CCLaP Photo Feature: Bryan M. Ferguson

Bryan M. Ferguson

Chicago Center for Literature and Photography Photographer Feature January 27, 2014

Glasgow, Scotland

A nocturnal man whose voyeuristic pastime has mutated into pleasure for stranger’s eyeballs.

Predominantly a filmmaker, Bryan M. Ferguson, first pressed his eye to the viewfinder of a DSRL to sustain his obsession to create visuals when film projects would disperse. He has been taking photographs in between motion picture projects since 2008 and finds comfort being the eyes in the dark focusing their vision on a single frame as opposed to 24 per second.

So many of your images feel like still shots from action movies that never existed. Do you do this on purpose?

I find my work is often described as being fairly cinematic but it’s not something that I’m aware of at the time or something that I set out to do on each shoot, it’s generally just how my eyes see the world. I’m a filmmaker and I believe my background in filmmaking often bleeds into my photographs. Thinking about it now, I guess my photographs can be seen as orphaned shots from films I’ll never make.

Are your models hired professionals or personal friends? They usually seem up for anything.

All the subjects in my images are people close to me in my personal life. I’ve rarely worked with hired professionals; I often find you can steal an offbeat expression or a moment of odd posture from someone who isn’t trained and also find they are more agreeable to my strange stipulations.

bryanmferguson.com

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