CITIES ARE COMPLICATED, INTERESTING THINGS. Currently, over half of humanity lives in urban areas. The theories and discussions surrounding cities are endless, contradictory at times, and inevitably involved.
There is no question that cities shape our lives and the path of humanity. Within metropolitan centres, an exchange of ideas is facilitated by the close proximity of so many individuals,
resources, ideas, cultures, and spaces. It seems only logical that photographers would be long obsessed with the setting and subject of the city. Consider Jacob Riis’ exploration of poverty in 1890s New York and the thorough exploration of early 20th century Paris by Eugene Atget. The city has found itself a subject before countless photographers eyes. The myriad shapes,
figures, distractions, icons, landmarks, lines, and debris that form the modern city make for an effervescent, everchanging tableau waiting to be captured.
Inadvertantly enough, we have our first theme: cities. Through the eyes of three photographers, we can see these marvels of the modern age explored, interpreted, and explained in this issue.
DAN RIOS, NEW YORK page 46
ANDREW LOUIS, TOKYO page 74
DANIELA DI LEO, BUENOS AIRES page 14
INTERVIEW: ROB ALLEN page 4
INTERVIEW
TORONTO BASED PHOTOGRAPHER ROB ALLEN RECENTLY HAD HIS BALD MAN PROJECT FEATURED IN THE CONTACT PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL. WE TALKED WITH ROB ABOUT THE PROCESS OF PREPARING FOR HIS EXHIBITION AND WHAT IT MEANS TO BE BALD. ROB’S WORK CAN BE SEEN AT ROBALLEN.CA LIMITED EDITION BOOK AND PRINTS AVAILABLE. CONTACT@ROBALLEN.CA FOR DETAILS.
WHAT WORKED WITH THIS PROJECT? What worked, and I am glad it did, was my ideas about lighting. If my idea hadn’t worked for what I call the ‘clinical half’—if the lighting wasn’t raw enough, if it hadn’t been so clinical—it would have been hard for people to understand what I am doing, contrasting the topography against the warm and fuzzy. Though I guess they aren’t fuzzy because they are bald men [laughs]. I also went out on a limb and bought a new soft box for the first time in twenty years. It’s half the size of the one I used to use, and I suspected, without testing, that it would be better for portraits, and specifically this kind of in close, tight work that I’ve been doing with small and large cameras for a long time and really love looking at. DO YOU THINK THE WAY PEOPLE LOOK AT BALDNESS HAS CHANGED?
The funny this is that I think I might be a little bit late on this project. I think it’s no longer uncool to be losing your hair. There was a time, twenty years ago, where it wasn’t cool to be losing your hair. Guys would tease
you—I don’t actually ever remember a girl ever saying ‘Oh no, bald guys?’ We all have little things we don’t like about ourselves. What did Diane Arbus say: “You see someone on the street and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw.” That was one of her guiding motives. I think my awareness of that particular point and the universality of vulnerability helped me. Let’s put it this way: I expected people to be a lot less forthcoming being in these photographs, but everyone one said ‘Yeah, sure, that’s fun.’ Whatever stigma may have been attached to baldness has changed—and there’s probably a scientific knowledge basis under this; we just understand genetics better now. There was a time when being bald meant weakness, or impotence. WHY DO YOU THINK BALDNESS IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT TOPIC?
A lot of times in the past couple months, I would be driving along and at least once an hour, they run an ad on the radio with this guy who says “We want you to come in to our clinic and meet someone who has had hair replacement: me! I’m the doctor here and I want you to see my healthy growing hair.” And I think
to myself: what are we going to fix next? Is everybody going to be like Michael Jackson? They want a different skin colour, different nose? I’ve long been a proponent of promoting the inner self. Make yourself richer inside rather than outside. Those are the kind of people I look for. There were always lessons about baldness for me. As soon as I found I was becoming bald as a teenager, I found that the people that commented on my baldness were always the biggest jerks, pretty much the best people to stay away from. Right from the get go, they throw up a sign, ‘I’m a jerk, you are losing you hair.’ Consistently they are low on the self-esteem scale. In the book I write about the mixed benefits of baldness. It gives you a tool by which to determine what kind of people you are dealing with, really quickly.
When I was growing up, the guy living next door to us was losing his hair. I remember he was the first person I knew that got hair transplant surgery, and he was very ambitious, ended up as a police chief. I wonder, what would have happened if he didn’t get hair transplants. What would have happened if it had failed?
WAS IT A HARD DECISION TO GO BLACK AND WHITE? WHAT WERE THE CHALLENGES THAT ENTAILED? I’ve been dabbling in colour for a long time, ever since this digital revolution. I figured it would be the harder thing to manage. But it turns out the hardest thing to manage digitally is getting high quality black and white prints that look as photographic as possible. I say that with my own personal bias, as I’ve shot film for years with large cameras and like the effect. I’ve always admired the work of people like Weston, Adams, and Jock Sturges. There’s something very hard to duplicate in the mid-tones when you use a large camera and I’m constantly trying to get that from my 35mm film work, my Hasselblad film work, and now my digital work. I had a really good compliment with the prints for my exhibition: a guy looked over my shoulder at my samples and said “Wow, you shot film, didn’t you?” That was a real compliment, for somebody who I had never met before to get the feeling that I was trying to get in my prints.
WHAT CHALLENGES DID YOU COME ACROSS WITH THIS PROJECT? WERE ANY WRENCHES THROWN? There was a wrench! A wrench was thrown! About midway through the printing process, I realized that I had been preemptive with my decision on what kind of paper to print on. About three weeks ago, when I was most of the way through printing the individual payoff shots—the big, glorious ones—I realized the paper I was using with them just was not good enough. It was throwing too much light back. It was really a lustre paper rather than a glossy paper, and I had purposely blinded myself to the older paper that I used to use that was giving me just as good prints. Once I opened my mind to it, the prints were better; the paper was a little warmer. And if I want my photos to be approachable, a warm base gives them a kind of approachability that everyone can respond to whether they are trained photographers or not. I finally reopened my eyes and got remarried to the paper I’ve been using for a long time, almost the whole time I’ve been doing digital.
BESIDES PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH BALDNESS, WHAT INSPIRED THIS PROJECT? I’ve been bothered by the work of Arnold Meggs since the mid 80s, when I was in school. He had already started a long time before, but I became aware that he had been photographing people, putting them in a chair in front of a plain background. I saw a number of them when I visited him recently for the first time. He puts them in a chair and I he turns the chair and takes picture of them with whatever light is available. It’s a wonderfully naked and naïve way of pulling himself and letting the subjects speak for themselves. I think that and the study of surface is the basis upon which he develops his work. I saw that work, looked him up online, and there was a reference to another photographer, Byers. And then I remember that I had seen that man’s work: he had actually taken 500 pictures of himself sitting in two different positions over and over again in his garden or some place around his home. He tried to get in the same position over and over again. And that demands a reaction from the viewer: this person went through the trouble to take all these pictures. It must mean something. What does
it mean? I combined the work of those two men with another mystery that was foisted on me by my excellent instructors back in the 80s at Ryerson, this business about the New Topography. The show came out when I was in school and many people came to Toronto and lectured on it. There used to be a great magazine called Communiqué and they, along with Ryerson, helped host a big colloquium. I recall being at the AGO for it; they talked about things, especially this new topography, in ways that interested me, even though I wasn’t really equipped to deal with them. My understanding of the art world, of expression, wasn’t really up to snuff yet—I’m not really sure it even is now—but to my profound luck, last summer when I was taking a class in Rochester, they remounted that particular show, so there are a number of things written about the remounting, comments that were made initially about the show from 1983. Artists can’t go into everything knowing everything they are going to do. They have to deal with things that bother them. My reading about artists, my conversations with them make me think that problems are as important as solutions.
WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF PUTTING TOGETHER THIS SHOW? A funny thing happened to me: I knew when I turned people away from the camera, that photographing them and not seeing their eyes became a very different experience. I started reading the backs of their heads for expression. I was looking at neck folds and became pretty aware of the subtleties of the scalps. I would quite often have a moment of recognition and think ‘Oh, that’s what I look like from behind.’ It got me out of my preconceptions. WHAT ABOUT MEN TRYING TO HIDE THEIR BALDNESS?
Another thing I was pushing at for a while with this show was thinking of photographing men with toupees, flagging men with toupees and asking to take pictures with and without them. Can you get anything out of them in the photograph? Is their self-esteem too attached to it? Would they even sit for you? How would I approach a guy and say ‘I think you have a hair piece.’ You’d want to have your blocking arm up on that one.
HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU HAVE SUCCEEDED IN CAPTURING THE RIGHT FEELING IN YOUR PRINTS? If everything goes well for me, you can feel the energy coming off. Is this someone I would go to war with? It certainly seems like someone I’d want to have a drink with. WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM THIS PROJECT?
I’ve been shooting for a long time and was a little worried that I would become systematic: not worried, because I wanted systematic for the clinical stuff, but on the other stuff I was worried I would go to my quick answers, go to my easy ‘tried this before, I know it works.’ But I tried new things and with the subjects help—I think they could see I was sweating a little bit— I got new things that I couldn’t have imagined before. I can say I’ve had real growth, both in my commercial and fine art fields. But moreso real growth in how I relate to my sitters, the kind of applied psychology of the thing, which is such a key component.
RM
RESBUENOSAI BUENOSAIRES ENOSAIRESBU BY DANIELA DI LEO
NYCNYCNYCN YCASNYCINYC NYCNYCNYCIT BY DAN RIOS
TOKYOTOKYO KYOTOKYOTO OTOKYOTOKY BY ANDREW LOUIS
ANDREW LOUIS’ WORK CAN BE SEEN AT HYFEN.NET