Pete's Exit Interview

Instagram Selfie by Pete Brook

After nearly three years in Portland, Pete Brook is moving today to San Francisco. At this very moment he and his honey are in a U-Haul somewhere on I-5, headed due south. Pete has stripped off the rental tuxedo, his cigs are handy, and he's trying to clear his head from last night's blowout moving bash. 650 miles! It will be a monotonous drive unless they stop at a few prisons. But their trip is bound to have a happy ending, and maybe two or three of them.

Goodbye, Portland. It's the end of an era, albeit a rather short one. I took the opportunity to ask Pete a few questions about the Rose City.

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BA: Why did you move to Portland initially? 

PB: The goats, the brews, the double decker bikes. Seriously, I see double-decker bikes every week. They are here and they are real. 

In truth, I needed a place to land after my 2011 road trip. You remember that one. You cheered down the home-strait by you with a beer in Eugene. Before going on the road, I'd lived in Seattle for 3 years. I put all my stuff in my friend’s basement in Portland and then did some driving, prison visits, college lectures and a bunch of interviews.  

I always knew I was headed to Portland. I’ve been on the west coast ever since I pitched up in America. So where to go? Options are slim. San Diego is the most boring city in America. Los Angeles is big and energetic and I love to visit but I wasn’t going to move there. San Francisco was too expensive and besides most of my best buddies from Northern California (where I first lived after swapping UK for the US) had moved out — many to Portland. The list was basically Portland, Portland or Portland.

Why are you leaving?

To be in the same city as my partner. We’ve done long distance for a year and the time is now to switch up the situation. I hate to leave Portland. It’s a great place to live. It’s easy. It’s got real seasons (complaints about the rain are overplayed). There’s great food and drink in every neighbourhood. With fewer financial burdens and low costs-of-living, there’s opportunities here to craft life into what you want or need. I tend to see people here finding a nice balance between employment and outside-of-work passions.

Mt. Hood — Pete Brook

Before living there, what did you expect the city to be like?

Like Seattle but less corporate.

In retrospect what surprised you most about the city?

The creeping corporateness.

How would you describe the photo scene in Portland?

Pretty solid. I dip into it to be social, so it meets my needs. It’s really friendly. I don’t know how it is to make a living here as a photographer, but no one seems to be complaining too loudly. Nike and Adidas support the ad agencies and photographers find work there. Even if you’re not full-time photographer, there’s a million and one side-projects happening in the city that you can get into. It’s what you make of it, but there are lots of doors always open and a host of generous collaborators. 

There’s a lot of photographers here just doing it for the love of it and I greatly admire that. 

I know you have your reservations, but I still like the photo section in Powell’s. Ampersand is a finely curated space of books. They have monthly exhibits with free beer. Nicolas Lampert spoke there last week, to give you an idea of the calibre of events. 

Never go to any galleries on First Thursday if you can help it. It’s a clusterflock. Take the time and you’ll see great imagery at Newspace, Blue Sky, Charles Hartmann. There’s a massive show happening at Portland Art Museum this fall about 40 years of photography in Oregon. The show is basically anchoring itself on Blue Sky, which is the oldest non-profit photo gallery in the country.

Portland has its fair share of crappy landscape and flower photographers but where doesn’t?

I think the photo scene benefits from a good video scene and a good design scene. PICA, PNCA, COPS, and c3:initiative all remind us that photography serves art and not the other way round.

"Pretty solid example of my #portlandpaintedgreen series
which is 900 images strong on Instagram. It helped me see (and share) the city." — Pete Brook

It seems every other week some media outlet in Portland writes about how great Portland is. And here I am blogging about it. Is Portland too fucking self-absorbed for its own good? 

Last week, I had friends come in from Seattle. Before we met up, they went for a sandwich. They showed up at my house laughing because they’d just listened to three bearded sleeve-tattooed dudes at the table next to them in the diner talk for 45-minutes about how much better Portland was than Seattle.

But if Monocle says so it must be true. I jest. I think Monocle digs Portland because the Brits like to fetishise and still hold out hope America isn’t as fat as the stereotypes have it.

On the topic of stereotypes, there’s a lot of ridiculous ones and Portlanders have quickly found a way to laugh about those (or ignore them). And, let's be honest, Portlandia is basically talking about that strain of peculiar self-centered absorption that grips the hippies, locavores and hipsters of any American coastal city.

On the other hand, I reckon Portlanders have found a way to embrace the favorable quirky stereotypes and media coverage. They’re right to want to talk about their home. It is a good place. I don’t mind people celebrating the good life. 

We need to add a caveat here though. Not everyone in Portland has it easy. There’s a dark underside to Portland that reveals itself when you get out of the core and newly emerging trendy districts. Portland has some real problems with poverty and drug addiction. Sex trafficking occurs here as it does in other cities. The police department is getting better, but it showed its true stripes during Occupy and the level of intimidation it used. The homeless in Portland are targeted by the authorities.

So, my only worry about all the hype surrounding Portland is that it diverts attention from the urgent social needs here. If the city is to continue growing into its blooming reputation it needs to build in a way that addresses the needs of all socio-economic groups.

Favorite place in Portland to eat lunch outside?

Produce Row, Sen Yai, Red Fox, Roadside Attraction, Vendetta, Parkway Tavern.

Favorite downtown character?

Stumped on this one. But if you wanna see PDX characters, look no further.

Favorite restaurant?

Taqueria Santa Cruz in St. Johns, Pok Pok Noi, Luc Lac (just not 2am on a Friday or Saturday), Tasty & Sons for bacon and cheddar and chard, Biwa for fancy asian fusion, H’Val for vietnamese soups, Hen Ya for all things vietnamese. Miho for Japanese (not sushi). Frank’s Noodle House.

"Selfie from the Bye & Bye, my fave bar.
Probably between a WIRED draft." —Pete Brook

Favorite building?

Portland is hardly known for its architecture. It’s all quite limited. The Portland Building is ridiculous: Michael Graves PoMo acid. The churches of Pietro Belluschi are incredible: St. Thomas More Catholic Church and Central Lutheran Church.

If you’re happy to go through airport style metal detectors get to the cupola at the top of the court house right in Pioneer Square, I recommend it. OSHU’s views are amazing, as is the cable car up to it.

Favorite bar?

Bye & Bye. Some of my best writing was done at the Bye & Bye. Super friendly staff. I’d go there once a week late at night and they’d sort me out. They didn’t need to be that nice, I mean, I was that guy with the laptop who sat in front of a glowing screen in the corner while others tried to forget about work and be social. It felt like an office I didn’t pay rent on.

A shout out to Tiga, my other local. It’s closing shortly and it’s a sad loss. Also Secret Society, B-Side, Liberty Glass.

Favorite neighborhood to stroll in?

PPG —Pete Brook

I have to say the NE. It’s where most Portland Painted Green was made. Love this neighbourhood.

Portland's best drug (legal or illegal)?

Ayahuasca is making a come back, apparently. Never done it like but I’ve heard a few acolytes talking it up.

Heroin prices are falling sharply and a couple friends who work as physicians or service providers downtown say it’s becoming the drug of choice for many of the addicted and/or homeless. It’s replacing meth. Scary stuff.

Briefly describe the time in Portland when your reality was most altered, either through drugs, alcohol, dancing, exhaustion, or whatever.

Wandering back through town with my sleeping bag after three days at my first Pickathon (2012). I went there as press with WIRED, and it took me a year to write an article that was pretty much junk. All the personal spirit quest stuff I couldn’t include.

"Made these t-shirts with Sharita Towne this weekend.
Search Oregonian for blue room for more info."

Were you ever nude in public in Portland?

Never, I only let the freshest mountain breezes tickle my fancies. Of course, with the world’s biggest naked bike ride there’s plenty of opportunity, but I’m too much of a prude.

What will you miss most about the city?

My mates. Cheap gigs, jumping off bridges on the Washougal River, super weird menus and booze at local joints. Every pub legally must serve food, so you get playful menus with just a few items but they’re super good and varied.

Forest Park trails — my Saturday morning run kept me sane man. Nothing like them. Gorgeous every time of the year.

Eye On PDX: Melanie Flood

Melanie Flood is a photographer and curator based in Portland.

BA: How large a role does chance play in your work? And in your life?  

MF: Place has a huge influence on the type of work a person makes. It was by chance I met my husband on a street in Tribeca yet it was my choice to wear a blue leather dress. It was not by chance that we visited the PNW after we were married, yet it was a choice to move. My college friend was from Portland who I would visit and perhaps she is the true reason we live here. Chance is determined by the percentage of deliberation that goes into a decision and all the contingencies which follow.

from Suggested Experiences by Melanie Flood

Who is your favorite photographer from the 1970s and why?

I don’t have a favorite photographer from any decade but admire Sanja Iveković and her piece "Double Life" (1975) Marcia Hafif’s “Pomona Houses” (1972), Lynda Benglis’s advertisement in the 1974 issue of Artforum, Judy Chicago’s “Dinner Party” (1979) and Nan Goldin’s early photographs are among my favorite things made during the 70’s. 

Name a photographer working now whose appeal cannot be explained to you.

It wouldn’t behoove me in a small city to name names, but there are certainly artists & styles of photography being highlighted which don’t interest me. Explanations may strengthen my like or dislike but could never take me from dislike to like. There is one artist Aaron McElroy whom I first met in 2009; our mutual friends tried to sway me to his photography-they never could but I saw potential. During his recent show at Ampersand it was clear that Aaron had made great strides in building his visual language, which led me to better understand his aesthetic. Seeing growth out of potential is often more satisfying to me than the work itself.

How do you conceive of a photo project and how do you know when a project is complete? 

For my studio work Suggested Experiences I have visualizations while falling asleep, or in dreams that are based on blurry memories or a random concept I’m thinking about which I attempt to build out and represent. Each photo is a one off which may come together over time based on their similarities. U-Turns, K-Turns is about the anxiety of picture taking while traveling. My only ‘body of work’ is twelve 16x20 C-prints that I completed as an undergraduate student at SVA. I consider Lost Bag, Found Bag a finished piece even if it’s just two photos. The process of looking, thinking, shooting, of just going to and being at my studio are all an integral part of my making work and the work having agency. The entire action of my exploring this inclination to create is more important than having an object to show for it. But! When I take an i-phone snap of a Polaroid and text it to a friend that’s when I know I’m onto something...

Nine Months of Polaroids by Melanie Flood

Nine months of Polaroids? What's that about?

It’s a photo of a stack of Polaroids I shot in my studio over a period of nine months. Sometimes when I’m working I become so disconnected from reality that I don’t even know how I got to the final photo- I attribute this to my working fast, changing arrangements immediately if I dislike them. I take a Polaroid of every change, no matter how small. Nine months of Polaroids is a document and timeline of that dizzying dance. 

You have a fascination with photographing textures and materials. Does that apply to those materials in real life too, or only to photographs?

All of my friends know my ‘full panda’ outfit, so yes, in real life too. I love fashion, it’s an extension of expression. I’ve always picked up ribbon here and there, stacks of fabric meant for unrealized sewing projects. I wanted to incorporate this interest directly into my work. I chose materials for Color Studies with attention to the garish, reminding me of vibrancy in nature, anomalies like rainbows, which mimic my reaction to my first summer living in the Northwest. I had a friend visit from back East. She wanted to go on an adventure. I heard about a psych-trance party in the middle of nowhere. We drove toward Estacada, finally reaching our destination about 20 miles into the woods off logging roads. It was a fluorescent marriage of epic proportions. The dense forest a place idyllic for solitude was visually being divided by laser beams and moonlight. I saw color in an entirely new way. Using that experience as a point of departure I needed to hone my technical skills. In creating a controlled studio environment I began to think of three categories of painting- still life, landscape and portraiture. This led me to the drapery studies of da Vinci which are common exercises in learning how to draw. I was aware of the ‘fabric as backdrop’ trope in conceptual still lifes and the materials versatility-spandex for a swimsuit, wrapping paper for a gift, I wanted to document them without any added elements and only manipulated by my arrangement.

Tell me about the first photo you ever made that you still like. 

It’s a portrait of my mother, brother, aunt, two twin cousins and grandmother taken on Christmas 1988 in my childhood kitchen with a newly gifted Le Clic. I was 9 and much smaller than my subjects so I was shooting upwards to get their bodies in the frame. It was the first photo I recall taking and the last photo of them together, later that night my grandmother had a heart attack and died shortly thereafter. Everything else changed.

Tell me about this photo: 

I like to take self-portraits in window reflections a la Friedlander via Max Kozloff. The metallic reflectors caught my eye, so I snapped it.

What do you think of Portland's photography scene?

When I moved here in 2010, I was very excited to jump in and be involved with the art community, particularly photography. I had been a panelist for Photolucida Critical Mass a few times, and also checked out the Blue Sky Exhibition Committee. I joined the Portland Art Museum Young Patrons Society, attended a few photo council meetings and became an early supporter of Yale Union. I shopped at Monograph Bookwerks, hung out on First Thursday, was terrified by Last Thursdays. A group of photographers from New York that relocated to Portland started a crit group rotating between studios and later I became involved in ‘Talking Gang’ which includes artists working in various mediums. I’ve been in three local shows this past year, made new work that excites me, and have good stuff on the horizon. 

  

Writing about Melanie Flood Projects, you said the photo world is like a high school social scene. Do you think Portland is like that?

I don’t think so. What Portland lacks in exhibition opportunities it makes up for in its supportive community of artists which fosters growth and experimentation. I’m sure a high school-esque competition exists here, but not amongst my peers. I’ve had quite the opposite experience, and that’s part of the reason I enjoy living here. Artist friends Samantha Wall and Stephen Slappe, Teresa Christiansen, and Tricia Hoffman have made my transition to town and refocus on art making an inspired one. I wouldn't be as productive and motivated without their constant support and feedback.

How would you characterize the exhibition environment in Portland compared to New York? 

I cannot compare Portland to New York but needless to say, it’s natural to be underwhelmed. New York state has over 2000 museums, the city over 1500 galleries with connections to major curators, relationships with critics and writers, and a necessary collector base which keeps art galleries operating. There are endless opportunities for exhibition, higher education, residencies, jobs, internships with established artists. 

Our two main photography venues are also educational resources. Blue Sky and Newspace are non-profit organizations whose exhibitions must appeal to a broad audience- photojournalism, documentary, portraiture, than more experimental work shown in a larger city. It’s crucial to showcase a variety of work that represents current photographic trends, whether that’s digital manipulation, photo sculpture or the conceptual. I do detect a curatorial shift occurring-in 2011 Blue Sky chose Millee Tibbs’s This is a Picture of Me for their smaller gallery and Newspace’s Photography at the Edge presented photography in less traditional ways. In April during  Photolucida Portfolio Reviews, the PAM photo council invited Alec Soth to the museum for an unusual lecture where he projected an exhaustive list of powerpoint presentations and answered questions from the audience as he spoke. (Afterwards during his book signing gaggles of women were swooning and cooing all over).

I generally dislike separating photography from a larger art scene, but I feel that distinction in Portland much more than in New York.  There are a lot of Portland based photographers and few spaces to exhibit their work alongside other mediums, and even fewer spaces that have a collector base. It creates a line between artists and that of hobbyists, amateurs and straight photographers. In recent years spaces like Yale Union have brought solid programming to Portland which set the bar higher -the Marianne Wex show in October was particularly challenging. Terrain Shift at Lumber Room was a delight. John Motley is delivering a much needed critical voice bringing international attention to Portland by writing for Artforum. The opportunities for grants from the Oregon Arts Commission and the Regional Arts and Culture Council are an amazing resource to fund creative ideas and bring them to the public. As Portland’s art community grows, it’s also easy to be overwhelmed by all the opportunities to pitch in.

Marianne Wex

What about the style of shooting?

The strength of setting and regional influence appears to be greater in Oregon than in New York. I see a lot of 1970’s nostalgia, retro cinematic aesthetics, alternative process, as well as outdoor lifestyle stuff. 

Do you ever envision opening a gallery in Portland similar to Melanie Flood Projects? 

Melanie Flood Projects began because my friends at the Humble Arts Foundation were dominating (rightfully so) the rebirth of photography in New York. I was inspired by my peers entrepreneurship and the long history of showcasing art at home- Hans Ulrich Obrist's first exhibitions were in his kitchen. There was an opportunity to add something special to an already vibrant, motivated, emerging market. Upon arriving to Portland I curated a show at the now defunct Worksound Gallery. It was a mix of drawings, video, installation, sculpture and photography. I wanted to test the waters before diving in, it was cold. I’m into future curatorial experiments but would not involve me opening a space and would look very different from what I did in Brooklyn.

Eye-On-PDX: Teresa Christiansen

Teresa Christiansen is a photographer and teacher currently based in Portland, OR. 

BA: Describe the first photographs you remember making.

TC: What I remember most about the first photographs I made with a long flat black plastic camera is not the images taken, but the anticipation of dropping off film the first day back from summer camp. The time of waiting, the painful days following withdrawal from friends and outdoors, back in the concrete reality of New York City. Sitting on my bed and flipping through the stacks of 4x6 prints for the first time brought the high of reactivated memory, like hearing a well worn song from a long ago phase of life. It is a sensation that still drives me to shoot film, to feel that childish excitement when I first see the images after weeks of taking them. Instantly viewable, digestible, and forgotten images dominate photography now. I think much of my work recently in which I find ways to print photos, handle them, and look at them again is an attempt to return to the time when photographs were tangible precious objects.

One of the themes in your work is the tension between real and the representation of the real. You've worked with both video and photography. Which one do you think it closer to "reality"? Which one is closer to representation of reality?

Video as a medium can often be closer to reality in the sense that it conveys experience through duration, which is lost in a still image. Yet in each piece I have made with video I find ways to mediate it and remove it from reality. I’ve used green screens to place fantastical backgrounds behind subjects, dubbed voices, and inserted multiple frames into one so that clips from many different contexts are playing simultaneously. Although photography can also be used to convey reality through documentation, I am most interested in the role images in general (both photos and video) take on in our lives as they re-present reality and mediate our experience. In today’s culture we spend increasingly more of our time looking at and interacting with images on screens than we do engaging with our immediate environment. We live a filtered existence in which our reality is based on re-presentation, several steps removed from the “actual” physical thing, event or person that we are interacting with. This mediation and the blurred boundaries between the represented and the real are what has spurred much of my recent photographic work, particularly the series Real Artifice.

Teresa Christiansen, Landscape No 8, from Real Artifice

There's a difference between the photos on your blog (reality based) and your website (conceptual). If you were marooned on a desert island which group would you take with you?

The photos on my website are at the heart of my creative practice; they have emerged from an inner dialogue and personal growth. They represent my "work", and although I often re-contextualize their grouping and presentation, I could never part with them and would have to choose these over the images on my blog. Those photographs are definitely more reality based, and tend to be straight photos taken outside of the studio. They are an essential part of my practice, and define my relationship to photography, from which much of my conceptual work then grows. The blog is my place to store them for contemplation. Photos get lost now in the digital world, and it is nice to have somewhere to put the ones that often will never be realized in print form. 

Your website projects are all clearly delineated by date. How important is the date as a piece of information in considering a photo?

The year of creation of the work is important to me because it refers to a process based practice. Each piece I make informs the next. I see my work in a chronology, constantly evolving and relating back to itself. I also think the date is an important piece of information for a viewer in considering a work of art contextually. Photography especially is a medium that reinvents itself, and I consider my work to be an active voice in the discussion of contemporary developments within the medium. 

Who do you consider the audience for your work? The general public or other photographers? Or someone else?

My most recent work, such as the series Real Artifice, is made for an audience that includes anyone who has thought about the roles of photography, representation, and layered mediation in how we engage with images today. I make work for a fine art audience who will contemplate photography's relationship to other media and within the trajectory of art history. However, I hope that a wider audience can look at my images and without necessarily fully understanding the conceptual ideas and art historical underpinnings still appreciate them for their aesthetic qualities. 

Teresa Christiansen, from Trace Psychedelia

I love Trace Psychedelia. What is your experience with psychedelic drugs?

The word "psychedelia" in the series title refers less to drugs than to the genre of music and art associated with that term. I also wanted to allude to the experience of seeing everything in immense detail through a heightened perceptual state of mind. I experienced this when I first moved to Portland after living in New York City my entire life. During my first spring here, I walked around with my camera, in awe of the dense greenness of everything. I painted onto the surface of the photographs that I took not only as a way to recreate this experience and the excitement I felt about being in a new place, but also as a way for me to put my photography in dialogue with painting. As an undergraduate I studied painting, and when I started this project, it had been a long time since I had painted. I felt the need to pick up a paintbrush and participate in a tangible process. I had begun to ask some large questions in my mind about photography, which were best answered by giving it a way to interact with other mediums.

What brought you to Portland? 

After living in New York City my whole life (minus 4 years of college in Maine), I reached a point where I was ready for some space - physically and mentally. Two years out of graduate school, I missed not having a studio, and I felt I needed a major change in order to make new work. I had been working at the Metropolitan Museum in their Photography Studio for nine years, and after teaching a class at the International Center of Photography I wanted to pursue teaching. I was lucky enough to find a job at Pacific Northwest College of Art where I am an Assistant Professor, teaching Photography and Foundation classes, and Manager of their Digital Print Studio, which for me is like going to an amusement park every day.

Teresa Christiansen, Campfire on the Oregon Coast, from There Now

How do you characterize the Portland photography scene?

In terms of what is being publicly displayed, the Portland photography scene that I have come in contact with so far in my two and half years here seems to be concerned with skill and craft more than conceptual ideas. There are exceptions to that of course, and I am sure there is photography being made that is not getting shown, so I am hoping that will change and that venues become established for photography that is taking risks and thinking outside of its conventions. I really enjoyed Terrain Shift at the Lumber Room this winter, especially the body of work by Corin Hewitt, which was made while he was in residence here. I am seeing a growing group of photographers engaged with critical thinking through photography, and hope to meet more.

Why do you think Portland is not concerned with conceptual photography? Is it something in the Northwest character? Or something you generally expect in smaller cities? Something particular to Portland? 

I think this trend stems from the history of West Coast photography and its roots in straight photography that functioned in opposition to East Coast Pictorialism. Photographers who documented the landscape of the American West, such as Ansel Adams and his San Francisco group f/64, were concerned with images that were sharply focused and provided perfect details of the terrain they captured. I still see a great amount of landscape photography being made here, as well as images that are rooted in this tradition. I think the lack of presence of conceptual based photography in Portland galleries may be due to representation of what is being made here, but it must also come from a market that does not exist for conceptual photography. This would be a question to research further with gallery owners and art dealers here. The places that I've seen exhibit conceptual photography are those that can afford to take risks, either because they are funded independently (The Lumber Room), or more of a DIY effort and functioning free of market demands (Nationale, Appedix). 

Melanie Flood, Untitled

You had a photo in the recent Newspace show Photography At The Edge. Tell me about three other photos in the show which made a strong impression on you.

Melanie Flood is a friend whose work inspires me, and the Untitled print she has at the Newspace show is a recent result of her rigorous studio practice. You’ll know which one it is because it’s the brightest image in the room: a cardboard rainbow hovers over a deflating inflatable airplane balanced on top of a cement block with confetti scattered across the foreground. The backdrop is the same bright orange as the airplane. The image is incredibly playful, and speaks to the practice of working (playing) in the studio and using the camera to explore concepts rather than reflect reality. I see her work as pushing the boundary of photography by using it to engage with other media, such as sculpture.

Cory Rice’s image Untitled (from Intermissions) is an analog photograph of a computer screen. The image is of an unmade bed in the corner of an empty blue bedroom. The artist statement tells us that the image is taken from a moment when someone who has been performing a strip tease for the computer camera has left the frame. For me this image and the series it belongs to is interesting because it engages with some of the same thoughts that inspire my work. Screens mediate our experiences such that they become the window onto much of how we live our lives. By using the camera as a means to add another layer to this filtered existence, Rice uses photography to draw attention to how we digest images. 

Buzzy Sullivan, One Year of Sunrises August 15, 2010 - August 15, 2011

A simple gesture towards how photography can be used to challenge conventions of the medium is Buzzy Sullivan’s One Year of Sunrises August 15, 2010 - August 15, 2011. As the date suggests, the image is the result of leaving the shutter open for a full year, challenging the “decisive moment” in an image. The photograph is dappled and streaked in light, with cyan tones and a large black form in the shape of a twisted tree taking up most of the image. It appears more like a painting than a photograph, and reminds me that a photograph is simply an imprint of light. 

What music do you like?

I like music that makes you think, gives space for contemplation, and subverts expectation. Music is an essential part of working in the studio for me. It creates an energy that fuels my practice. Getting to know an album and letting it attach itself to periods in my life is a ritual that I adhere to. I will play a new album again and again until it is ingrained in my brain. I see music as a phenomenon that is much like photography in the way that it embeds itself in our emotional memories. Unknown Mortal Orchestra's album II is currently on repeat in my studio. In the recent past Little Dragon has played incessantly, as has TuneYards, Wilco, Yeasayer, The Walkmen, and Springsteen. 

Nothing lasts

The latest Eye-On-PDX profile by Pete Brook is now online, hot off the presses. For this round Pete interviews Oregonian photographer Thomas Boyd... In other photoblog news, the Magnum blog has been recently resuscitated from the dead, with some great posts by Richard Kalvar among others...Nick Turpin's 779 may have kicked the bucket but the good news is Nick is now writing about street photography here...Liz Kuball's Until You Can't See Land has died and been reborn here, where she's now saying Yes! to everything... Slate joined the photo blogging bandwagon a few months ago with Behold. A poorman's RawFile? Jury still out...DLK still writes about NY galleries but has broadened somewhat into general photo stuff... After some down time Mark Page has begun blogging again here... Richard Prince is an entertaining diarist... One Year of Books has gone well over the eponymous time limit, thankfully... 1/125 has impressed lately with several finely crafted posts... .Dan Abbe and Peter Evans have got the Japanese photo scene wired... Several photo blogs appear to be in long term remission, among them The Year in Pictures, Brian Ulrich's Not If But When, Photo Ephemera, Susana Raab, Tim Connor, Heading East, Mrs. Deane, Photographers Speak, Kip Praslowicz... Hard to tell what's going on, if they've shifted to Tumblr or given up the ghost or if and when any will revive, which I suspect some will. Down for the count beyond revival are We Can Shoot Too, Grapehouse, and Stephen Tamiesie's blog. Please update bookmarks or feeds or however you find stuff...Are blogs even a thing anymore? Do people give still care? Or has it all shifted to other platforms? Question for discussion? Oh well, as long as I'm fading out here I may as well ramble a bit. If you're still reading at this point it means you've found the top secret decoder ring. Or else you've just highlighted the invisible text to make it legible. Either way, Congratulations! Because you've just won yourself a photo. The first person to email me their mailing address will receive a fiber print. Yet another reminder to always scan the fine print, even when it's invisible. And especially when in comes later in the mail. But don't hesitate. This offer won't last. After all, nothing does. (Including the print. Sorry folks, it's been claimed.)

Q & A with Jason Langer

Jason Langer is a photographer based in Portland. His debut monograph Secret City was published by Nazraeli in 2006. His next book, Possession, will be published by Nazraeli in Spring 2013. This extended interview is part of the Eye-On-PDX series. 

(Note, the new Blogger platform is creating sizing headaches for me. Feel free to adjust typesize with Cmnd+ or Cmnd-)

B: Tell me how you got into photography. When did you know you wanted to pursue it seriously?

Jason Langer: Well, the longer I am in the creation and business of photographs, the more I realize that my story is pretty unique. I think the way I entered photography has a lot to do with how I create my images, view others' work and interact with the photography community. I got turned on to photography in 7th grade- I was about 12. My friend and I were housesitting for someone who had all these beautiful, mysterious and intoxicating black and white photographs all over her walls. Turns out this woman was Michael Kenna's sister-in-law. I was so mesmerized I was hooked. I'd never seen anything like it- a giant wave caught at it's peak- frozen like the ICON of a wave, deck chairs lined up on a pier weathering a storm with a very mysterious and foreboding ocean in the background. So I found out who that was and began taking photo classes in Jr. High and High School.

It sounds like you had a conversion experience almost like a religious awakening. Some find Jesus. You found Kenna.

Partly I found Kenna but partly I was awakened to photography being something spiritual, not just news-related or factual. When I was about to graduate high school, I called him and asked where I should go to college  to learn to create images like his. He said he didn't know, but to stay in touch. So I got involved with every photo-related class at my school- mostly the school newspaper and yearbook. Then my mother bought me a darkroom kit from the Spiegel Catalog- remember that? Anyway, it had a small enlarger to enlarge 35mm film, trays, tongs, - that kind of thing. I assembled the darkroom in my closet which had no water. I would carry the water upstairs to my closet and I would walk or ride my bike all the way downtown to buy chemistry which I had to special order.

Jason Langer, Elevator, Secret City, 1998

This was in Ashland?

Yes, Ashland. I ended up going to the University of Oregon (my state school) and took photo classes there. I worked in the school's darkroom as a part time job and also worked at a video store part time and saw a lot of films. I wrote a postcard to Kenna every year with my photo on one side and when I was ready to graduate in 1989 he was ready to hire his first assistant. I jumped at the chance, moved down to the Bay Area and got paid $6/hr. to babysit, mop floors, wash dishes- anything he needed- and of course all the photo related things. Souping film, making contacts, drymounting and matting prints and getting them ready to ship. I would also hand deliver his prints to the Stephen Wirtz Gallery in San Francisco and see what was happening there. And remember, no one was making images like Kenna's- long exposures in cityscape and landscape; extended investigations of one subject matter, e.g. nuclear power stations, gardens by Andre de la Notre. All his prints were exquisitely printed and sepia toned.

So I think my story is unique in the way of being transfixed by photography at an early age and knowing exactly what I wanted to do. 

And also unique in having a good and immediate connection with a respected artist like Kenna. 

Then I ended up in an apprenticeship situation which even then was a pretty rare way of beginning a life in fine art. So to answer your question, I was serious about photography from day one.

Day 1 age 12 you mean?

Yes. I always wanted to do weird pictures and felt that everything I photographed had some kind of internal meaning. This is what I explored- even in high school. It was always very intimate to me.

Did you go through the MFA program at U of O. I have some friends who've done that.

I decided not to go MFA. I wanted to be out in the world doing my thing and I couldn't pass up Kenna's invitation. So I'll tell you what I did after that...

When you look at those photos from high school, do you see strains that now appear in your current work? It sounds like "weird" might be a good description but it's not a very precise word.

I would say surreal and symbolic. Surreal in that people had to figure out what they were looking at and that they were meant as subconscious triggers, yet undefined. I would experiment with double exposures, incongruent objects being put together and lots and lots of silhouettes which I eventually found was the best way to put across a universal statement about people in general rather than an individual person.

The first serious series I did when I graduated from college was called "Shadow" and was literally a physical shadow (a dancer from the Oakland Ballet) dressed entirely in ski-tight black. I put him in various scenarios to symbolize as many aspects about being a human in a human body as possible.

Jason Langer, Spree Park No. 2, Berlin, 2012

So they were staged photos but not very different in some ways from much of your current "found" work.

I ended up making 72 images which included all the earth elements, the cosmos, flying, being rejected- as many ways to bring the human figure and physical surroundings together to physicalize and symbolize the human experience.

What do you think of those photos now?

Now those images may really benefit from some digital stealth. I felt I was never really able to completely suspend disbelief. I think now that if I got those negs scanned, I could burn down some reflections and smooth out wrinkles in the outfit to better make my statement. I imagine that someday they might make for a very interesting deck of cards. 

But then I had my first trip to NYC and everything changed.

How?

Well- let me go back a minute to the business of selling pictures which I think is really important in today's world. So, my first experience with "fine art" photography was with a reclusive, obsessive, hermit spiritualist who did nothing but photography- something I could relate to! It was a good match...

You mean Kenna?

Yes. I learned first hand how much work it takes to create and look for images with meaning that could never happen again- they were special. This is a key point which is so very hard to find in contemporary photography these days.

Going out hunting for fleeting scenes could be seen nowadays as old fashioned. That's not putting it down. That's my style too. But it's not very hip.

I learned many life lessons from him which I thought were ALWAYS true- that no one could ignore or leap over. Since 2000 it all changed for me and now, those ideas seem absurd. I'll tell you what they are...

Michael told me not to expect to EVER make money from fine art photography and that I should find other means of making a living and keep my overhead low. I don't know whether this point is taught in schools or if photo students really think they can pay the rent by selling their personal pictures. Maybe this is possible today, I don't know. Seems it would be VERY difficult with all the competition and the fact that everyone has a capable camera now.

The next point he told me was that it takes about 10 years to figure out what you want to photograph- what your subject is- and it takes that much time to get good at it- and in the meantime, don't show your work, until it's ready- keep the photos under your bed and keep working. There is no rush.

That's a lesson which shocking (to me) has gone out the window- people don't take ANY time to let their images stew in the pot. It takes AT LEAST this to create a signature style and subject matter- or so I thought. Now - seemingly- it doesn't matter.

  

Well his advice doesn't mesh very well with the internet age. Not saying it's wrong. Just not followed much.

Also, when I would deliver images to the Wirtz gallery I imagined that in order to be on those gallery walls you had to have unique subject matter, a signature style that is instantly recognizable. That you would have to be an experienced artist- solid and confident about your view of the world and most of all have something to say.These points I think don't exist anymore. From what I see, the bar has been lowered significantly- to ridiculously low levels. Now I can go to a gallery and see images that were taken in one weekend. I taught photography full and part time for 12 years and what I see on the walls now would barely qualify for a well seen and crafted body of work from a student.

Let me back up. Do you agree with Kenna never to expect to make money from photography?

I totally agree with Kenna. The chance of capturing the public's imagination to be able to sell enough prints to buy or even rent a house, raise kids, pay all your taxes, have health and car insurance and put something away for retirement? Not to mention all your daily expenses- food, entertainment, etc? Do you know how many prints you'd have to sell? I calculated that when I was single, I'd have to make $6000 a month in print sales EVERY month in order to make that...

Ironically someone like Kenna can probably live off of photography. But not very many can.

Another point about Kenna- he was the exception and always told me so. He always told me to not base success and lifestyle based on his achievement

Do you think students have some misconception about that? I don't think anyone expects to sell anything but maybe I'm wrong.

I really don't know. Seems to me we live in such a culture of naval gazing and self importance that I wouldn't put it past students these days.

Another thing Kenna told me is that its extremely easy to be published too soon - when the work's not ready. And that was BEFORE Blurb and self publishing. I am constantly stunned to see how many photo books are out there now- that the work is good enough to be made into a book (which to me is a huge achievement) and that enough people want to buy them. I know of several photographers who are sitting on garages full of their own self published books... and the point it is... self acknowledgement? Who is buying all these books? My understanding is that all those people who were once willing to drop $50 or $75 on a photo book has dwindled down to only the most ardent hardcore collectors.

Jason Langer, Figure No. 10, Secret City, 1999

Before we go on I have to make a confession...

I like confessions.

I don't really like Michael Kenna's work.

That's fine- why not?

I like some of his images. But mostly they seem very clean and polished. There isn't much of a sense of documentation or grittiness.

Kenna's documentary is more symbolic. He has been accused over the years of being too designy.

I know straight documentary is not what he's going for. But it seems sort of the extreme end of "arty" photography. I like more the other end. Shore and New Topographics. Walker Evans. With extraneous stuff in the photos.

Michael's earlier work when he was walking around the British streets emulating Brandt- this work was pretty gritty. And of course the Ratcliffe power Station, The Rough plant and all of his concentration camp pictures- but the latter series doesn't conjure up as easily. But I think it seems poeticness has really taken over. This is fine with me. There's definitely a lack of a poetic quality in photography these days. So much of contemporary photography is downright ugly. Maybe photographers feel they have to be more shocking and edgy to be noticed. I remember about ten years ago Holly Stuart Hughes wrote in her introduction to an issue of PDN that jurors for photo contests were seeing too many photographers picturing "sad, sullen teenagers staring at dead houseplants." Now that seems all the rage.

I like your photos better than Kenna's because they are more fleeting and streety. Not as clean.

Right- I don't take anything out of my pictures (Kenna doesn't either)- I like it all in there. The only thing I do is darken some things I'd like to not have the viewer concentrate on. But I do think by and large less is more. Simplicity tells a cleaner story for the eye. Kenna definitely sways toward a naturally cleaner landscape.

It's the antithesis of Walker Evans. But on the other hand simplifying also creates a specific style.  It's what gives Kenna's photos their feel. You buy a book of his and the photos are unified. Which is a tough thing to do with a camera.

Walker Evens was also quite formal at times.

Yes but he was also very democratic. He included everything in the scene whether or not it was "important".

Yes- true. Michael isn't so interested in details- I'm not either for that matter. I'm more interested in the overall sense and idea in my images.

What happened in NY 10 years ago? You mentioned a big turning point.

Ok- so the big turning point in my work was when I traveled to New York to do magazine interviews and portfolio drop-offs...

Keep in mind that I listened to Kenna's lessons and for 15 years made a living through photography in every way I could- editorial, corporate, head shots, weddings, etc.- anything that would come my way- except advertising. I didn't feel I cared enough about selling things to make convincing photographs in advertising.  And I also taught photography at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and made money through Getty Images as well. But it was all to feed my obsessive personal photographic ideas.

So- I went to New York and the moment I came up from a subway station I felt that I was there before in another life. It electrified me- the ironwork, the cobblestones, the business, the taxis, the hoards of people. I was staying with a friend and spent many many days and hours walking the streets and finding all of these little glimpses into alternative realities- just by keeping my eyes open. I was able to peer into another world where odd, scary, funny, sexy, warm, thought provoking and mysterious things were happening all around me without even trying. It was just there for me.

Another thing I started to do was follow people in the streets and surreptitiously photograph people and see what happens.

Jason Langer, Bridge, Secret City, 2002

Would you call your work a type of street photography?

I don't call myself a street photographer- maybe an urban photographer. I think of street photographers like Winogrand and Bruce Davidson- photographers whose main subject is people and what happens on the street. My pictures just happen to be on the street- it's just that that's where I find a lot happening all at once. The street is pregnant with odd possibilities.

In New York I ended up creating a sort of alter ego for myself whose face I would never reveal. I felt he was a symbol for my inner aloneness and everyone's singularity in this world.

That sense of alienation and loneliness is pretty strong in your work. So that NY trip was the first time you really explored that theme?

Yes- I think one of the things people can connect with in my work is that universal sense of aloneness, peacefulness or fear of it and the sense that anything could happen- danger as well as romance.

That theme came up in me unexpectedly. That's another thing I started to notice about my students and what I see in a lot of work these days- that many people with cameras want to be photographers. They put the cart in front of the horse. Their entire "projects" are completely thought out before they even touch the camera. I don't know what this makes them- constructionists or abstract artists or something like that. Photography for what its inherent and unique qualities are- is sort of irrelevant.

Agreed. But there's room for everything. I like found photos myself. I'm someone out observing the world with a camera. But I am open to those other forms. But they do seem to me to be from a slightly different discipline.

I don't know that there is room for everything. I want to give you a quote from Fran Lebowitz- one of my heroes: 

“Too many people are writing books. There are too many books. The books are terrible – and this is because you have been taught to have self esteem. And apparently you have so much self esteem that you think 'I shouldn’t keep these thoughts to myself- I should share them with the world!...' When Toni Morrison says 'write the book you want to read, she did not mean everyone.'”

So self esteem is bad?

Self esteem isn't bad, but do people steep themselves in their own work for 10 years anymore? Do they have any sense- other than their own feelings- that the work is good? Maybe this quick, or heavily concept-driven work should be called something different altogether? Or do all images that have that contemporary smell belong on a gallery wall? Do all photo "projects" make a good book? Isn't anyone saying "no thanks- go back to the drawing board?" It all seems so ok and acceptable which sort of waters down the entire experience of photography for me.

There are some very important photographers who receive little attention. For instance I think Ed Burtynsky is one of the most important photographers of the last 20 years. My inbox never mentions him, but I receive 50 announcements a week for shows and books by photographers who I've never heard from before. The photography world is crazed with the new and there is so much of it that for me it basically lowers the power of photography. I can only imagine that everyone's getting a bit exhausted of imagery frankly.

Well, books have (until recently) reinforced that patient approach. It takes a while to edit and publish something. So the process imposes a bit of delay. Maybe not 10 years. But usually when you see a book by a reputable publisher it's had some years of thought behind it.

Not necessarily. You could have a book published with only 25 pictures in it and those 25 were the only ones that were made- concept entirely ahead of the process. The main thing that I sense in so much of today's photography is the lack of risks being taken. I can feel just by glancing at a group of images, that very little was put on the line to make a series of photographs happen. No film is being spent, no people are confronted or land being trespassed upon. Few people are even putting their physical bodies out in the real world (think Google Street View). So many construction artists have basically managed their images from start to finish, there's no risk and very little amazement anymore. This turns me off. It's hard for me to get excited about "managed photography."

I like images best when I feel that I couldn't take the same image if I were there- that something SPECIAL happened for that photographer- in that place in that particular moment. I shy away from work that feels like if I were there I would see the same thing. Frankly, I see too much imagery these days showing the world AS it is. I don't know why so many people want to see the world as it is, so many photographers trying to emulate neo-Stephen Shore. I want to see alternative realities- something that tells me something I don't already know. I thought this fascination with big color documentary would be over a long time ago. Don't people want to see what's beyond it? Underneath ordinary reality? 

Contemporary photography is so broad and non-self reflective. I'll give you another quote from Fran Lebowitz: 

"Everything has to be broader. Everything has to be more blatant- more on the nose. Because obviously they’re not going to pick up little subtleties. What we have had in the last 30 years is too much democracy in the culture, not enough democracy in the society. There’s no reason to have democracy in the culture because culture should be made by a natural aristocracy of talent." 

This idea flies in the face of the "democratization" of the digital "revolution" and signifies that there are some artists who are genuinely picking up on something deeper about life, and others who work on the surface. I also started thinking a lot about the general coarsening of life- (at least) the American experience- when Gore Vidal died. Furthermore I've noticed that the ironic outlook on life is so pervasive, we almost expect it when seeing new photographs.

Hmm. Lebowitz's comment sounds a bit elitist.

Yes- it is elitist- I wouldn't go that far personally but she has a point- there's just too much content out there and now we all have to become curators. Now there are even curators of curators.

Partly what she's saying is that people no longer take the time to live with and study art or photographs for very long. She's also saying that not everyone is equal- there should be a way of distinguishing those who are going for the broad and those who are exploring the intimate or the inner realities.

Also I want to mention something that started to happen in 2000. I started seeing all of these "Kennabees" show up on the scene. Kenna was extremely popular at that time and all these admirers started creating work that was nearly indistinguishable from his. Nothing wrong with that per se- its sad, but what got me was that galleries were- and still are- taking them on. I don't get it. Now it seems you can directly copy someone- you don't need your own voice anymore- and galleries seem to be ok with that.

I could name 10 photographers who have had varying degrees of success copying Kenna to greater or lesser degrees and there's room on gallery walls even for them- I don't get it. I figure at some point galleries really needed to keep a roof over their head and took whatever they thought they could sell.

Jason Langer, Central Avenue, After Hours, 2006

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I admire dealers that closed their galleries and went private so they could keep their standards up and not pander. My longtime dealer Michael Shapiro did that. His overhead was $15,000 a month and I think he did the right thing by consolidating and only dealing work he really believed in privately.

Interesting. I think your dealer Hartman in Portland runs in that direction. I'm guessing the majority of his sales are not through the gallery but through private deals.

A combination of both I think. The Portland art audience is slowly filling out as more money comes into the area. What I see are a lot of 'collections' of things. Someone who photographs road signs along Route 66. Someone who photographs all the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenues all over the country- that kind of thing. The answer for me is... yes... and...? I think there's this kind of fascination with pseudo-documentary and 'collections' that is somehow intoxicating to people even though we're not learning anything new in viewing the images. I thought this would end a long time ago. Also- as a side point- there are so many photographs out there that galleries are asking for smaller and smaller editions- editions of 2 and 3. This seems absurd and also takes us farther and farther away from the inherent qualities of photography.

Many typologies out there, some of them quite self-referential. Thank the Bechers, at least in part.

Bechers, yes, but do we need someone else who catalogs all the things found on their property? I have always been more interested in creating images that are ambiguous and strange and have an undercurrent of humor, mystery, solitude and melancholy.

  

I'm curious about your actual practice. Most of your portfolios show photos from a wide range of scenes and distances and subjects. The main thing tying them together is a sort of mood or symbolic feeling. It makes me wonder how you find these pictures in the real world. With such a near universal cupboard of subject matter to choose from how do you know when to push the shutter?

I don't plan anything. I am constantly photographing from my life experience. I always have a camera with me and unusual opportunities for photographs simply offer themselves to me. I don't consciously work on a 'project'. I just photograph life.

Jason Langer, Bride and Groom, 2011

A good example- when my wife and I were recently in Austin, we walked into the hotel lobby late and a bride and groom had just walked in. They didn't have anyone with them and they were signing into the registry. The clerk was somewhere else. So here was this couple who had just married, checking into their new life. They are alone surrounded by an empty hotel. That's meaningful and unusual. You can read into it what you wish.

Reality and metaphor in one scene.

Or another time I was walking in Paris and ran into a Dior model just getting out of a fashion show. I see this woman walking past me with this fabulous set of legs and stockings. A man is holding her arm and escorting her. I simply followed behind them until I got something emblematic. Again- a story with open ended meaning but somehow iconic.

Jason Langer, Fashion Week, 2010

I know it's a stupid question but what sort of camera?

A variety. I started with a Mamiya C330 then went Hasselblad, then Contact 645 then Fuji 645 and then Mamiya. I normally have about 3 medium format cameras with me at all times so I'm ready for the right situation and the right camera. Always Tri-X.

You must have a heavy bag.

Lots of glass but a couple of the cameras are collapsible. One thing for me is crucial though in making good pictures. I usually wait a long time before I show my work. I have waited as much as 2 years before even processing film. That came from being so busy with life, personal matters and children. But it's a huge blessing to be behind. It really allows me to view the images later with some distance and see which images jump out of the contact sheet and rise to the top.

I agree. I'm six months behind in printing. I think it's the perfect gap because the environment outside looks so different from what's on your film.

Let's change gears a little. I'm curious about your book Secret City. How did the project evolve and when did Nazraeli get involved?

I created those images over a 15 year period and kept working on a book dummy all that time.

Wow. So pretty much since High School?

Not so much since high school, but mostly since I graduated from college. I was quite shy but I sent it to Kenna one day and asked him what he thought of it and if he thought it to be worthy to please show it to Nazraeli. Nazraeli loved it and wanted to publish it as is- with no changes. This was very gratifying and took many years to complete. My next Nazraeli Book Possession is exactly the same thing. It's mostly pictures from the last 10 years with some oldies mixed in that really tie the work together.

  

How will it be different? Looking online it seems the pictures are perhaps a bit more controlled?

The difference is that this group of pictures is both more haunting than Secret City, but also more romantic. It has many more doppelganger-like still lives and also starting in 1998 I started photographing a lot of nudes- both men and women.

This came about because I moved to LA and had 2 kids. I had very little time to photograph in between diaper changes and teaching full time and I wanted to get away from the constant LA light so I started asking people- friends and their friends if I could hang out with them at home to see if some good pictures would come about. They did. I was using about 6 rolls of medium format film in about 1 1/2 hours and I would usually come up with 1 or 2 good pictures. You keep adding these up over years and lo and behold you have a 'project'. So there are a lot of images from those sessions mixed in.

Jason Langer, Pianist, After Hours, 1995

The nudes are of friends?

Friends and their friends.

I figured they were models. They look pretty trim. How is it photographing someone in the nude who you know well?

Someone who wants to be photographed nude is usually comfortable with themselves and their bodies and wants to be documented looking good. I no longer photograph women. I think I got as far as I wanted to go. Now I am only photographing men.

I also experimented to see what would happen if I brought nude men and women together. What I got was intimacy and lovemaking- it just happened so I started photographing it and again some pretty exciting pictures came out.

So you were playing matchmaker? Or were these people couples before you brought them together?

Only one couple didn't know each other- the first couple, but then they were are all boyfriend/girlfriend or married couples. One couple was having an affair which was really exciting. 

Then word started getting around that I was doing this work and friends decided to make love for the camera- actually mostly friends of friends- people I didn't know very well- that made it easier. I also posted some Craigslist ads to offer people some money for their services. I made about 300 of those pictures and created a nice special edition folio which is only available though dealers. I do not make jpegs of those. They're simply too intimate and I don't want those images floating around on the web.

So how is it photographing a good friend nude?

The best friend and the most fun I have photographing a friend nude is my wife Lucy- she's the best.

Why did you stop shooting women?

I started photographing women in 1998 when I experimented with what a female figure or energy would do mixed in with my very male world that I had created. It really made a huge difference and brought out a much softer side in my work. I worked on understanding that energy for about 14 years then felt I had explored that in myself enough and was time to move on. I also found photographing men was much more challenging, creatively and politically.

Can you expand on that?

   

Well- in our culture when we see images of naked men we assume that they are created for the audience of gay men. I found this very difficult to get away from. How do I create images that aren't charged in a homoerotic way? What if the men are muscular? What does that signify? What if they are very feminine? I found that I tended to photograph men in a very feminine way- softer and contemplative as opposed to harder and more warlike. Think George Platt Lynes v. Herb Ritts. Very different expressions of the male form.

  

Also photographing the penis has a lot of cultural baggage that comes along with it. The erect penis, even more. I'm still working out those challenges in meaning.

Jason Langer, Figure No. 88, 2007

You say you'd created a "very male world". Do you mean photographically? Or just living as a male more generally?

Photographically. One writer Margaretta Mitchell who wrote a biography of Ruth Bernhard as well as Recollections- Ten Women in Photography said that my concentration of the singular man, silhouettes of men and men in hats was a visual reconciliation with the divorce of my parents and the time when I had confusion about the male figures in my life. I think that's probably true. During that time I was watching old noir movies and Casablanca and other Bogart movies. There is a lot of Bogart in my early work. He was sort of my alter ego- still is in many ways.

Hmm. I need to go back through your site. The emphasis on men didn't stand out before.

There is a lot of editing on my site. Not everything is in there. Not a lot of the early work. My site is more of a cross section. And by the way, the creation of Secret City is just a title that I had to come up with to make a book. Really everything I photography is my Secret City.

  You just don't see many photographers who simply photograph anymore. It's a bit unacceptable or not seen as serious enough or something like that. So I reluctantly divide my work into different titles. I guess to makes it easier for people to digest but really its all part of one way of seeing the world.

What was the impact of Secret City for you?

I feel being published by a very fine publisher is still a very important part of the process. Yes- self publishing is more 'democratic', but there is also a lot of noise out there. Some book editors really are worth their weight- they elevate the material- by helping to unify the work and at best bringing its full essence forward. In my opinion the stamp by a prestigious and respected publisher still holds importance.

Nazraeli is generally great. Anything with their imprint or Steidl's will generally be worth a look.

Exactly. Seems lately that there are so many books out there its a bit of a jumble as to what publishers offer, the kinds of books they make- but a real solid vision for photography publishing- book art-pieces that are meant to stay on one's shelf through generations isn't easy to come by. My new book was assembled jointly with Nazraeli. We did it together and the process was fun. I had a lot more work to choose from and I leaned on the publisher's eye and experience to help bring the best forward and present it in the best way.

Your work reminds me a bit of Matt Mahurin or Tom Sandberg. Do you like either?

Matt Mahurin's first book by Twelvetrees is the first photo book I ever bought. It really inspired me. I have since written him and asked him if I could buy any of his old images in print- in any size, shape or form. He told me he's not yet set up for print sales and when he does, he'll let me know. I keep bugging him. My work can be a bit haunted and disjointed. Sandberg's work is even more so. Arthur Tress (who I printed for for many years) told me that my work reminds him of Dave Heath. That's quite a compliment.

  

I love the Mahurin book too. Curious to see Possession. Speaking of Nazraeli, I'm curious about your relationship with Portland. Do you still live there?

I am in Portland.

Do you take many photos of Portland? It's hard to pin down specific locations in your photos.

I always keep a camera on me and on my walks and drives I often find things to photograph- and I do so- but not in any way yet as an explicit project. Maybe someday- it is a beautiful city. If I could make photographs of Portland as beautiful and Daniel Robinson's paintings of Portland, I would. Portland has many oddities about it - as you know- and it's rife with opportunities for peeks into the surreal world through its cracks and crevices.

Hmm. But to collect those photos into a "Portland" folder seems like a different approach for you. I think part of what you're going for is a separation from anything specific like that. More of a feeling than a place. Are there any Portland photos in Secret City?

No Portland photos in Secret City- I hadn't moved here yet. But there are one or two in Possession. The next book- from Radius Books- due to come out in 2014 will have much more from PDX. 

In everything I photograph I try to avoid timestamps- I have always looked for the universal and timelessness in the true sense of the word. I do have jpegs of all my work and I do keep them in folders on my computer- based on where they were taken- just for easy reference but no one really knows where the images are from.

Jason Langer, Cowboy, Possession, 1995

What made you move there?

I moved to Portland because my wife and I and 2 kids were in LA and we wanted to get out of California. Kenna and his then wife were here as well as Nazraeli and a nice photo community. Unfortunately that nice small group that I knew has since imploded and now there's a much larger scene. Between Blue Sky, Hartman, Newspace, Portland Art Museum's Julia Dolan (who's awesome) and Ampersand, it's quite rich.

Wait. So the scene getting bigger is a bad thing?

No- not a bad thing at all- But I was starting to get to know people in small group gatherings. Now we don't get together anymore. It's a small point really. I have to tell you though that since the photo community expanded I've been quite shy about showing my face.

What's your relationship with Portland's photo community. Do you hang out with other photographers? Or visit some of those places you mention?

I don't hang out much. I'd much rather have a drink with an individual photographer. I find that there is a balance to be struck between the impulse to be involved in the larger community and the concentration it takes to focus on your own work. I don't like to talk about my work very much. I don't have much to say about it. It's too abstract and esoteric. Its not something I can encapsulate in one sentence. I'm not really working on a 'project'- I am actually- several at the same time, but not anything easily imparted to another. 

As photographers we are increasingly being asked to be more involved with social media and to be more 'out'. I am tremendously ambivalent about this. I know from experience that people- collectors, dealers and appreciators like discovering a photographer. But there are so many photographers out there that now one is almost forced to join Facebook and Instagram in order for anyone to know that you even exist as an artist. I can envision many many wonderful introverted photographers who are being passed up every day. For a long time I felt that there was no need to do anything except create imagery and that the usual channels would bring the work forward to people. Now, I am finding that even with a dozen or so galleries selling my work, the existence of the work needs to hit someone over the head stronger and more repeatedly to be noticed. Not the work changing quality or subject matter, but the visibly of the work. Having a new book published by Nazraeli is a big deal to me, but I am wondering if the book will appear as simply another book in the great, ever-expanding sea of books. I reluctantly joined Facebook a couple days ago to have a broader way of letting the public know that the book exists.

I have attended the juror group that Blue Sky conducts once a month. That's fun. But we're all in the dark and then I generally take off afterwards.

I attended a few of those when I lived there.

Oh, and there's Photolucida. I was asked to be a juror for their Critical Mass.

I think Critical Mass is interesting because it sort of encapsulates the current state of things. What people are working on. Where things are going. I think it may be more valuable in 20 years as a historic snapshot than for any specific photos. But I've wondered about Critical Mass as an evaluative tool. Is it even possible for a democratic system to come up with any reasonable judgement? Or does it just bog down so that least-objectionable material floats to the top? But I suppose they would say it's not a contest. There's no winner, if you ignore the 50 winners.

  

I think we're in a new birth cycle now in photography and very few names will be remembered in 10 years' time. I am very thankful that there is a consistent market for my work and that people are interested. Not many photographers can say that. My eyes are getting tired though from looking at too much photography. I may take some time off from that- but when you're a photographer and you love the medium it's very difficult to ignore. I'm not exactly a hermit. 

I have seen quality of photography go WAY DOWN in recent years. People enlarge their photos past pixelation and very few people seem to care. Even one of my galleries has a giant nighttime skyline image for sale that's completely pixelated. Print quality matters very little too I've found. I think that's getting better though.

How was it being a CM juror?

It was fun actually. There were so many entries I really only remember Mitch Dobrowner's work. We decided to give him a show. I have since purchased two of his prints from Blue Sky. I will no longer collect his work- there's a bit too much Photoshop manipulation in them.

I don't think he does much besides extreme dodge and burn. Do you mean subject manipulation?

When I bought the first Dobrowner print it was awesome- everything was completely in focus. I do think the PRINT should be in focus, not necessarily the subject matter. When I bought the second one I found that parts were in focus- as shot- and other parts- particularly the clouds had been 'mushed' or 'smudged' around to swirl the clouds into the place he needed them to be- which I think is going too far- for my tastes.

Jason Langer (Facebook profile photo)

Interesting. I hadn't realized he was moving things around. You can create quite a storm if you Photoshop enough menacing clouds into one spot.

I'm not positive he does this. I don't think people care though- this is an example of how quality isn't being focused on like it used to. Remember, one needed also to be a good craftsman when creating photographs. Now I think most people are intoxicated with the new baby that has arrived. I can't explain that intoxication. Its something though. Almost like being love blind.

I also think we're living in a weird time. Like we saw with the last election, facts don't matter anymore. Everyone has their own set of facts. So there is no longer a set of qualities that distinguish pro photographers from amateurs or even pros from one another. There are so many pictures coming from all directions that everyone can be involved purely based on their own choice of intoxicant.

Cultural stew...on simmer. Name someone shooting now who amazes you.

Well, I can tell you which contemporary photographers whom I've collected prints. Dobrowner- It's amazing what he can bring out in the landscape and weather. David Leventi's opera house photographs are stunning- I don't know how he does it. I have a gorgeous 50" x 60" print hanging in my dining room. And I have a couple of David Nadel's landscapes of the forests of Montana, because he's made bare tree trunks in the snow look like Asian minimalist monochrome scratches- completely transformed the landscape.

How do you relate photographically to your kids and family. Do you ever take "serious" photos of them?

I just started taking photos of my older daughter. She's eight and I want to follow her through to 18 and see if a nice body of work can come out of it. Eight I think is when life really starts to get interesting.

How does she respond to being photographed?

She's used to being photographed now.

What about your other child? You mentioned two.

I am too turned off by five year old tantrums to want to hang around it for an extended period of time. I'm excited for both my kids to get a bit older and have a greater sense of self management and be able to make more rationally based choices.

Kids acting rationally? Not even grown ups can be counted on to do that. But a 5 year old tantrum might make an interesting photo.

Right- but I'd much rather photograph a sleepover party with a bunch of girls then my son screaming because he doesn't want to put his clothes on. They need to get beyond that for my camera to come out.

I know exactly where you're at. My sons are 11, 10, and seven. I've been shooting them since the first one was born. I think there's a fun tension when a photographer turns the camera on his/her own family. How much are these photo keepsakes meant to document an important family time, and how much are they objects to be shown publicly as art?

I'll happily leave most of the kid pictures to Julie Blackmon.

Another Photoshopper...

Right- but unabashed. Her appeal has nothing to do with accuracy.

What about that tension? Between family photos which every family has, and using family as the subject of art?

I am so obsessed with photography that my lesson to be learned is to be as present with my family as possible without photography. I am a constant searcher and I need to learn to turn it off, pour some whiskey and play monopoly.

That's a related tension. The tension between being present as a parent, and being a photographer who is constantly looking for moments. I find it hard to turn off my photo eye, even with my kids.