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.