Tom Griggs

MW

What inspired you to start taking photographs, and what is the primary inspiration for you to keep working in this field?

TG

I started as a painter, but I discovered it requires a lot of isolation and the discipline of a monk. Frank Auerbach – to pick an example - paints 364 days a year in his studio from sun-up to sun-down. I found I’m not built to do that. I’m too interested in art as it relates to external life experiences, physical exploration of space, and interactions with other people.

I began taking more photographs as I left painting. Its speed and portability were a revolution in terms of integrating my life and artistic practice. I discovered photography can be used to explore any discipline – from urban planning to rural sociology to jungle ecology. It gives me a reason to be part of events and allows me inside other people’s life experience. I can frame specific and direct questions about a subject. All of these things about the medium appeal to me.

I keep photographing because it continues to feed me as a person and artist. There are moments I imagine myself doing other things, but it’s never a consistent line of thought. I don’t think of myself a photographer. I am a person curious to understand and experience and photography continues to be the best way I know to do that. If I come to another conclusion, I’ll sell my cameras.

MW

In your opinion and experience, how can emerging photographers evaluate themselves as ready to start promoting their works and seek broader exposure for their photographs? What is one vital action you would recommend photographers undertake to find their audience, be included in exhibitions, and gain professional representation?

TG

Taking on the second part of the question first, there have been a lot of good suggestions in other interviews on Two Way Lens. My recommendation is simply on when and how to use those suggestions: work as long as possible outside the gallery-museum-competition world before looking to enter it. Develop your craft, your vision and your relationship to the medium. Make images every day for a long time. Show them to people whose opinions you respect, then go back out and make more.

The reasons for waiting are several. Navigating the art world takes energy and time away from making work. People start to define you as you gain exposure and exposure brings expectations. It can become more difficult to take the exploratory risks necessary to find your way forward as well as confusing to have other voices involved with your work while it’s young.

As for how to know when you’re ready, I think that knowledge is based in developing an honest and reliable community around you. Self-evaluation is hard, especially at the start. Build a trusted circle of friends and look to establish mentors. Show them work, stay humble, listen. Be as objective with yourself about the work and where it’s at as you can. When it’s time, those people and the work itself will let you know its ready to be shown. You won’t have to think much about it.

MW

How did it come about that you achieved the status of successful, professional photographer? What steps were involved in reaching your level of success?

TG

I think the easiest way to answer these two questions - and hopefully the most useful response for others – is to list the ideas that I work with or am working towards.

It’s a combination of lucky insights, stolen wisdom and brutal lessons:

Not only are there no divisions between your bodies of work, there is no division between your work and your life – they are all part of one thing.

You can’t do it all, but you can do one thing intensely.

Don’t be afraid of beauty, but don’t make it your main subject or content. The same is true for light.

Making images and thinking about your images need to be respected as separate processes done at separate times.

Photography does not require a good camera, the perfect light, or enough time. If photography is something you should be doing, you’ll make images on the days when you don’t have these things.

Carry your camera everywhere. A good image can be made anywhere.

To paraphrase the commencement speaker at my undergraduate graduation who was paraphrasing someone else: talent in art is about as important as tits on a boar. Success on every level - from personal satisfaction to your first Guggenheim - is work, work, and more work.

Give yourself permission to make photographs without prejudging them. You don’t have to show them to anyone. If you’re not sure if you should take the picture or not, take it.

Put down your camera and spend time just looking - frequently.

Take a few weeks off every year – at least.

At some point on this list I have to provide my thoughts for the pure realists and Machiavellians:

Photography has strong personalities, friendships of benefit, questionable minds with power, and straight-up assholes just like every other business. Many good photographers are not only good, they are also strategic and cutthroat. Exposure depends - to a degree - on developing connections and on what sells. You’ll have to market yourself; no one is out there waiting to discover your work. Sharpen your elbows as well as your vision.

Turn outside of photography for instruction and inspiration – go to movies, operas and the theater. Have music on while you work at home. Read all the time. Digest slowly.

Practical advice: Find a second source of income. Learn basic carpentry, become an EMT or study basic investing.

Travel every opportunity you can, especially during your 20’s.

We have witnessed an explosion of great photographers in this generation, but it’s an explosion of too frequently similar great photography. Understand longer cycles of art and have faith in understanding and developing your own innate drives within the medium.

Decisions by juries and committee are notoriously fickle and are frequently a compromise between several people on someone / something. Learn from rejections and listen to criticism, but don’t pin your sense of worth as a person or photographer on these things. There’s a degree of correlation between quality and success in the photography world, but it is not a meritocracy nor is it rational.

Build a community – photography is a game more fun played with other photographers. Go beyond yourself so that you rejoice in and actively help the success of others.

The best photographs involve you on all three levels simultaneously: head, heart, and sex. [tip of the cap to Nicholas Nixon]

The best photographers are students all of their life; photography can never be completely learned.

Finally and absolutely most importantly, laugh - and don’t be too hard on yourself, either. Photography is less serious than we usually think.

© copyright all images Tom Griggs

Nick Turpin

MW

What inspired you to start taking photographs, and what is the primary inspiration for you to keep working in this field?

NT

I was introduced to photography at school but didn't really take it seriously until I was at Art College and experimenting with painting, sculpture and design. I realised the unique power that photography has to engage head on and directly with the world as I experienced it day to day. I have always enquired into my own nature and photography became a part of that long term enquiry which probably explains why I have been committed to Street Photography for so long, it is the approach that most satisfies my wish to understand. I find working with a small camera in a public place with no preconceived aims to be a revelatory process, the act of being there and looking with that magical light recording device often results in the most unexpected results. I have always recognised that the still camera has this one wonderful trick, to freeze and store a scene for long term inspection. I don't think I will ever tire of playing with that process.

MW

In your opinion and experience, how can emerging photographers evaluate themselves as ready to start promoting their works and seek broader exposure for their photographs? What is one vital action you would recommend photographers undertake to find their audience, be included in exhibitions, and gain professional representation?

NT

I think it takes quite some time to find your own voice and vocabulary as a photographer and there are a lot of attractive diversions along the way. Inevitably one starts by mimicking the work one admires of the previous generation and hopefully along the way one stumbles, often by accident, on to a unique path of ones own and realises one has something new to contribute to the history of the medium. When I teach I always encourage my students to 'own' their pictures and be confident being the 'author' of them, I get them to explain their decisions and I don't think its ever to early to start this process of self assessment. When you are content that you are achieving your own goals as a photographer, that is probably the point at which you are ready to show your work more widely and seek external criticism and exposure.

As a new photographer I think it is vital to recognise that people like to pigeon hole and categorise you and recognition will come more quickly if you focus your work in one area or style for the first few years, you will get shows, publications and work if you are the guy/girl that does 'that' thing....it's a shame but it's just the way humans do things. Once you are a name in your own right, you can experiment more widely and people will accept it.

MW

How did it come about that you achieved the status of successful, professional photographer? What steps were involved in reaching your level of success?

NT

I think confidence, self belief, enthusiasm and above all energy have driven forward most of my projects and ideas. It takes a lot of faith to see through an idea you have during the night into a published book or a public exhibition. There are always times with any project when the pictures aren't coming and you begin to doubt the whole venture. I have developed strategies to get me through these periods and they come out of experience, out of having been there before. Having the confidence to experiment and do things a differently can go a long way to getting you noticed and for commercial work simply doing a great job is the best promotion you can have.

Everyone needs a break at some point, mine was being given a job on The Independent Newspaper in London at the time when that paper was leading the way and transforming the perception of newspaper photography, it was a very exciting time to be there. I have made mistakes a long the way of course, my biggest lesson was when I started to get Advertising work in New York and allowed myself to be bullied into working in a different way to my usual approach, the pictures where not good so the next time I shot for a big US Agency I behaved like a Prima Dona, ignored the client, demanded to use my usual little cameras with no tripod making spontaneous observations like I do on the street.....it was the best commercial Ad campaign I've ever shot. Those kind of lessons can only be acquired the hard way and they are the lessons that make one a safe pair of hands for expensive commercial commissions.

The climate for photographers has and is changing constantly though and we are all having to adapt quickly, my experience of 'making it' will very likely be different for someone starting out now. My advice to anyone on a photography course now would be to get out of the classroom and get some real world experience as regularly as you can, just go down and observe a professional shoot, make coffee at a photo reps office for a week and listen to the phone calls and conversations

Grenoble, France 2010 From 'The French'

Contrevoz, France 2010 From 'The French'

Le Touquet, France 2010 From 'The French'

Artemare, France 2010 From 'The French'

Lyon, France 2010 From 'The French'

Lyon, France 2010 From 'The French'

Contrevoz, France, 2010 From 'The French'

Street Scene, London

Street Scene, London

Street Scene, London

National Portrait Gallery, London

Street Scene, London

© copyright all images Nick Turpin

Yael Ben-Zion

MW

What inspired you to start taking photographs, and what is the primary inspiration for you to keep working in this field?

YBZ

While I have always been drawn to photography, I saw it merely as a hobby until I stumbled upon an introductory photo class at the Yale art school. I came to the U.S. to study for my LL.M. and J.S.D. degrees (masters and doctoral degrees in law), after being trained as a lawyer in Israel. While writing my dissertation, I took a couple of photography classes that opened my eyes (literally and metaphorically) to the potential of photography as an expressive art form. I think it had a lot to do with my teacher, David Hilliard. I found myself spending hours in the darkroom and later at home - editing and sequencing my work. It felt very different from writing my dissertation, which was intellectually challenging, but didn’t engage me the way photography did.

As I was already quite invested in law, it took me a few years before making the switch, but when I finally did, it just felt as the right thing for me to do. And I guess that this is what keeps me going – the passion and curiosity, and the stories I still want to tell.

MW

In your opinion and experience, how can emerging photographers evaluate themselves as ready to start promoting their works and seek broader exposure for their photographs? What is one vital action you would recommend photographers undertake to find their audience, be included in exhibitions, and gain professional representation?

YBZ

I think that one is ready to start promoting his or her work when they feel that they have something to say and figured out how they want to say it. A project may not always feel complete, but there is a time when it feels mature and ready to go out to the world.

I don’t know if there is one vital action I can recommend in order to have work out there, other than trying to show it to people in the field who may support it and/or offer viable advice. It can be done in different ways depending on the work, as well as on the photographer’s personality. In my case, a couple of portfolio reviews led me in the right direction.

MW

How did it come about that you achieved the status of successful, professional photographer? What steps were involved in reaching your level of success?

YBZ

Circumventing the more propound question of defining “success” and the prerequisite combination of hard work and chance, I will refer to 5683 miles away, as this is the project that put me where I currently am. 5683 miles away is a long-term project that was photographed in Israel. When I finally set down to make sense of the work, I realized that due to the variety of images and the layered tale I wanted to tell, the proper presentation for it would be in a form of a book. I created a book dummy and met with Alexa Becker of Kehrer at the portfolio review in Arles, and this is how the book was born. While I was still working on the book, I contacted Bob Gilson of the 92nd Y who offered me a show in their art gallery. The book and the exhibition gained recognition for the work and hopefully will enable me to reach wider audiences down the road.

Flags, from 5683 miles away

Milk, from 5683 miles away

Ella with Protective Gear, from 5683 miles away

Laundry, from 5683 miles away

Black Iris, from 5683 miles away

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, from Lost and Found

Indian wedding, from Lost and Found

Pocket dress, from Lost and Found

Murphy bed, from Lost and Found

Hanukkah candles and advent wreath, from Lost and Found

© copyright all images Yael Ben-Zion

Susan Burnstine

MW

What inspired you to start taking photographs, and what is the primary inspiration for you to keep working in this field?

SB

My mother documented most of my early childhood with 126 instamatics, a vintage Polaroid that worked intermittently, and an optically unappealing Pentax110 that was always buried at the bottom of her purse. She never thought or cared to protect the optics for her cameras, so the lenses were typically dirty or scratched, which resulted in grainy, blurry, imperfect photographs. I suspect that’s how a developed a respect for bad optics.

When I was eight years old my mom encouraged me begin shooting with some of her vintage cameras. From the very first picture developed, she insisted I had an “eye” for making pictures and continued to encourage me to take photographs. I became obsessed with photography, so when I was eleven, my dad built me a darkroom in the basement next to his beloved tool closet. I spent most of my high school years inhaling photo chemicals in that darkroom.

At the age of 14, I began working for a respected portrait, occasion and commercial photographer in Chicago. I worked for him throughout high school, but the fun of making pictures disappeared when it became a means to make money. I ended up walking away from the commercial photography world to pursue a life in the entertainment field for many years.

Then there was my second incarnation as a photographer…

Ever since I can remember, I’ve suffered from night terrors, which were a byproduct from a real life trauma that occurred when I was five years old. As a young child, my mother taught me to handle the debilitating effects of these dreams by drawing and painting images from the nightmares. The process of recreating these dreams through art helped eliminate some of the paralyzing fear I walked around with, and thus, it was a practice that stuck through childhood.

In my early thirties, mother died tragically and the event triggered the reemergence of night terrors again. I needed a way to cope with and process my loss along with these new nightmares haunting me, so I attempted to photograph my dreams for several years. At that point, I had no intention of becoming a fine art photographer. Matter of fact, I had no idea it was an actual profession since I had solely focused on documentary and commercial work prior. I merely began journaling, then photographing my dreams to cope with my loss. In 2005, this process lead to creating my own cameras and lenses in order to emulate what my unconscious world looks like. Twenty-two homemade cameras and lenses, eight galleries and one monograph later, here I am. Kind of like a dream.

What inspires me to keep making photographs?

The search for the answer “why?” I’m like a petulant child that refuses to stop asking questions about vital unknown, unanswerable facts in life, such as death. Making photographs afford the perfect canvas to observe, explore and imagine all the possibilities to all that remains unfamiliar or unsolved in our lives.

MW

In your opinion and experience, how can emerging photographers evaluate themselves as ready to start promoting their works and seek broader exposure for their photographs? What is one vital action you would recommend photographers undertake to find their audience, be included in exhibitions, and gain professional representation?

SB

First and foremost, it’s necessary to create a body of work that you believe in with all your heart and soul. To achieve that, you have to focus on and express something that is personally meaningful.

When I first began making images for Within Shadows, I was merely creating self-portraits of my unconscious world in attempt to cope with the unbearable realities of my conscious world. I think that’s the key… to make images that mean a great deal to you personally and which you also feel are the best possible photographs you can make at that time. The other key component is to be able to transfer your unique life experiences and vision into these images.

I am a frequent reviewer, teacher and juror and there have been times when I’ve witnessed new photographers “put the cart in front of the horse”. Some want the end result before creating a fully realized body of work, but they are skipping over the most rewarding and meaningful part of the journey. They may be technically proficient photographers, but their vision and voice has not penetrated the work yet. So it’s important to be honest with yourself and also to get the opinion of those you put the work out there. Feedback from those you trust is perhaps the most important element in the equation. If you and those that your trust believe the work is as realized as it can be and that your individual voice and vision is shining through, then it’s time to take a leap of faith and promote the work. A good place to start is reviews. They can be wonderful tools for evaluating your work and/or moving forward in your career and they have proved to be a vital and effective tool for my work over the years. There are also some contests that have the means to offer photographers a good deal of exposure and opportunities such Photolucida’s Critical Mass or the Center Awards just to name a few.

MW

How did it come about that you achieved the status of successful, professional photographer? What steps were involved in reaching your level of success?

SB

Words like “status” and “success” make me itchy since they tend to define my work in a way that has an absolute or an ending, rather than an ongoing flow. Of course we all want what we envision as success. I’d be lying if I claimed otherwise. But what is success and how does one personally define it? The definition constantly changes in my perspective and that's what makes me itchy. But if you held my arm behind my back and made me scream “uncle”until I answered what attributed toward the elements of my success, I’d be forced to confess that I work 24/7 on my art and I have always subscribed to my native blue collar, Chicagoan belief that hard work usually generates results.

As far as the steps involved in reaching the point where I’m at today, my trajectory was not the usual fare. I was represented in galleries before I finished my first body of work, Within Shadows. And I was tremendously fortunate to find an audience for the work. I should note that this scenario is not what I’d suggest for anyone else to do, but opportunity knocked at Photo LA 2007 so I opened that door. Months after my first gallery signed me, two more galleries signed me up and so on.... I was making a lot of new work, attended reviews, made a lot of great friends at reviews, won some awards, wrote my own column for Black and White Photography (UK)… basically, I haven’t stopped to take a breath since I began but I enjoy every second of it. The culmination of all the hard work I put toward the first body of work recently paid off when Charta Editions released my monograph, Within Shadows, in June 2011. Two weeks later Within Shadows won PX3’s gold prize for best fine art book of 2011. All in all, it’s been a crazy, wild ride and I eagerly anticipate the next chapter.

Bridge To Nowhere, from the series On Waking Dreams

In Passage, from the series On Waking Dreams

The Approach, from the series On Waking Dreams

Glide, from the series On Waking Dreams

Circuitous, from the series On Waking Dreams

...When?, from the series On Waking Dreams

The Road Most Traveled, from the series On Waking Dreams

Suspend, from the series Between

Grasp, from the series Between

Return, from the series Between

Yearn, from the series Between

Jump, from the series Between

Run, from the series Flight

Threshold, from the series Flight

© copyright all images Susan Burnstine

Joni Sternbach

MW

What inspired you to start taking photographs, and what is the primary inspiration for you to keep working in this field?

JS

My introduction to photography was as an art student at the School of Visual Arts. As a fine arts major, photography was a required course. I had a chance to experience it along with sculpture, film, drawing and painting. The moment when my first print appeared in the fixer was pretty magical for me and after 1/12 years I switched my major to photography and graduated with a BFA. Part of my education was learning about the history of photography and that was one of the most exciting courses. I remember the Whitney had a show that concurred with the class I was taking and I was able to see many of the amazing historic images we studied in person and that was very inspiring. I loved the way photography offered us a window on life. The picture looked real, it seemed believable, but really it’s fiction.

It’s been a long time since then and I have been working in the field now for over 25 years. I’ve taught photography, and that can also be very inspiring. However, it’s when I think about photography’s past and history and what that means to the medium and imagery today, that I get very excited. I love the idea that we can revisit old ideas and period equipment and use them to turn it all upside down and make something new and very modern; the kind of work that embraces or references the past, but talks about the present.

MW

In your opinion and experience, how can emerging photographers evaluate themselves as ready to start promoting their works and seek broader exposure for their photographs? What is one vital action you would recommend photographers undertake to find their audience, be included in exhibitions, and gain professional representation?

JS

When I was fresh out of graduate school, I felt that I was emerging for a good long time. Now the venue for emerging photographers keeps growing with the speed of technology. There are so many competitions and portfolio reviews, that a young photographer today only needs a good body of work and some cash to register for a portfolio review in order to begin to get their work out there.

I think creating a significant body of work that is real and personal is the key to finding an audience. These days an audience is not really so hard to find with all of the networking and social media. Finding a gallery however seems a bit more complicated.

Evaluating one’s own body of work however, comes with experience. The best way to gain that is to work with/for an artist/photographer you admire.

MW

How did it come about that you achieved the status of successful, professional photographer? What steps were involved in reaching your level of success?

JS

For one, tenacity and also the love of the medium have kept me in the game for a long time. But it wasn’t always a pretty picture. I spent many years feeling like a “lowly artist” and took some hard blows of rejection that wore me down. In fact, I stopped making photographs for a time and went back to drawing and painting. What seemed a bit like defeat in the moment turned out to be a positive experience and eventually brought me back to making pictures, which in fact kind of resembled drawings.

I also think the combination of having created a body of work (SurfLand) that people were responding to and one that was well liked was the first step. Winning a book prize, was the second and they worked in tandem to create the possibility of having a monograph that served as an exhibition catalogue that I believe helped to get a solo museum exhibition. But really, if I look back I have to credit the work and the people who responded to it and believed in it.

06.09.10 #1 Mathieu, from Surfland

06.09.18 #7 Claire, from Surfland

06.09.22 #5 Kathleen, from Surfland

06.10.08 #7 Michelle, Dedee & Holly, from Surfland

07.02.16 #6 Erik & Jon, from Surfland

07.02.18 #2 Woody, from Surfland

07.05.27 #5 Graham & Janine, from Surfland

07.05.28 #1 Robert, from Surfland

07.06.15 #4 Andy, from Surfland

07.06.16 #4 Grommets, from Surfland

07.09.16 #6 Jessie, from Surfland

11.03.07 #3 Nick, from Surfland

© copyright all images Joni Sternbach