trust systems that are already in place in order to assist with the extraordinarily difficult task of navigating through the thing we all call life.The ‘What Is?’ Project is a series of interviews I conducted that ask people for their answers to life’s biggest questions. What is love? What is happiness? What is your goal? What is time? I have spend hours and hours interviewing and reviewing answers to these questions in an attempt to create some sort of index of opinion on them. During that process, I began pulling photographs that explored my answers to these questions as a sort of personal answer to these largest of questions of life. It seemed a natural progression: observe the biggest, smallest, most epic things in existence; ask people to explain their feelings on the biggest, smallest, most epic questions; then explore the implications of those findings in photographs. What I ended up with was a group of images that were shot over the course of the past year and a half that are about exploration and the search for understanding. Religion, science, art, math, philosophy, and business are all manifestations of the same desire: to explore, understand, and control the world around us. This body of work observes the beauty in all of those equally valid approaches. ML: How did you get so interested in the universe at large?AM: I used to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation every day growing up, and it made a huge impact on how I perceive the world, and how I conduct myself in it. The show presents a future in which humanity has come together and used our intelligence and resources to eliminate poverty and now seeks to better our understanding of the universe. The characters use technology as a means to understand and explore, but what is truly important is personal integrity. This gave me a sense of purpose and a respect for the power approaching life as an explorer. As I got older, I became more interested in science and art as ways to explain what I saw around me, this lead more or less directly to the work that I am producing today. 

Avery McCarthy is 24, received his BFA in photography from The School of Visual Arts in 2008 and makes work about the ways that people explain the world around them.

MOSSLESS: I’m interested in your series Theory of Everything. How did you take these pictures?
AVERY McCARTHY: The Theory of Everything is a unique project. It was created just as I was leaving school, and I had spent the vast majority of my time there working with analog darkroom processes. Until that year I had been a complete purist, rejecting the digital method entirely. Recently, I had given in and printed my color film digitally and it became clear at that point that digital was not only able to compete with analog work in terms of quality, but also had become the absolute standard for all things photographic. Many of the criticisms leveled at digital work became fuel for this and later projects: “Taking thousands of pictures is very different than taking one very slowly.”, “There are so many options, it overwhelms and the work just ends up colorful and pretty.”, and mostly, “There is no life or character to digital prints.”

One day I began looking through my archive of images that I capture off of Google, I pulled out some of the more symbolic ones that looked like they could have been sculptures. I had been reading a book called “The Elegant Universe” by Brain Greene about string theory, and so the idea of large and small objects being equivalent was floating around my head at the time. The whole portfolio came together in one moment, with one idea, which was that I could work this project in reverse: I could make traditional silver gelatin prints from these digitally appropriated images. The approach borrowed from the best of both worlds, a limitless and incredibly malleable source of content, and a printing process that imbued the works with the nostalgia and gravity of traditionally created photographs. 

I set about isolating the images, creating digital negatives on transparency paper, and then printing them. It was the last project I produced in the darkroom, and kind of ended up marking the transition to working digitally for me. 

ML: What can you tell me about the picture Dark Matter in that series and why did you portray it like you did?
AM: Each image in The Theory of Everything is presented as an equally sized object in a black void, except for Dark Matter. In my reading and research that led to the project, dark matter seemed to be particularly interesting because no one can see it, we don’t know what it’s made of, it is only evidenced by it’s gravitational effects, and yet it makes up about 80% of our universe. That’s an overwhelming number. When I began researching what it looked like, or how it was distributed, I started finding images that looked like spiderwebs made of electricity. I thought they were incredibly beautiful to say the least, so I capped them. When I was going through my images to pull potential works for The Theory of Everything, those images stood out as a potentially profound statement to add into the mix. Here was this concept, proven and visualized through purely mathematic means, that makes up almost everything in existence. That just blew my mind. It deserved to be in there, and the idea of having it be the only piece that stretched edge to edge seemed appropriate.

ML: Your series X=? feels quite personal. How does this work tie in to your personal beliefs?
AM: X=? is quite personal, it is my answer to the question “How do people explain, understand, and control the world around them?” 
I have been thinking for a long time about what I have to say as an artist, because I constantly feel that I dont have enough information on any subject to make an informed artistic statement. The more I look around, the more I’ve come to feel that no one has enough information—people piece together conclusions, link together observations, and trust systems that are already in place in order to assist with the extraordinarily difficult task of navigating through the thing we all call life.

The ‘What Is?’ Project is a series of interviews I conducted that ask people for their answers to life’s biggest questions. What is love? What is happiness? What is your goal? What is time? I have spend hours and hours interviewing and reviewing answers to these questions in an attempt to create some sort of index of opinion on them. During that process, I began pulling photographs that explored my answers to these questions as a sort of personal answer to these largest of questions of life. It seemed a natural progression: observe the biggest, smallest, most epic things in existence; ask people to explain their feelings on the biggest, smallest, most epic questions; then explore the implications of those findings in photographs. 

What I ended up with was a group of images that were shot over the course of the past year and a half that are about exploration and the search for understanding. Religion, science, art, math, philosophy, and business are all manifestations of the same desire: to explore, understand, and control the world around us. This body of work observes the beauty in all of those equally valid approaches. 

ML: How did you get so interested in the universe at large?
AM: I used to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation every day growing up, and it made a huge impact on how I perceive the world, and how I conduct myself in it. The show presents a future in which humanity has come together and used our intelligence and resources to eliminate poverty and now seeks to better our understanding of the universe. The characters use technology as a means to understand and explore, but what is truly important is personal integrity. This gave me a sense of purpose and a respect for the power approaching life as an explorer. As I got older, I became more interested in science and art as ways to explain what I saw around me, this lead more or less directly to the work that I am producing today. 





Megan Carney is 23 years old and lives in a place where it hasn’t rained in 7 months. MOSSLESS: Tell me something about the memories represented in your body of work called Relatives.MEGAN CARNEY: The memories set the stage and context for what is being physically represented.  These are memories that are significant to me in their insignificance, in that they relate primarily to something that only I could deem valuable given their peculiarity.  For example, there is an image of two towers of Kleenex boxes, (the photographs are currently untitled so bear with me).  On these boxes is a Post-it note with a written tally.  This scene, briefly put, represents the strange excitement I felt as a child when placed with the obligation to provide my class with tissues for the school year.  These types of somewhat intangible memories are interesting to me in the form of photographs because they can be objectified through both the photographic medium and my personal and aesthetic imprint.  The images then serve as a physical interpretation of something that is not inherently physical.  This is an ongoing project and I’m still digging around a bit to give a concrete expression to the process I find myself involved in.  ML: How are you tackling the ever-increasing difficulties of trying to live as a photographer?MC: Right now I’m just figuring out what it is that I want to do with photography.  Since graduating from college my main focus has been my work and I couldn’t say that I’ve been thinking too much about the difficulties of trying to live as a photographer.  Those difficulties seem inevitable and I will have to get back to you once I encounter them.ML: What are some great things about the photography world in Texas?MC: There is a lot of great photography coming out of Texas right now and I’ve been fortunate enough to have professors who are at the forefront of it, and also a community of encouraging friends who are creating interesting work.  After I graduated I moved to a small town in West Texas to focus on my work and I look forward to entering the broader photography world in Texas in the future.  I love this state and I couldn’t really imagine working anywhere else right now. ML: Do you have any interesting upcoming projects?MC: Yes! In addition to working on Relatives, I am currently shooting for a series titled Is This You?  This series is similar to Relatives aesthetically and conceptually, however, it is more outwardly focused.  The images are humorous and the subjects are primarily people - both areas that I am fairly new to in this format.  These photographs will slowly find their way onto my website.

Megan Carney is 23 years old and lives in a place where it hasn’t rained in 7 months. 

MOSSLESS: Tell me something about the memories represented in your body of work called Relatives.
MEGAN CARNEY: The memories set the stage and context for what is being physically represented.  These are memories that are significant to me in their insignificance, in that they relate primarily to something that only I could deem valuable given their peculiarity.  For example, there is an image of two towers of Kleenex boxes, (the photographs are currently untitled so bear with me).  On these boxes is a Post-it note with a written tally.  This scene, briefly put, represents the strange excitement I felt as a child when placed with the obligation to provide my class with tissues for the school year.  These types of somewhat intangible memories are interesting to me in the form of photographs because they can be objectified through both the photographic medium and my personal and aesthetic imprint.  The images then serve as a physical interpretation of something that is not inherently physical.  This is an ongoing project and I’m still digging around a bit to give a concrete expression to the process I find myself involved in. 

ML: How are you tackling the ever-increasing difficulties of trying to live as a photographer?
MC: Right now I’m just figuring out what it is that I want to do with photography.  Since graduating from college my main focus has been my work and I couldn’t say that I’ve been thinking too much about the difficulties of trying to live as a photographer.  Those difficulties seem inevitable and I will have to get back to you once I encounter them.

ML: What are some great things about the photography world in Texas?
MC: There is a lot of great photography coming out of Texas right now and I’ve been fortunate enough to have professors who are at the forefront of it, and also a community of encouraging friends who are creating interesting work.  After I graduated I moved to a small town in West Texas to focus on my work and I look forward to entering the broader photography world in Texas in the future.  I love this state and I couldn’t really imagine working anywhere else right now. 

ML: Do you have any interesting upcoming projects?
MC: Yes! In addition to working on Relatives, I am currently shooting for a series titled Is This You?  This series is similar to Relatives aesthetically and conceptually, however, it is more outwardly focused.  The images are humorous and the subjects are primarily people - both areas that I am fairly new to in this format.  These photographs will slowly find their way onto my website.





Bryan Krueger is 22 years old and notices eerie parallels between himself and Michael Scott from The Office.MOSSLESS: How was your experience with your mentor, Kathy Ryan?BRYAN KRUEGER: It’s really funny to think about how one transitions from thinking about an idea as an object into experiencing it and, in turn, making it part of their reality.  When I first digested the fact that I had been given the opportunity to work with Kathy Ryan I wasn’t sure how I could assimilate that into normality.  I let that get to my head. When I visited the New York Times building for the first time, it felt like I was in some surreal 80’s movie montage where some college student couldn’t quite find their bearings in the fancy corporate building – I went to the wrong front desk, I dropped my portfolio, I couldn’t figure out the elevators (hint: the buttons are on the outside). But once I got to the right floor Ms. Ryan welcomed me warmly and gave some of the most direct critique I’ve had – all with a personable and encouraging touch.  Her approach reminds me a lot of Penelope Umbrico’s, who teaches at SVA. I can credit my thesis advisor, Barbara Pollack, with breaking me out of my comfort zone and forcing me into work that meant more to me than ever before, while I credit Kathy with focusing my divergent rampages (caused by excitement) within that first 20-minute meeting.  I was pleased to find her consistent enthusiasm and support throughout the subsequent meetings we held.ML: Can you tell me something about your work and how you exhibited it? (click here to see how Bryan exhibited his work)BK: Gladly – I guess I can start by saying that the work tends to tiptoe on the line between illusion and disillusion. The subjects of the photographs I’ve been making are either directly mitigated through digital interventions or are repeated through drawing.  In either case, I am interested in harkening in the viewer the act of looking at this flat thing that has the immense power to embower the viewer in a displacing illusion. I like the idea of enacting the viewer’s gaze in the completion of a composition that has missing parts. I became really interested in this idea of projecting personal counterparts onto a photograph during my time working at a photo lab in San Francisco. Mounting slides and trimming prints increasingly made me feel disillusioned from the actual content of imagery by the sheer amount I was ingesting that I began placing myself, the people I know and the places I’ve been into the pictures.  Suddenly, someone’s 2-month African safari turned into a Krueger family reunion in Phoenix, Arizona. I like to think about photographs as having this flexibility and believe they do by themselves – as demonstrated above and, of course, in those found in mass culture – but I am interested in pushing this a step further in my own practice in order to highlight that flexibility. For the Mentor show, I approached the presentation of the photographs just as I approached the making of the photographs themselves.  Given the way I want to engage the viewer’s attention while looking at the images, it seemed almost antithetical to fix the prints in frames – the frame seems so final in relation to this work. Despite the several layers of mediation the photographs themselves present, the frame would impose a finality that, in my mind, would be reductive to my efforts in making the viewer a part of the photograph’s reading. By pinning them as loose prints to the sheet of wood that mimics a wall, I hoped to freely expose the prints to each other (since they vibe off one another) as well as to the viewer.  The leaning of the wood wasn’t so much an afterthought as it was introduced by the fact that I bought wood that might have been a little too heavy to adhere to the wall with only four nails. I do feel, however, that my over confidence serendipitously added a nice layer to the presentation.  The leaning wood fully breaks away from the wall – a break that, in my mind, echoes the way in which the images break the passive gaze onto the images themselves.  This idea of breaking the gaze is pushed further by the fact that the prints are well below the conventional “viewing height”.  In a show with so much to look at, I like the idea of the prints being on the verge of escaping view yet retaining their own private presence. The small grey prints, which hang just above the sheet of wood, represent the early stages of the trajectory into the color photographs pinned to the wood.  What separates them is the way in which they were made (via Risograph printer) and the fact they are purely about stripping away information, whereas the color prints are about building up information and subverting it – both methods, however, are meant to engage the viewer similarly.ML: What has your most memorable moment been at SVA?BK: Having my first meeting with Stephen Frailey and noticing the color of his office walls compliment his eyes very nicely.ML: What are you going to be doing this summer and onwards?BK: That’s the question, isn’t it! It’s probably that question alone that fosters productivity after graduation due to the neurosis it instills…or not. In all seriousness, I’m planning on staying here in New York for as long as I have productive things to do. I somehow weaseled my way into working with a former teacher of mine from SVA – which has proven to be a dream set-up. If I don’t bug her too much, I’ll hopefully help her out well into the summer, perhaps onwards. Other than that I’ll be working on things in the fall with LMAKprojects, a great gallery located in the Lower East Side.  Eventually I’m looking to go back to Graduate school – but have not thought about those specifics too deeply yet… In any case, you can find me soaking up the California sun for the month of August.  I’ll be there for a party that my parents are having – in a strange way it is associated with my graduating but has more to do with mini burritos and margaritas.

Bryan Krueger is 22 years old and notices eerie parallels between himself and Michael Scott from The Office.

MOSSLESS: How was your experience with your mentor, Kathy Ryan?
BRYAN KRUEGER: It’s really funny to think about how one transitions from thinking about an idea as an object into experiencing it and, in turn, making it part of their reality.  When I first digested the fact that I had been given the opportunity to work with Kathy Ryan I wasn’t sure how I could assimilate that into normality.  I let that get to my head. When I visited the New York Times building for the first time, it felt like I was in some surreal 80’s movie montage where some college student couldn’t quite find their bearings in the fancy corporate building – I went to the wrong front desk, I dropped my portfolio, I couldn’t figure out the elevators (hint: the buttons are on the outside). But once I got to the right floor Ms. Ryan welcomed me warmly and gave some of the most direct critique I’ve had – all with a personable and encouraging touch.  Her approach reminds me a lot of Penelope Umbrico’s, who teaches at SVA. I can credit my thesis advisor, Barbara Pollack, with breaking me out of my comfort zone and forcing me into work that meant more to me than ever before, while I credit Kathy with focusing my divergent rampages (caused by excitement) within that first 20-minute meeting.  I was pleased to find her consistent enthusiasm and support throughout the subsequent meetings we held.

ML: Can you tell me something about your work and how you exhibited it? (click here to see how Bryan exhibited his work)
BK: Gladly – I guess I can start by saying that the work tends to tiptoe on the line between illusion and disillusion. The subjects of the photographs I’ve been making are either directly mitigated through digital interventions or are repeated through drawing.  In either case, I am interested in harkening in the viewer the act of looking at this flat thing that has the immense power to embower the viewer in a displacing illusion. I like the idea of enacting the viewer’s gaze in the completion of a composition that has missing parts. I became really interested in this idea of projecting personal counterparts onto a photograph during my time working at a photo lab in San Francisco. Mounting slides and trimming prints increasingly made me feel disillusioned from the actual content of imagery by the sheer amount I was ingesting that I began placing myself, the people I know and the places I’ve been into the pictures.  Suddenly, someone’s 2-month African safari turned into a Krueger family reunion in Phoenix, Arizona. I like to think about photographs as having this flexibility and believe they do by themselves – as demonstrated above and, of course, in those found in mass culture – but I am interested in pushing this a step further in my own practice in order to highlight that flexibility.

For the Mentor show, I approached the presentation of the photographs just as I approached the making of the photographs themselves.  Given the way I want to engage the viewer’s attention while looking at the images, it seemed almost antithetical to fix the prints in frames – the frame seems so final in relation to this work. Despite the several layers of mediation the photographs themselves present, the frame would impose a finality that, in my mind, would be reductive to my efforts in making the viewer a part of the photograph’s reading. By pinning them as loose prints to the sheet of wood that mimics a wall, I hoped to freely expose the prints to each other (since they vibe off one another) as well as to the viewer. 

The leaning of the wood wasn’t so much an afterthought as it was introduced by the fact that I bought wood that might have been a little too heavy to adhere to the wall with only four nails. I do feel, however, that my over confidence serendipitously added a nice layer to the presentation.  The leaning wood fully breaks away from the wall – a break that, in my mind, echoes the way in which the images break the passive gaze onto the images themselves.  This idea of breaking the gaze is pushed further by the fact that the prints are well below the conventional “viewing height”.  In a show with so much to look at, I like the idea of the prints being on the verge of escaping view yet retaining their own private presence.

The small grey prints, which hang just above the sheet of wood, represent the early stages of the trajectory into the color photographs pinned to the wood.  What separates them is the way in which they were made (via Risograph printer) and the fact they are purely about stripping away information, whereas the color prints are about building up information and subverting it – both methods, however, are meant to engage the viewer similarly.

ML: What has your most memorable moment been at SVA?
BK: Having my first meeting with Stephen Frailey and noticing the color of his office walls compliment his eyes very nicely.

ML: What are you going to be doing this summer and onwards?
BK: That’s the question, isn’t it! It’s probably that question alone that fosters productivity after graduation due to the neurosis it instills…or not. In all seriousness, I’m planning on staying here in New York for as long as I have productive things to do. I somehow weaseled my way into working with a former teacher of mine from SVA – which has proven to be a dream set-up. If I don’t bug her too much, I’ll hopefully help her out well into the summer, perhaps onwards. Other than that I’ll be working on things in the fall with LMAKprojects, a great gallery located in the Lower East Side.  Eventually I’m looking to go back to Graduate school – but have not thought about those specifics too deeply yet…

In any case, you can find me soaking up the California sun for the month of August.  I’ll be there for a party that my parents are having – in a strange way it is associated with my graduating but has more to do with mini burritos and margaritas.