Julia Fullerton-Batten

MW
What inspired you to start taking photographs, and what have been some of the most important milestones in your career up until now?


JFB
My father is a keen photographer. He started photographing earnestly when we children were born. He took his camera, then an old East German Praktica SLR, with him wherever he went.  As well as family photographs he enjoyed street photography. After a shooting session he would disappear into his home darkroom to develop and print B&W film. We would later find the prints floating in the family bath for us to examine. I can claim to have grown up with   washed off fixing solution and photography in my veins!

I had to make a career choice when I was sixteen. My parents were amazed when I told them that I was aiming to become a photographer.  The die was set and milestone after milestone came and helped to build up my career. Frankly there are too many important milestones to list; I’ll choose a few just to illuminate that my passion for photography, hard work and perseverance were a constant reason why I also, to a certain extent, created the luck that seems to have accompanied me over the years.

The first and significant milestone was, without a doubt, the career path for me, to decide to go to college to study the basics of photography and then follow this up with five years ‘apprenticeship’ assisting many professional photographers. During those five hard but rewarding years I developed many skills.

My efforts to enter and do well in photographic competitions and develop a strong portfolio and keep it constantly up-to-date led to me getting a German agent and, from them, my very first large commercial contract. I became a fully fledged professional photographer.

After a couple of years of commercial engagements I began to exercise my passion for shooting non-commercial, personal work. Through this I got from the National Portrait Gallery in London a prestigious commission to photograph portraits of sixteen very important people in the UK’s National Health Service. These were hung prominently for several months in the NPG, helping to establish my growing reputation further.

At the same time as my portraits were exhibited in the NPG I had my first solo exhibitions of my project ‘Teenage Stories’  in galleries in London, followed by my images being exhibited around the world. I also continued to win prizes for both my commercial and fine-art work, as well as for my website. I was also profiled in many national and international photographic magazines, both amateur and professional.


MW
How do you approach editing your work, and what advice would you give to others about evaluating their photographs?


JFB
After shooting a project, I find I need to distance myself from it. So I put it aside for a few days, or weeks, and keep coming back to it. I welcome opinions from other people, who may or may not be photographers.


MW
How do you decide on new projects to work on?  Do you always shoot with a concept in mind or do you wait to be inspired as you go?


JFB
I always have a concept in mind; on the day of the shoot I have everything prepared and planned. Obviously if something goes awry, I am flexible enough to adapt to the circumstance.

New project ideas occur to me constantly, some never see the light of day, others are put onto the back-burner so that I can concentrate on the specific one that I have chosen. Once my mind is made up for a particular project and I have budgeted the project, the gradual process leading up to the shoot commences. This frequently taking several months before the actual shoot. The shoot itself can take just a couple of days, but also be fairly extended, depending on the project.

The planning phase involves hardening up my ideas on scenes, choices of location, models, clothing, props, etc. The day or days of the shoot also require considerable preparation – selecting my team, hiring additional lights or equipment that may be needed, arranging the logistics of getting my team and the models to the location and for accommodation (if needed).

I plan meticulously all details of the project and the shoot itself. Post-production work, including editing (if needed), releasing the images to my agents, the public, the media, and handling all sort of enquiries is supplemental to the above. However once the project is put to bed, it’s not long before the creative juices start working anew, and the entire cycle begins again.


MW
What ways have you found successful for promoting your work and finding a receptive audience for it?


JFB
Very early in my career, still an assistant, I decided to enter photographic competitions and develop a powerful portfolio. After my first agent found me, I now have agents in many countries, who are not only responsible for drumming up business, both commercial and fine-art, and also for getting my work exhibited.  I have already alluded to my success with photographic magazines, which also is a powerful tool for promoting my work. I have also had a book published.
In the meantime, I have continuously expanded my promotional activities with a website, and occasionally by using Facebook.. I frequently change the front-page of my web-site. This avoids the viewer getting bored with seeing the same front-page every visit.  I also include information about forthcoming exhibitions of my work anywhere in the world, and have added a blog which gives up-to-date news about awards, details of exhibitions, and anything else of relevance.

 Custody Battle, from the series Mothers and Daughters

 Departure, from the series Mothers and Daughters

 Pretty New Thing, from the series Mothers and Daughters

 Miriam, from the series Unadorned

 Ava, from the series Unadorned

 Jessica, from the series Unadorned

 Night Dress, from the series Awkward

 Yellow Dress, from the series Awkward

Yuen, from the series Blind

Anna, from the series Blind

Harajuka, Tokyo, 2013

Shimo, Tokyo, 2013

 Vlada, Egoiste Magazine

 Client: Renaissance

 Client: Renaissance

 Client: Schizophrenia

 © copyright all images Julia Fullerton-Batten, all rights reserved

Stephen DiRado

MW
What inspired you to start taking photographs, and what have been some of the most important milestones in your career up until now?


SDR
My father, a professional artist, trained me at a very early age to draw and paint. He also passionately exposed me to the history of art by way of numerous field-trips to art museums. Aside of the grandiose paintings and sculpture, it was the photography that intrigued me the most. At around the age of twelve, using my father’s medium format camera, I got to explore and document my surroundings. The second I shot my first roll of film and inspected the contact sheet I knew I was hooked.

Unlike the slow and deliberate act of painting or drawing, making photographs is electrifying; you succeed or fail in rapid successions. The camera also connected me to community; giving me purpose to intimately observe family and friends. This is a reoccurring theme that I have been exploring for well over forty years.

Checking off important milestones in my career:

A.
At twelve, I fell in love with the medium of photography. This included every aspect of it, from the process of shooting, editing, darkroom work as well as the enjoying the audience the resulting material attracts.

B.
In my teens, I worked as a journalist for a local paper. This experience helped me perfect my craft and to articulate the best possible narrative. One learns quickly that lousy photographs rarely are published but you can bet on good ones having the chance to make the front page.

C.
College accelerated my explorations to help me find an individual voice. It added the question: “How is my work valid or pertinent in our time?” I also fell in love with films through a number of courses. Movies from this point on will have a major influence on how I construct a photograph. I also started using a 4”x5” view camera.

D.
After college, I committed to making work exclusively for myself at all costs. I washed windows and worked in a lab to generate an income. And very content to function on this level.

E.
At twenty-five I produced Bell Pond. It was my first mature body of work that depicted an urban community that frequented a public park and pond. It legitimized my career as a photographer concluding with a major show, sales and articles.

F.
My next project Mall Series took three years to complete. I spent thousands of hours documenting mall habitat in one inner city mall. It concluded with my first museum exhibition. I was very proud of this work but knew it was too familiar for most people to see objectively. At that time, it was not well received.

G.
In my late twenties I purchased an 8x10 view camera. And I have been using it ever since.

H.
From this point onward I started a series of projects that will guide me for decades: Dinner Series, Beach People, Jacob’s House, Portraits and Celestial Series are some of the major ones.

I.
Receiving grants and fellowships like the John Simon Guggenheim, NEA, and numerous Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowships, enormously helped liberate the burden of the expenses of materials and an occasional piece of equipment to continue my projects.

J.
With Dad, is a twenty year commitment to document my father succumbing to Alzheimer’s. An obviously personal project that will be marked as my most difficult, and yet most spiritually based in my life. I was the unofficial artist in residents in a nursing home the last seven years of my father’s life. Its profound effect has been the glue for all art to follow in my life.

K.
The making and editing of my autobiographical film Summer Spent over four years has changed how I evaluate my still photography. It raised my awareness to beware of becoming complacent or formulaic and for me to keep rethinking my past accomplishments to guide new work.  

L.
Teaching students how to see. This is an on-going process that has changed over decades. Each generation of students have a different perspective on how they interpret the world. My mission is to be sensitive to this so as to work effectively with them. This style of teaching also feeds me and helps keeps my art honest and connected to the present world.


MW
How do you approach editing your work, and what advice would you give to others about evaluating their photographs?


SDR
I deliberately work with a cumbersome 8”x10” film view camera so as to think through an image before making a photograph. This brings my editing down to about one in six photographs that are keepers. A keeper is defined as a work that doesn’t hold anything back and allows me to identify to the subject on a number of levels. Universally editing is simply about weeding out images that do not add up. All good work comes from having a well thought-out idea. If an image does not equal my concept, then it is time to let it go.

Also I am not afraid to fail because failure breeds success. Strange as it is, making an incredibly bad photograph, and be painfully aware of it, means you hit rock-bottom. This sets up a series of challenges to break into a new territory. It is frightening as taking on a new relationship.


MW
How do you decide on new projects to work on? Do you always shoot with a concept in mind or do you wait to be inspired as you go?


SDR
New projects are born from existing ones. One day you look back and you realize that all the while you were shooting landscapes a portrait or two found their way into the pile.  Over time, you start asking yourself questions about them, and why are they inspiring. And before you know it, a project is in the works.

My Celestial Series might be one of a few acceptations. I am only engaged when an event takes place. Comets are
fairly rare, they appear for days or weeks, and then go away. It is like a brief affair, you become acquainted, fall in love, thinking you have a handle on it all, and before you know it, it fades away.


MW
What ways have you found successful for promoting your work and finding a receptive audience for it?


SDR
The work always comes first for me with no specified audience intended. This keeps me independent to explore and expand possibilities with my work without the stress of diluting it in any way.  I can never predict what will be successful or appealing to an audience out there. I am my own worst critic, and if I feel the work is soft in any way or lacking in depth, it will never be witnessed by others and I am most likely to destroy any evidence that it existed at all. Years back, I started photographing the stars and celestial events because it was simply a distraction from my other work and a time to play. A number of galleries insisted on showing this work and it sold incredibly well. Museums and collectors were hungry for it. I could have never predicted this. The work I made of my father succumbing to Alzheimer’s was never made with any intentions of making money. Far more importantly I made photographing and caring for him my job. Very early into his illness we discussed my intentions as a collaborative effort. It was near the end of his life, when he no longer recognized me or the camera that it became difficult to keep shooting. But at the same time, it was the most creative period of this work. It was my way of surviving and pushing through something we both started.

I cannot tell you what will happen next in my career. Projects continue and they expand and morph into other projects. I still play all the time and fail miserably as well. I am sure something of interest to others will come about. It always does.      

 Harold and Rebecca, Aquinnah, MA, August 13, 2011, from the series Beach People

 Jenna, Aquinnah, MA, September 1, 1012, from the series Beach People

 Rebecca, Aquinnah, MA, August 19, 2012, from the series Beach People

Roger, Aquinnah, MA, September 15, 2012, from the series Beach People

 Cheryl, Michael and Jamie, Worcester, MA, 1983, from the series Bell Pond

 Freddie and Terri, Worcester, MA, 1983, from the series Bell Pond

 Hale Bopp, Spencer, MA, April 30, 1997, from the series Celestial

Merrimack, NH, January 9, 2011, from the Dinner Series

 Worcester, MA, September 24, 2001, from the Dinner Series

 Jacob, from the series Jacob's House

Worcester, MA, 1985, from the Mall Series

Worcester, MA, 1984, from the Mall Series

Worcester, MA, 1986, from the Mall series

Gene, Marlboro, MA, January 28, 2006, from the series With Dad

 Gene, Marlboro, MA, November 6, 2009, from the series With Dad

Gene, Worcester, MA, May 1998, from the series With Dad


© copyright all images Stephen DiRado, all rights reserved

Joshua Lutz

MW

What inspired you to start taking photographs, and what have been some of the most important milestones in your career up until now?

JL

I started taking pictures to have something to print. I did't really like taking pictures so much, I liked printing. I liked escaping the world by being in the dark and listening to music. The picture making was incidental. It wasn't until I started to not like the images that I was printing that I started to think about what to photograph. As far as milestones go they usually aren’t the ones I think they will be. The ones that move the work and change my process are not related to what typically constitutes a milestone.  Usually its just a conversation or an encounter that changes my direction and not an award or a show. Those things act more as placeholders like New Years Eve or birthdays. 

MW

How do you approach editing your work, and what advice would you give to others about evaluating their photographs?

JL

There are all different types of editing for all different types of projects. I generally take a long time and that becomes part of the process. I like to sit with work and move it around for as long as I can. I do not trust instinct or gut reaction. Something moves me for whatever reason and then I continue to ask why and if it continues to move me a month or two later and then hopefully it can stick for longer as well.  The shooting is much more instinctual, you dont have the luxury of time when you are behind the camera. Something can happen, the light could change and that moment is gone.  As far as advice goes. I would suggest look at as much work as possible. When you see a show or look at a book find what works rather than what doesn't. There is a tendency to reject so much work and that usually comes from a place of not knowing or simply being confused. 

MW

How do you decide on new projects to work on?  Do you always shoot with a concept in mind or do you wait to be inspired as you go?

JL

I make work very similarly to how I read books as I have a few going on at once and occasionally one rises to the top. There are a dozen books next to my bed and some of have been there for a year or more occasionally picking them up only to set them aside again. Generally its the previously finished work that ends up informing what that next thing will be for me.  I tend to want to make new work to have a conversation with the last work and not be a repetition of it. I do wait to be inspired but that inspiration usually isn't to go and photograph it is to think through an idea. The next step is to research that idea. The photographs come last. 

MW

What ways have you found successful for promoting your work and finding a receptive audience for it?

JL

I always come back to the idea of right intention. If my intentions are from a good place that it doesn't feel like promoting. If my intentions fall off track then no amount of promotion can bring it back. Basically I come back to the question of goals. If it is to make as much money as possible, I have failed tremendously. If it is to engage a conversation and have a bunch of people see the work then promoting becomes something that is innate in the process. 

School Bus

 Hangnot, Slipnot

 Fresh Seafood

 Balancing Rock

 Antabuse

 Do Not Wake

 Personal Belongings

 Wisconsin Layers

 Whitestone Bridge

 Wall Collapsing

 Emergency

 Exit 17

 Harlem Valley

 Fuck You, I

 Quiet Room

Roots

On Carpal Tunnel

© copyright all images Joshua Lutz, all rights reserved.

Julie Blackmon

MW

What inspired you to start taking photographs, and what have been some of the most important milestones in your career up until now?

JB

It was a Photo 1 class in college.  I was 19, and it this is where I was first introduced to the work of artists like Sally Mann, Diane Arbus, Nick Nixon, Helen Levitt, etc.   I had never seen anything that moved me so much.    I was blown away.  But in the subject matter of these iconic works, I recognized some interesting aspects of my own life.   As I started shooting for my class assignments, I didn’t have to go further than a couple blocks (my family lived close to the university).  I was the oldest of nine, and when I’d show up with my camera, I could find any number of things going on --- like my mom having a garage sale, with my little sisters in charge of the money box – all the while eating donuts with their roller skates on.   And then maybe my 85-year-old grandfather with Alzheimer’s would be sitting in the middle of all of that with one of the babies on his lap.   I was lucky that way.  There was always something worth shooting at any given time.   

And even though I didn’t really go back to making photographs in this way for another 15 years, I never stopped thinking about photography.   That class changed the way I saw life around me.  

When I started shooting seriously again about 8 or 9 years ago, I really just wanted to get some good pictures of my kids, etc.    I didn’t think about it as a possible career.  But over the next year or two, the work became less and less about my own children.  I guess I wanted something more.   Those days in photo class must’ve stuck with me.  A friend at the time encouraged me to enter them in a contest.  I didn’t even know the photo world existed until then.  When I won the Center award for the project competition in 2006, that was probably the biggest turning point, simply because it put my work out there for people to see.  Not long after that Catherine Edelman in Chicago gave me a show, and other galleries followed.   

MW

How do you approach editing your work, and what advice would you give to others about evaluating their photographs?

JB

I think being able to edit well is something that just comes with doing a lot of it.   There’s no shortcut in developing this sensibility.  Sometimes though, you’re not sure – and if I’m in doubt, just getting the reaction of a family member as I go along is helpful – even if they know nothing about photography.  They usually have an immediate reaction (or not) if it’s a strong image – without overthinking it.  

MW

How do you decide on new projects to work on?  Do you always shoot with a concept in mind, or do you wait to be inspired as you go?

JB

I’m probably a little different that way than most photographers.  I think it’s expected that you work on a series for a couple years, and then you change gears and do another completely different series.   The way I’m working, I think image to image, rather than about the whole project. And then later I can detect the gradual shifts that have taken place, and separate the work that way.    

It’s like that famous book about writing, “Bird by Bird,” by Anne Lamott.     She talks about how when her brother was 10 and had had 3 months to do research paper on birds, but he’d put it off until the night before it was due. He was in tears and immobilized by the hugeness of the task in front of him.  Their father sat down, put his arm around him and said  “Bird by Bird, buddy.  Just take it bird by bird.”   I loved that.  I apply it to everything that overwhelms me. 

MW

What ways have you found successful for promoting your work and finding a receptive audience for it?

JB

When I first started shooting (aside from what I did in school), as I mentioned before, I didn’t know the world of portfolio reviews existed.  And, looking back, I think that was a good thing.  It allowed me to focus on the work.  I worked on that first body of work for at least two years before showing it anyone.  I think too many starting out are thinking about how to get their work out into the world, when their time to could be better spent shooting (and editing).   Too much focus on the end result can mess you up.  Plus it’s a lot less emotionally draining than sending out hundreds of CDs and hearing nothing back!  I really think if you focus on doing the best work you can do, and it’s really meant to be out there in the world, it will find its audience (or the world will find it) without too much effort.  

Patio

 Baby Toss

 Homegrown Food

Book Club

Olive & Market Street

 Loading Zone

 Hair

Night Movie

 Picnic

 Power of Now

 Queen

Stock Tank


all images © copyright Julie Blackmon, all rights reserved.