Film Verte: Artists Vs. Photographers

When I make my photographs in the darkroom, my environment is important. First of all the darkroom is very cold, quiet, spooky, and obviously dark. I only like to make prints in the darkroom starting very late at night because usually no one else is in there and I like privacy when creating any type of art, whether being music or photographs. Being in the darkroom is like being in a cave completely cut-off from the rest of society. You cannot use your phone or anything with light because it will ruin the chemicals and any exposed photography paper. The only way to get an idea of what time it is is by looking at the clock on the wall, which happens to be broken. When I was in a film photography class I would come to the darkroom at around 11 pm, stay until 9 30 am, and then go straight to photo class down the hallway. This wasn’t necessarily on purpose, but when you’re completely focused and in the zone in a dark room with no windows and no working clock, you really lose sense of time.

Siblings

I have to listen to music when I make prints. Music distracts me from the spookiness of the darkroom and keeps me focused on my photographs. I like to start off with either Creedence Clearwater Revival or The Allman Brothers Band because I can listen to their albums straight through. Since making prints takes a lot of concentration and memorization the last thing I want is to get distracted by a bad song and have to choose a new one. I am very indecisive and suffer from attention deficit disorder especially when it comes to music. If I’m not hyper focusing on making prints then my photographs come out looking terrible.

Wonder What She's Thinking....

My environment for taking photographs is a lot different than my environment for making prints. I only like taking photographs outdoors because I appreciate capturing things in their natural environments. I love taking pictures of people. Capturing stories and emotions in my photos is my main goal. I think if you can tell a person’s personality and their emotions by looking at a photograph then the photographer did his job. I’d like to be a documentary photographer or a photojournalist, so I like to go to obscure places to investigate interesting people and environments to photograph. One of my favorite places to photographs was the third ward. There were always groups of people sitting on stoops, drinking beer, smoking blunts, just living their lives. Their surroundings were nothing to be desired – lots of blight, broken windows, and ripped couches used as outdoor furniture. I was very intimidated the first time I went. After bonding with some of the guys, they let me take their pictures. My photographs show these guys looking soft and almost endearing in contrast to their extremely tough surrounding environment. Unfortunately, I was stopped and yelled at by cops for hanging out in that neighborhood. They told me a four year old girl was shot dead sometime that week and I was a fool for thinking I was safe. Even though I was getting great pictures, I decided it was probably in my best interest to switch environments. I love talking to and taking photographs of French Quarter street performers when they aren’t performing. This interest of mine started when a gold robot told me he would travel an hour each day to perform downtown, and leave with usually only $20. He actually made me buy him a 24 oz. beer before he agreed to chat with me. I loved how his costume didn’t affect his attitude in the slightest. He was smoking cigarettes, drinking tall boys and cursing up a storm. I’d think a guy who pretends to be a robot for a living would have more of an adolescent charm to him. I love photographing people who contradict typical expectations.

The immediate similarity I noticed between myself as a photographer, Beth as a painter, and Mark as a contemporary artist is that we all like to create art in the dead of night. This seems to be common amongst artists for the same reason; we get distracted easily. Nighttime makes it easy to focus since there aren’t any excuses to be distracted at that time. We all like to work outdoors and are inspired by nature. The differences between us, is that Mark makes a living as an artist. He is always creating art as art. Mark’s goal is to make art and nature become one. I as a photographer am more interested in capturing what’s real. Things in their natural settings inspire me. My goal is to make reality into art, not art into reality. I can find beauty in anything that already exists, where as Mark finds beauty in his imagination and brings his visions to life. My visions already exist, I just have to explore and investigate in order to find my vision.