The Photographer Interviews of 2014
Interviews are not easy. With hours of collaborative work behind each one, our photographer interviews are produced over the course of a few weeks, sometimes over a year or more. Despite the labor, after each one, I’m always encouraged to keep making new work. This year I was fortunate to interview 13 photographers, check the links below if you missed any. I hope they too leave you refreshed. Let’s look forward to 2015!
Cristobal Guerra
“Gifs are like the neon Times Square signs of the internet, they’re just so direct and particular to our times. You scroll through them and in a few frames you’re either laughing out loud or going ‘thats cute’.”
Copyright Cristobal Guerra |
Nona Faustine
“Slavery is controversial. It’s a topic in America we really try hard not to discuss. It makes people uncomfortable. “
“They Tagged The Land With Institutions And Trophies From Their Conquests And Rapes!” (New York’s City Hall Built On Top of the African Burial Ground), from the White Shoes series, Copyright Nona Faustine |
Janna Ireland
“It can be painful to give up on something you’ve put a lot of work into, but if a picture is good enough, it can have a life outside of the body of work it was originally intended for.”
“Diamonds and Pearls” From the series The Spotless Mirror Copyright Janna Ireland |
Eileen Perrier
“The experience I have gained from my teaching in terms of my own art practice reminds me of the passage we all take, either as a student or artist, when producing a new body of work.”
From the Grace series (2000) Copyright Eileen Perrier |
Sonia Louise Davis
“Early on, I kept asking myself how I was going to make an authentic picture in a place like NYC. I remember feeling like it was already too photographed and over saturated with images for me to begin to make any of my own.”
Untitled #22 from the series tracing(s) belonging(s), 2011. Copyright Sonia Louise Davis |
Gabriel Garcia Roman
“Most of my work is about identity and how that plays out in how we interact with the outside world. Specifically in my self-portraits I try to understand the many sides of myself; the introvert, the confident, the American, the Mexican, the friend, the brother, son, etc.”
Duality #selfportrait Copyright Gabriel Garcia Roman |
Zun Lee
“It was important for me to stress the connection between stereotypic visual aspects of black fatherhood and how black masculinity is portrayed in the media, period.”
From the series Father Figure by Zun Lee |
Tyrone Brown-Osborne
“For me, so much of a photograph’s narrative is either captured in the overall composition and/or directly in your subject’s eyes. That’s your decisive moment, if you capture it.”
Copyright Tyrone Brown-Osborne |
Kim Weston
“Most of these photographs where shot at Native American powwows or ceremonies. I sit on the ground while shooting so I can feel the drum in my body.”
Copyright Kim Weston |
Keesic Douglas
“I want my work to help engage conversations about things we don’t always talk about; the environment, stereotypes, racism, oppression, representation, identity… I use humour because such heavy and complicated issues can turn people away.”
From the Birch Bark series Copyright Keesic Douglas |
Arturo Soto
“I believe, perhaps foolishly, that photography can still be used to mediate reality and deal with everyday life, so I try to capture that problematic relationship.”
From the series In The Heat Copyright Arturo Soto |
Patricia Voulgaris
“Photographers and artists are gifted in that fact that we have the ability to both record and create history. We all want to be remembered in some shape or form.”
From the series Fragments Copyright Patricia Voulgaris |
Keisha Scarville
“The truth is that finding your voice within photography is a constant and mutable process. It is often driven by questions that you don’t have the answer to.“
From the series Many Waters Copyright Keisha Scarville |
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Dodge & Burn is a blog dedicated to documenting a more inclusive history of photography and supporting the work of photographers of color with photographer interviews.
This blog is published by visual artist and writer, Qiana Mestrich. For regular updates on diversity in photography history, follow Qiana on Twitter @mestrich, Like the Dodge & Burn Blog page on Facebook or subscribe to Dodge & Burn by email.
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