Matt Tammaro is 22 and wishes for warm swimming weather more often.

MOSSLESS: Which photographers inspire you to shoot?
MATT TAMMARO: I go through lots of different moods when looking for inspiration. Right now I’m really into painting, just for its diversity and different execution. You can do so many different things in painting, which I think gives birth to a lot of creativity. Some that I really like are Turner, Eric Fischl, Matisse, Lucien Freud, Rothko, and I’ve been looking at a lot of Medieval art recently too. As for photographers, Bill Henson is definitely a favorite. There’s something very emotive about his scenes. There are so many more, but it’s hard to pin down any specific people because, one, I’m horrible at remembering names, and, two, I find that I tend to be very sporadic and mostly look at parts of a piece rather than the whole, like the color, or mood, motifs, etc. In general, inspiration comes more fragmented: one small idea, leading to another…

ML: What does your series Liminality focus on?
MT: There were two sorts of ideas behind my series: the first was to create a series that tries to make images that are recognizable more innately. I tried to create portraits that would be understood in a more emotional level, rather than needing to be read in a literal way. The second idea was solving how to do this. I needed some theme and motif to capture what I wanted. A liminal state of being is to be in limbo — in essence it is the state of being in between two different places, whether existential, physical, psychological, and so on. Since it’s essentially a very psychological idea I thought it well suited for my initial goal. Also these pictures came very naturally to me…I think it’s a very common state of being for many people my age to be in.

ML: What attracts you to a work or piece?
MT: I think my favorite pieces are the ones that achieve some innate visual understanding—they just “hit” you, and at the best of times it’s too raw of a feeling to explain in words. Rothko does this so well with colors, and music can maybe do this even better. Also a lot of the other things that interest me are nostalgic photographs, color palettes, and sexual images.

ML: When did you discover that photography is what you wanted to do?
MT: I attended a highschool for the arts, and being in the visual arts program, photography was one of our classes. It really exited me making photographs, but I decided to go to university for painting. I hated that, so I switched schools and went into photography.