FRAMES Photography Podcast
FRAMES Photography Podcast
Ashok Sinha
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In today's episode, W. Scott Olsen speaks with Ashok Sinha, a New York–based photographer and filmmaker, who approaches architecture, interiors, and creative culture with a contemporary architectural eye, making images that are clean, spacious, and deeply attuned to a sense of place.
You can visit Ashok's website here.
Find out more and join FRAMES here.
I don't have the luxury of having all those tools at my disposal. I'm not necessarily carrying my entire gear with me. So what I do is I use the power of limitation to tell my story. And how can I use what I have to tell the story in a way with the limitations and make unique pictures that probably hasn't made been made before.
SPEAKER_04Because in all sorts of photography, there is a difference between quality and magic. There is a difference between competency and actually a kind of excellence or talent or insight and a way to make what is for most of us a mundane photograph absolutely pop, not only with color or vibrancy, but to pop with storytelling, to pop with there, there's a reason that this image actually is compelling or important or successful. And a lot of that talent comes from experience. Yes, it comes from insight, yes, but a lot of it is also just a way of seeing the world, a way of approaching the visual world in a way that is offered to somebody else, where you're thinking my image is not only for me, but it is to tell a story to somebody else too. One of the most difficult, I think, one of the most difficult ways to tell a story in photography is with architecture or interiors. I mean, how in the world do you take a picture of a house and make it more than a picture of a house? To make it a story, to actually have something about it become important. And I gotta tell you, there is nobody on the planet who's doing a better job of this than today's guest, Ashok Sinha. Um, Ashok's, his work is just phenomenal. And if you if I'm not the only one that thinks this. You look at the number of publications. There's Architectural Digest and a wallpaper, The New York Times, Bloomberg Business Week, Los Angeles Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Wired Guardian Time. The list just goes on and on and on. Um the awards that are out there, the clients that are out there, there's Adobe, there's Amazon, there's Chase, there's intercontinental hotels, lots of exhibitions, lots of awards. I was just looking at the awards here, you know, a couple of seconds ago. American Photography, American Society of Media Photographers, Society of Design, just you know, the uh Paris Prize, American Institute of Architects. The world is looking at this guy's work and saying there's something special here. And I could not agree more because I've tried to take some architectural images, I've tried to take some interiors. Uh, and the work can be absolutely thrilling. It can also just fall flat. And I I'm really interested to hear how so much of his work is really in that level of excellence and insight. Ashak, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?
SPEAKER_03I'm very good. Thank you so much, Scott. That was uh quite an introduction.
SPEAKER_04Well, man, and the the it's just, I mean, I look at your stuff, and you talk a lot about story. You talk an awful lot about what it is you're actually trying to do with architecture, with interiors, with hospitality, um, and the the bleeds in there. I mean, I don't mean like in printing, but you know, how architecture, photography actually then becomes portraiture, or how, you know, an interior becomes a short film. You've got an understanding of storytelling that is not sort of limited or or narrow, um, but it is focused. It is laser sharp in terms of what it is you intend. So I'm looking forward to today. Let's start with probably the craziest part of your bio, because I'm you know doing just a little bit of research, and you had a career before you got into photography that you really can't tell me very much about. Yes, uh, that's right.
SPEAKER_03It can be described in a few words, and that's about it. Okay. Um, because I used to work on uh uh US Army satellites, and that's all I have to say about that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but you you weren't designing like the solar panels. You you you were doing important stuff uh in terms of what they could actually do, right?
SPEAKER_03Uh I I kind of within the parameters of what I was told, I was just doing a little uh part of this big cog uh machinery, and uh that's that's pretty much all I had to do. Okay.
SPEAKER_04But the reason I love it, because I was watching you know a presentation you did, and you said you didn't like that lifestyle. So you took a sabbatical to quote find yourself as it as you know, sort of 1960-ish as that sounds. Um, but to do that, you you turned to photography. I mean, you could have turned to sports, you could have turned to baking. Tell me how the camera became the vehicle for your step away from that earlier career.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think um it goes back to perhaps now that I look back, I think maybe that career did teach me to look beyond and not be so uh structured, although that structure really helps me in everything I do today, including every shoot I approach. So to say that I took that time off and took to photography was uh what you started off by saying is storytelling. Uh I think storytelling can take different shapes and forms. And for me, was I I I think I realized later on in life that I was actually a visual person and I was being pigeonholed into doing something that I was not meant to do or not the best at doing. Um though I did an excellent job at it. So I think uh the camera was a way for me to, yes, first and foremost, document my experiences, but uh also a way to say things I never could have expressed in words. I was never a writer. You know, I I could not do so many things, but maybe there was a way I could uh see things that uh it's only mine, uh even though maybe it has been done many, many times before. And people have seen the same place uh over and over again. But what do I how do I see it? I mean, it could be a speck on the ground, it could be somebody's foot, whatever it may be, you know, like so I I took it to I took that as a sort of a challenge because I'm one of those guys I can't sit still. Um and I said this would be great because then I would keep it could keep me busy and find a purpose to my sabbatical.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Were you when you were seven or fifteen, were you the kid running around with an intimatic? I mean, was the camera early in your life or was it a a later discovery?
SPEAKER_03No, it was never um I never had an intimatic. As I le I read a lot of photographer bios, and I uh often see that was a you know their the introduction and most of these people that I admire had. I never had that. Although photography uh did play a role. I mean, photography like you know, growing up, it was on you know family vacation, somebody would have a camera, yeah. You know, that kind of stuff. My mom was an avid amateur videographer with her with her handicam, and we were her subjects, and she was a director and cinematographer. That's different. But uh but it was not something that was easily accessible. You know, it had 24 frames to a roll, and film was expensive, so it was something special. It was not something that you walk around with every day.
SPEAKER_04So how how did you how did you wind up with one in your hand then when you stepped away from the satellites?
SPEAKER_03I was always seeing things visually. I mean, even if I when I had I borrowed the family camera on vacations, I would shoot stuff that is different from family pictures, right? And then eventually when I I I remember when I was going to college, I was like, you know what, I gotta I gotta go into, I don't know what it was, but I I was intrigued by the process of transport transforming a uh scene into a picture. And I was like, oh, maybe I should go and try my hand into black and white photography and see how it feels to develop film, be in the dark room and make something that it's kind of intriguing to me. So I got into that process and I and I had a minolta that was just languishing somewhere. And uh I learned how to you know load film, I learned how to uh develop uh in my bathroom, in my studio apartment. Um and I I was really into making just these uh small little black and white prints. Um to me was really exciting. And I really don't know. It's been such a I cannot remember to that one moment that I said, okay, this is my first time holding a camera. It's been kind of like in and out of my life.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know.
SPEAKER_04So, okay, you tootle off to Rio. You're on your sabbatical, you're you're looking for some self-discovery here. And you got a camera in your hand. You could have done landscape photography, you could have done street photography, you could have done sports. Um, but you tell a really cool story about visiting the Oscar Niemeyer Museum and having a kind of epiphany.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Uh you know, well, the one thing about I would say about that year was that this sense of freedom, uh, which I don't think I have ever had like that, or maybe hopefully maybe one more time in my life I will get. But that was a special time because I got to I really had uh the opportunity to experience everything. Like uh I did actually uh experience and photograph landscapes and people and food and travel and anything you can imagine, random portraits of strangers, uh, made a lot of friends over the course of the year, got invited into people's homes to photograph interiors and whatnot. But uh that encounter at Rio was very, very special because you know, because I think uh when I landed in Rio, I did actually did not know who Oscar Niemeyer was at that moment. And um like and this was this was towards the end of the year, so I was a little bit more sophisticated in my approach when I landed in a new city. And by the way, this sabbatical was not planned in terms of where I would go. Uh, this was very much impromptu, it was very whimsical. So spin the globe and see where your finger lands. Pretty much. We had to travel east to west, and so I was very good, I was very good with longitude. And I have some crazy stories about which cities were uh degree east or degree west. So I had to make amends to my travel schedule and plans to make sure that we flew through the right cities to keep my ticket valid.
SPEAKER_04Did you buy one of those around the world tickets where you have to keep going the same direction?
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes. Ah, I love those things. Okay, keep going. So so that's why um we had to be very much aware of our geography. Um and I always loved geography, by the way. Uh you know, maps and whatnot. And so ended up, landed up in uh had to go to Brazil and uh said, Oh, we have to go to Rio, of course. Uh but aside from the I mean, the first thing you think of Rio is beaches. I'm like, all right, great, you gotta go check out the beaches and you know, gotta check out the you know, see the vibe of the city. But what else is there? And then I learned about this crazy thing in Rio, this building that exists that looks like uh uh a UFO landed in the middle of the city. I'm like, I gotta go check this out, like what this is about. And it turns out it's a museum, so even better because I love museums. I get a lot of inspiration from my work from art, not necessarily photography. So this was a no-brainer, right? You go go to check out this amazing building as well as go check out a museum. So I went there and I was just I was just smitten by the the setting and how this building just sat on the landscape perched on on a little cliff over the water with the city in the background. I mean, you couldn't, you just couldn't uh take your eyes away from this because it looked like a giant inverted saucer from Mars or some other big planet somewhere. And uh I had to the closer I got to it, I was like, oh my god, like this is crazy. And I think when you talk about story, I wanted to capture that experience, that sense of place that is so important to architecture and to anything that's being built, because without that context, it's just a structure. But when you give that context and you have that sense of how it made you feel, now then it becomes something else and something very, very personal. So that's why I think the pictures I made uh of that building were very different, maybe, I hope, from others that are out there, because this is my way of seeing that. So when I walked closer, I was just aside from just admiring the building and going deep dive into my just looking at shapes and forms. I mean, looking at geometry. Uh, there's a role of geometry in architecture, of course. But how does that manifest and translate into photographs? How do you make a 3D object translate to a 2D space? And how do you make give that shape and form? Of course, you have light, and there's a way of seeing light and appreciating light. Um so I use that as an it as a tool to kind of make my photographs and then adding scale to it, like how do you show something's huge and something small? I mean, there was one one photograph I made, which I think I don't know if it's still on my website, but there's a kid, there's a kid running in front of the building. So when I first got there, it was empty, no one was there, which was great, you know. Like then I thought of myself, like, well, I know this building is so huge and so giant and this imposing in the landscape. How do I make it, how do I translate that to others who've never been here before? So I had to wait for that one moment where someone walked to the frame and there was no one to be found except for this one lone kid running back and forth. And I was, you know, like when people see you photograph and they're very courteous and like, oh, I don't want to run in front of your picture. I was like, no, no, no, please do, please do, because I do want you in front of my picture because that will actually make the picture. So the parents were like, no, no, no, he's running, like, it's okay, it's okay. I'm not photographing. And in my mind, I'm like, oh my God, please run in front of my picture. And so the kid runs in front of my picture, and it, you know, I just happened to capture the right frame where he's centered in the frame the way I wanted to. I've broken all photography, quote unquote, rules, but hey, for me, that was the moment. And I think that lent to me that that first frame. And then I just went on and thinking of what else if I were to, by the way, all these things I did on my on my sabbatical were assignments that I assigned to myself. So I was the editor.
SPEAKER_04I want to get to that in a second. Yeah, that's because you you you you have an interesting philosophy about who is the client and who is the uh the contractor at that time. Right. But with with this shot with the kid in there, you actually have several other compositions of that same setting. There's a couple where you're much farther away and you can sort of see the building, you know, on the hillside and that kind of stuff. Yeah, you you you've got a couple other approaches, and yet this is the one that sings, or this is the one that you put out there uh first. Were you aware of what you were doing in terms of composition, or or was this the happy accident that started everything else?
SPEAKER_03No, I mean, for this one, I knew the composition. This was already, the camera was already set up on the tripod, and I was waiting for some. I mean, what I often do is I often say that, you know, painters have an inherent advantage. They can create landscapes and worlds that does not does not exist. Whereas us photographers, the frame is our canvas, and we make things happen within the canvas to make it sing, to make the composition, and make the picture, whatever, whatnot. So when I do find something that could make an amazing picture, I'm just patient. I just hold on to it and say, okay, what else can I do? Or what else can I what can happen here? Or what how I can anticipate? A lot of times is that too. Like how do people react? What will will what will this person do uh in this moment? And so I'm just hopeful. In this case, I was hopeful that if I set up the frame the way I did, something's gonna happen, which is gonna complete my picture. Everything else was in place, the light was in place, you know, everything. So yeah.
SPEAKER_04You had you had balanced the mountains underneath the the bowl shape and that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_03Everything. Everything was the way I wanted to see it. I just needed that one final element to complete the puzzle. How long were you sitting there? Uh I would say a good 20 minutes or so. Um, that's not long. Okay. That's not long at all. I mean, it wasn't that long. I mean, I mean, I've if you count the whole thing, I mean, I found the the vantage point and set up the camera. That may be 45 minutes altogether, but to wait for this one thing to happen. 20 minutes. However, you know, as you say, like, you know, the Tom Petty song, the waiting is the hardest part. So um it is pretty hard. It felt longer. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04But it's cooking what what about this image spoke to you? Um, you know, and say, oh, this is you know, the architecture, all that kind of stuff. This is something I need to pay more attention to.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think what spoke to me was how do you, first of all, have the audacity or the freedom, the creative freedom to create something that bold that will be timeless and that would be admired by not only people in the design world, but anyone. Like, how do you create your own mark? How do you make a signature through architecture? And what does what how does it how does it brand a city or how does it make it into a landmark? I mean, in New York, we're we have so many landmarks. People associate the building. Normally, people associate New York City with buildings, if you notice. Right. Always talk about buildings. So, how do you make some? So I I when I saw that, I'm like, oh my God, this is just symbolic of this this modernist city, what was going on at that time. And I more and more I read about Oscar Niemeyer and eventually Brasilia. I learned about the whole movement, and I was an outsider. Uh, I'm still an outsider in a sense. I never went to architecture school, but how did that happen that someone like me was so enamored by it and then and then started reading up on this architect and through my pictures because I was just interested in the beauty of it, the structure of it, and more importantly, like I said, the place, the sense of place and how it made me feel. So all that kind of uh drew me to this building, and the other pictures were essentially pieces of that story.
SPEAKER_04You have or you had um a really interesting kind of self-philosophy is in terms of what you were doing. Where you talked about you're c you had a client the entire time you were there, and the client was you. Yes. Uh and and and you were gonna come up with a deliverable every single day. Um tell me where this idea came from and tell me how it worked in practice.
SPEAKER_03Um because you know, every ever since I was um I guess 14 or 15, I always had to be accountable in terms of I had a job or I had to do something. And I always believed in the fact that if you're not accountable, nothing happens. And for me, maybe again, going back to the my structured past, I had to have this idea of having a deliverable at the end of the day or something, a product that I produce, and more importantly, putting myself, giving myself that challenge. I love challenges and putting myself in unknown situations. I do even to this week. My last shoot was a challenge I put myself in. I don't know why, but I did. Um and to come up with something that has that kind of cadence that I want to see this happen so that it's not just kind of I'm doing it, but I'm doing it for a reason. I I gotta have a purpose. And maybe it's a little bit anal, and maybe that's why I shoot interiors a lot. But um, but that whole idea came from the fact that I want to come out, I want to take this year um to not only obviously take a year off and travel and see these amazing places, but I want to have a body of work. And how do you make a body of work? You make a body of work by creating stories, by creating groupings, whatever it may be, a series of work. And that can only happen if you have the discipline of making the pictures, putting them together, and doing it over and over and over again. And that was my schooling, that was my training, that was my whatever you call it, real world, um, whatever, you know, job assignment. So I was, yes, I was the client and I was the producer, photographer. Um, I had to produce something every day. Well, was your client mostly happy? Client was very tough on the photographer, I have to say. Client was very, very tough. Um, sometimes client would uh demand things that was just uh physically took a toll, and um in some ways it had its. Skewed view to uh everywhere I went. Uh, you know, I had to come up with something. So I was I I mean, this is true. I mean, I don't know if I've talked about this much. I used to be especially unhappy if I did not make a nice portrait of some stranger I walked up to and whatever, you know, there are certain things like that. I I just street portraits, yeah. Yeah, I had to do them, and not just like lurking and shooting, but actually meeting the person, knowing their story, sitting down with them, that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_04Was was success the process or was success the product then? Do you that the the the image finally was satisfying, or were you getting out of your comfort zone just approaching strangers and saying hello?
SPEAKER_03Uh I think um, like I said, the the client was very tough. So it has a combination of A, you do it, uh, but B, you come up with something that takes it takes what you had in mind first. So it had to have the environment, it had to have the person in the right place and had to tell a story about why this person is here and why it's unimportant to him or her. So it was a combination of everything, you know. Uh, and sometimes like this architecture story, it that wasn't possible. But then the brief was different. The brief was, hey, create a story out of this one building and what it means to be there.
SPEAKER_04Um were you that intentional? Did you give yourself sort of a brief in the morning saying this is this is your job?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I mean, the more the longer I was on the road, I I was more sophisticated in terms of reading up a little bit, you know, ahead of time before I got there, usually on the plane or waiting at the airports or train station, bus. You know, we did I did all kinds of stuff. And said, okay, these are the possible story ideas, which one is which one is attainable uh given the time I'll be there, or what means I have, more importantly, what access can I get? And obviously I was really open to uh whatever came my way, but just have a general idea as to make a story about this or this or that kind of thing. Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_04So okay, fast forward a little bit at a completely different latitude. Uh, you fall in love with a staircase in Toronto.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_03That staircase is so cool.
SPEAKER_04It's like uh, oh my God.
SPEAKER_03Just not a lot of people say that about staircases. I want you to know that. I have a staircase fetish, and you know, oh my god, that staircase is so cool.
SPEAKER_04I mean, I felt like tell the story.
SPEAKER_03Tell the story. If you haven't been to Toronto, or if you have been to Toronto, go to the art gallery of Ontario. And there is a staircase in the central atrium uh that is made of plywood and it's bent plywood, and it's uh by Frank Gehry, who recently passed away. But I I had this amazing similar kind of feeling when I saw that building in Rio, when I saw the staircase. And again, how do you make a story about a staircase? Uh you do because you just translate the feeling you had when you first saw it and you were just enamored by it, and you make other people fall in love with it because most people probably don't pay that attention, pay that much attention to it. But it's a work of art and it's a sculpture all in one. So when I went to that, I was actually on a different assignment, and this is my day off from an assignment. I actually assignment and a show opening. Oh, okay. Uh so I had the day off, and my client told me, You have to go to the art gallery. So I went. And I little and I did not I knew that the uh you know Frank Geary was from Toronto, and I but I didn't know about the staircase because people talk about the building and whatnot. So when I first saw it, I was like, Oh my god, this is so amazing. So I I walked up and down one section of it, and I think I kept doing that for a long time. Getting your steps in, okay. Get my steps in, you know, what better way? And then I started just uh thinking about this in my head, saying, This is a this is a this is a little mini-series I can make about the staircase, and I just ended up making a lot of images of it over I would say two, three hours at least, if not longer. Which actually eventually got published in a magazine. I can't remember, but it was published in a magazine, one or two images off it. But that was not the point. The point is that again, I went back to the idea of I had to capture this experience of this staircase into something of a visual story.
SPEAKER_00Let's take just a quick break. We hope very much that you are enjoying today's episode. The very fact that you are listening to this podcast suggests that photography means a lot to you. And if that's the case, you might want to have a look at Frames, Quarterly Printed Photography magazine. We truly believe that excellent photography belongs on paper. Visit readframes.com to find out more about our publication and use the coupon code podcast to receive a recurring 10% discount on your new Frames magazine subscription. And now, back to today's conversation.
SPEAKER_04Therein lies the step into magic that that eludes so many of us because architects, you know, designers, I mean, they're all about design. They're all about the you know the emotional impact of a physical structure in a certain space. But now you're standing there with a lens, and it could be anywhere from nine millimeters to six hundred. Um you you've got varying lines. How do you approach the design of a shot and simple composition when you're dealing with architecture and trying to convey not only the emotional experience that they may have intended, but the one that you are having? It strikes me that composition and design are really aspects of elegance in architecture photography.
SPEAKER_03For something that is um, you know, if I was commissioned to shoot something, it entails a lot of a different kind of collaboration between me and the architect and the designer. And that sort of informs what kind of compositions tell the story of design. Because uh I have a viewpoint, the architect definitely has a viewpoint, and so does designer, whoever's involved. So that's a culmination of all that, and the lens choices and the compositions are sort of a collaboration. When you are when I'm just seeing things without any like for the first time, or this is my personal work, I don't have the luxury of having all those tools at my disposal. I'm not necessarily carrying my entire gear with me. So what I do is I use the power of limitation to tell my story, and how can I use what I have to tell the story in a way with the limitations and make unique pictures that probably hasn't made been made before? So just as an example, if I had a 50 millimeter lens with me and that's all I had, how could I use my feet, my angle where I'm looking at, and the light and whatnot to make maybe I don't get to shoot wide pictures, maybe I only get to make vignettes, and so be it. So I think depending on the context of uh how what I'm photographing for who I'm photographing, the choices of compositions and the tools and techniques vary.
SPEAKER_04Well, talk to me more about a term you just used there, because you you used this when you were talking, we'll get to this in a little bit. Um you you know, you had a visit to um a Frank Lloyd Wright House that has an interesting story. Um, but when you were talking about environmental portraiture, you kept saying that you're shooting in vignettes. What do you mean?
SPEAKER_03So shooting in vignettes, as in, you know, I am choosing uh I think the diff most difficult part, especially environmental portraiture, is to identify this sort of location that is important to the subject in that I'm who I'm photographing. So I'm always taking a wide view of a space and kind of compressing it into this one area and a vignette of the whole space into this one area and saying that, okay, that's gonna be my again, my frame, and I'm gonna have this person be in this frame because there's a relationship. So I'm constantly looking for that synergy, so to speak, and and taking a wide view and saying, I'm gonna make I'm gonna make this picture because I want the viewer to focus on this aspect and this one only, and taking the rest of it out.
SPEAKER_04Is that aspect your choice? Is it the client's? You know, assuming that you're on assignment, um, combination or depends what?
SPEAKER_03Uh it's usually my choice. Um and then uh but I'd always but I always always do ask the client or even the subject sometimes, like, hey, you know, um what do you think of? I was thinking of these three areas, here, here, and here. Which of the three would be your favorite or your top choice? And tell me why? And normally I don't even have to ask why. People are very, I mean, by the time I spend a lot of time beforehand before I have someone in front of my camera. So by the time we're kind of like friendly and we're talking and they would say, Oh my god, yeah, that corner is so cool. You know, I'd sit there, read a book, or that corner or that angle is cool because, you know, for whatever reason. So I usually get a sense of which one they resonate with. And that way I know the picture will be more sort of interactive in a sense that they will use that to their to the pose there or to their sit, you know, how they sit kind of thing.
SPEAKER_04Well, you know, you you you also tell an interesting story about an early website. Uh, you were looking at some analytics. The travel shots, that kind of stuff, you know, we're we're getting polite attention, but people were spending time with the architecture shots. Imagine you're us for a second. Why are we drawn to pictures of architecture?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think um people always think that architecture is just about uh you know concrete and bricks and materials and whatnot. There's not there's no soul to it. But when you see something that speaks to you, because at the end of the day, we are most of us at least lived live in a built environment, some sort, and design is all around us, and we are informed by the way we interact, do things where we live is by design and how that space makes us feel. So when you see that connection, people see that in a different light, how architecture can tell a story and make it relatable. I think that maybe that makes people kind of linger a little longer and say, oh yeah, there's something here, you know, uh I'm kind of intrigued about why this is. It's just not, again, it's a it's not documentation, right? It's right, and it's not just um making a place look quote unquote pretty. I mean, which there is a reason for it. I mean, there are different applications for that, but when you sort of can elevate it and make it a little bit more editorial or make it something about the people living there or why, or his or some historical reference or design reference, I think people we are just naturally attracted to design. And maybe when people see that, they're um, you know, they want to know more uh from these pictures.
SPEAKER_04I think there's also an element of projection, too, because we we look at a picture of somebody else's living room and we think, what would it like be like for me to live there? Yes. Um how how where do I see myself reflected in this uh bit of design? But you you just touched on something um that I find really intriguing. Again, you you you have talked about the the Andrew Geller house on Long Island, and you talked about styling the interior, you know, and that was this was the not documentation. You've talked in other places about uh using a great deal of artificial light to mimic natural light. How much of your images, just you know in general, is made versus documented?
SPEAKER_03A lot of it is made in the sense that finding that uh, first of all, finding the composition is is obviously made, and the what I choose to show in the frame is made. But then the the styling element is very important. Like what do you put in the what do you put in the picture and what do you take out from the from the frame to make it uh look the best the way you want to show it, the way you want to tell the story of that space. And then obviously the light. And sometimes if you're lucky uh or if it lends better for the story, you use existing light, or you want to show sunlight, you have to have a sunny day. But a lot of times you have to mimic it and you have to find ways to sort of uh use artificial light that does not look artificially lit. So you have that subtle soft touch of um light that gives you that mood or whatever whatever mood, I guess, at the end of the day you're trying to evoke from a picture. So all these uh at the end of the day, it's like uh, you know, the little things make the biggest impact, and it's like a small little thing that if I showed you the before-after, you'd be like, oh yeah, you just moved that um you know, that table from one side, or you moved that sculpture, or you used a shorter sculpture versus a taller one, or you reflected the light from this angle, or you blocked that shadow, or blocked that reflection. All those little elements, those very little things have a huge impact on the final image. So it's all intentional at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_04It's even the unintentional stuff you're responsible for. I mean, you you look at the image and you think, oh, I you know, I didn't move this or I should have moved that. I'm I'm I'm thinking about something you say an editor once told you. You said wide shots are good, but tight shots glue the story. Yes.
unknownAbsolutely.
SPEAKER_03What does that mean? Absolutely. I think um if you look through any story in a magazine, newspaper, wherever, if you're if you're looking at it, I think you'll you'll see that if you just had wide shots, the story kind of falls apart, kind of falls flat. But the moment you have that uh diversity in terms of the pictures, the close-ups that that really draw your eyes, it's just it's kind of like you're drawn into and then you're step and you're stepping back, or you're kind of mid-shot and you're looking at something very, very specific. I think this this whole constant back and forth and there's something does something to our brain. And it without that, if you don't have that, everything is the same, everything is the same, and you kind of lose lose the idea of the series of pictures of our story. But the moment you do this kind of an exercise with your eyes and your brain, you kind of get it. And it's a very it's hard to explain what it is, it's only you have to experience it. But I learned that, I did learn that from Editor saying a long time ago, and she had told me, like, you know, these details I love, or these vignette shots, these tighter shots, I love because it really, it really uh helps with the wide shots, and I'm feeling open. And even, you know, I come from the day when I still have hundreds of pages of my portfolio book that I used to print. And I always think of sequencing images on a page. And the way you sequence images is a similar way. The moment the moment you print out something, even though we're all looking at digital stuff these days, the moment you print something out and you lay them out left to right in a sequence, you will see that without those tighter shots, the glue, quote unquote, the story kind of falls apart.
SPEAKER_04You you talk about printing out. You've also been emphatic that you need output, that if you don't have output, everything is lost. And and you don't just mean a digital file going by uh on an electronic frame. You say that you're always you know thinking about where can these photographs find a home beyond the initial client or whatever. So so so talk to me about the the existence of the photograph in in the physical world. And and what do you mean by you need output or everything is lost?
SPEAKER_03You know, there's some there's some timeless quality of a photograph because unlike video or motion, um, where you know there's a lot of um, I would say there's a lot of room for different things, but overall the motion, the film obviously has to stick together. But in the photograph, you are responsible for that millisecond. Like everything has to come together. So there's that moment you're capturing in time, which inherently gives you the timeless quality. And when you print it versus just seeing it on the screen, there's another added layer of you know the tactile quality of paper and the the record of that thing existing. I mean, I love, I mean, I'm a collector too, so I have photographs from other photographers. I bought a lot of photographs, and I look at them and I look at sometimes my pictures too. Uh I sometimes give out little cards to my clients, to my editors, and when I every time I look at those pictures, it takes me back to that moment, which will never ever be replicated. So it's almost like a frame you can just lose yourself, you know, looking at it. And everyone, everyone has a different interpretation. The idea is that you go beyond the frame. You look at this picture and you kind of start to wander a little bit. I think that's the magic. If you can make that happen, then you made a successful photograph. And that can something, not all photographs, a very, very few photographs have that ability or that quality to stand on its own and be on, say, on someone's wall and whatnot. I mean, I'm thrilled and honored when someone has a is a collector of mine comes like, hey, you know, and sends a picture. Okay, your picture is like, you know, on my mantelpiece or whatever. And it's just amazing. It's just really, really cool.
SPEAKER_04It it is indeed. Okay. I there's so many stories that I want to hear. Um, and and in a minute, we're gonna take a little bit of a left turn here. But quickly, tell me the story about Beneath the Surface, tell me the story of fireplaces. Oh my god, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So that's a um ongoing series. I think we just did part three that came out uh this week in the New York Times. Um so the concept. I have not seen it yet. Okay. Yeah, it's a story. Uh so the part one, two, and three. So this the Beneath the Surface is a story about subterranean swimming pools in New York. Um it again uh came out um very, very uh organically from an assignment I was doing for a client, and I kind of happened to be in the basement of this house and saw this amazing pool, which the client was not even that excited about. And I said, Are you kidding me? I'm gonna make a portfolio of my own just for myself, and I'm gonna pitch the story to my editor at the times. Um, so that was the concept of water. Um and then we did in the similar vein, it was a successful story. So um I earned the trust of my editor, and I could pitch another story about fireplaces that was about fire. Right. And then the third piece of it was air. So we just did a story on skylights in New York City. Oh, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_04Um, but I mean, just at a practical level, here's the I mean, and I've seen the you know the photographs, it's a cool swimming pool. You don't put an ad in the time saying needed people who have swimming pools. Um, I mean, it it would take 20 years to find a half dozen underground swimming pools in Manhattan, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_03Uh yes. So that therein comes my craziness and my uh quirkiness of myself. Oh, I find my sometimes You're following chlorine salesmen around, is what you're doing. Yeah, and um actually it's funny. I had this whole other conversation reading this amazing book um that does something like that about the Second World War, these spies and whatnot. But anyway, um my story is uh that even when I was working on the skylight story, I would have these very awkward conversations in social settings, saying with architects or other designers saying, by the way, do you have a skylight? And they'd be like, What? Like, what are you talking about? Or when I was working on fireplaces, hey, uh any interesting fireplaces you've come across lately? Um, so I think it starts with um one, uh, a sense of knowing, I mean, having a network of people who you who you can rely on who would kind of be into it, and you can ask them, like, hey, have you seen anything or do you know of something? And then your own research of what's out there, what's um what some architect might have done, given their other work. You know, and Manhattan and New York, for example, is such an amazing collection of everything. I mean, right. Um, and it's it's it's kind of interesting. It's kind of like I'd like this idea, and these are by the way, these are long, these are stories that take a long time. Like these take about six to eight months to produce. So we're talking uh quite a I mean, again, there's no timeline, but it's timeline that I put on myself. Uh, but my editors are okay with it because they know at the end of the day it'll be a good photo series, and during this time I'm working. With a collaborator, I'm working with a writer, uh, their contacts, my contacts, asking questions, um, all that. I mean, there's one of them uh in that pool's um story that I had to go through four rounds of interviews uh to get access to this one pool, and that only happened because I had done a favor for someone years back, and I said, Oh, you know what? I can give this guy a call and say, if you do me a favor to get me into this townhouse, because they were the architects on record for a renovation. Ah. So, you know, I think it just a it's a long game. It just you pay forward and it's some hopefully someday it comes back, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_04The you are also a filmmaker, and and was it the pools that started you? I mean, you you you you describe your work as cinemographs. Um, was it the pools that that made you move that direction? Had you had you already been doing that?
SPEAKER_03Actually, I did that way before, and um because I uh I hate to be, and this is gonna be funny when I say it, I hate to be pigeon-holed into one category sometimes. My first film was actually about pigeons.
SPEAKER_04Uh okay, lost that one.
SPEAKER_03Um I I like you said, you know, I'm intrigued about storytelling, especially in uh uh when it comes to people and uh what people are about and whatnot. So uh my one of my earliest um films was a story about pigeon keepers in New York, in Brooklyn, and I worked on the story with another person, and it went places which I did not. I mean, again, this was a personal project. So I the power of films is such that you sometimes it takes uh some stories have to have uh a different medium of saying things. It's photographs are not going to be enough. So that's the that's kind of my uh compass in choosing which method is the best. And I think from that uh experience on, uh, you know, obviously for these editorial stories, we don't have the luxury of creating films, but we do cinemagraphs and give some sense of motion to these things I'm photographing. But there are films I've done about people in design in, you know, in the design world like furniture makers and portraits of leather artists or whatever, which kind of straddles these two worlds of documentary, storytelling, architecture, or design, or making or makers, so to speak.
SPEAKER_04Okay. And the the f you know, the the Pigeons uh film did really well too. You know, what is it? Vimeo staff pick uh screened at the sci-fi Brooklyn uh Bridge Park Film Festival. That's you know cool stuff. The the cinemographs are gorgeous, by the way. Um d uh for the cinemographs, for the short ones, is is composition and lighting is is that different or just let's let's you know basically do 10 seconds versus one five hundredth?
SPEAKER_03I think the cinemographs for architecture is actually sort of more difficult than anything because because um, first of all, um if there's not a sing if there's not an element of interest that has movement, um, I don't see a point in just uh panning the camera and making a film, or not film, like even a cinemograph. So there has to be something of interest that again adds to the story. Um so if it if it's a reflection of the water on the wall, in the for example, in the pool story or how the fire you know fills up a room, uh and this is the just the sheer uh you know uh beauty of looking at fire in the context of an interior that has a beautiful fireplace for that story, then you set the frame up first, again, going back, and you obviously the lighting, the lighting of it is a little different than stills because you can only do so much. Um so it is, yes, it is a choice of um lens is different. Uh the movement is different. Sometimes you can direct a person to do certain things to add to give you the sense that's kind of sense of lifestyle that kind of goes in with this. So I would say the architectural interiors, interiors-related cinemographs are often more difficult.
SPEAKER_04You also do a lot of portraits inside the architectural umbrella. Um, there are people in your shots, and and there are costume changes, there are setting decisions. Tell me about portraiture from the point of view of an architectural photographer.
SPEAKER_03I love interacting with people. And I love um showing people in the context of where they live, where they work, where they play, whatever it may be. And I always tell my clients or architects I work with, like, you know, without the people, you can't make this place sing. And it's true. There's one time I was assigned to photograph a school and I showed up there and I said, Where are the children? You can't be photographing an empty classroom or uh whatever. So we and we eventually there's a whole other story how we got there. But my point is that the moment you show how we how we activate the spaces, or when you put a person uh if it's especially a portrait, and you make that this the person and put the person in in that place, it gives another element, another layer of that story. Because then you're thinking of this person, who this person is. Uh if it's a you know, if it's a personality or uh celebrity, you already know who this person is, or even if you it wasn't, if it was an architect or a painter or whoever else, you're thinking of that person and what he or she does, and then you're thinking of the space that they're in, and therein lies your story. So every story now, I mean I've done, I would say the last year, every story I've done, every story, I have included the element of how this person, how why this person belongs here and how they use the space and what is it to them, why is it important?
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm. Is serendipity a large part of your world? Because I I forget the actor's name now, but you were telling a story uh about some guy in Manhattan who lives in a, let's just say, highly decorated uh space. And you were setting up a wide shot, but the portrait's a tight shot down a hallway um that was not actually part of the shot list. So I mean, is is surprise, I mean, in any part of your world, is surprise and serendipity actually welcomed or is it a challenge?
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, serendipity, surprise is always welcomed. And I, you know, maybe it's constructed in certain cases, but yeah, I'm always open to that. I mean, you can plan, you plan, you plan, and then you have to keep, you keep, you keep uh, you are open and you you know have this those moments that maybe things can happen. You just have to be very agile and very uh you have to act on on that moment. And this thing you're explaining, uh talking about is yeah, I was on a shoot for uh architectural digest story about his actor Michael Imperioli. You know, he was in the Sopranos, White Lotus, and he does a lot of projects. And um, yeah, I was um tasked to shoot his um home in Manhattan, which is really amazing. It's like a it's a it's a movie set. I mean, it's amazing. So uh when I was trying to set up the shot, and you know, he's an amazing person, and one of the few shoots I really had a great connection with the subject, and we were talking and we were setting up the shot, and he was um I think it was a shot of his dining room or something like that, through a hallway. And um we were just setting up the shot, and he was sitting on this chair, um, and he was talking about this painting that hangs over the dining table that was gifted by his wife on their anniversary, and I knew right away, I'm like, oh, that's cool, because you know, therein is a caption for this image as to why I've made this photograph because there are certain important objects in this in this scene. And then he was sitting there, and I would, you know, every time like people are talking to me on a set or saying something, I'm always observing like how they're sitting. Like when you ask someone to pose, you just can't say, like, oh, you know, do this or do that. It's just like how do that thing you did when you talk to me, or some kind of context, you know. So I'm always observing. So whenever so in this case, he was sitting on the chair and my assistant was setting up the lights, and he sat in a way which is very natural and yet very photogenic. I was like, There, there, you know, that's it. It wasn't a planned portrait, you know. Um, but the scene was planned, and he just sat there and he made the story all more important because there was a painting that was important to him, and he sat the right way, just made a little adjustment, and it was very simple, but it was organic, and I think it showed because we had this and we were having this conversation while I was setting up, while he was sitting in the chair. So it was just a I just it almost felt like someone just happened to be there in that moment. And that's that I would say when that happens, that's a success.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah. Well, it's a hell of a shot, too. Um, okay, so I got my head wrapped around all the interiors, the exteriors, the portraits, you know, the you know, architecture, the stuff. But you're the same guy that was just in Antarctica. You're the guy of gas and glamour. Um, it's you know, or exacting proportions. There is this whole other aesthetic that you are dealing with um in terms of your photography, your you know, photographic mindset. Tell me about those projects. Tell me about how those fit at all with somebody's living room.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's uh I would say, you know, as an artist, it's always, I mean, us artists, we do a lot of things, and sometimes it's hard to contain ourselves. Uh there's an understatement. Okay. You know, so as much as I um deal in the world of architecture and design, and I I want to do more stories in that realm, there are other aspects of it which may not be on the surface related, but if you look at the um underlying sort of thread of work, it makes sense. Because, you know, Gas and Glamour, for example, was my love for mid-century architecture in Los Angeles. But the ones that are roadside that are that are very pedestrians. It's a road trip book. Yeah, it's it's it's like, and it was very much about these buildings that people not necessarily pay a lot of attention to, even Angelino's and me being an outsider. And this was my again, my way of discovering the city uh through a lens of architecture and design. And I actually wanted to make uh you know these sort of I wanted to elevate these buildings as sculptural forms and landmarks in these neighborhoods and what it meant to be a car city and how these buildings uh how the design of these buildings actually were very, very well thought out for the motorist and how they were billboards essentially, advertising. I call it architectural advertising. So that was gas and glamour. Um exacting proportions came out of my many travels, but I wanted to see the relationship of um the built environment with the taking the you know taking the uh the natural landscape as a sort of a underlying um denominator and how that sits on the earth, of the surface of the earth. I actually just made one. I mean, that series never ends because I was just in Los Angeles. I made another new image of Hollywood and um I'm I can't wait to send it to my gallery, but I am always um actively thinking about these series, which in my mind they never end, they kind of keep going. Um was Antarctica just a bucket list, or what took you there? Antarctica was a thing that uh went on a ship with NatGeo. Um it was part bucket list, part doing a project on um like a series of images, but it was again um at the end of the day, seeing landscape and seeing the forms and geometry. That's where I kind of focused when I was there. And there's actually so much work from that series that hasn't been seen, and someday um I plan to uh you know create something out of it. But uh I did I did do a body of work for my gallery from that trip, and I would love to go back there again. It's just uh you know such an amazing, I mean the best place I've ever been to.
SPEAKER_04I I have not been there. It is at the top of my bucket list, and and then with any luck, I'll run into you down there. Uh Sean, I mean we're we're running out of time here. And and there are so many more stories that we could tell, but I gotta tell you, man, I am a fan. I'm looking at this work and I realize um there there is such talent and such insight and and such understanding of what an image can be going into the architecture, going into the other stuff. I I am just deeply impressed, and I have enjoyed this conversation immensely.
SPEAKER_03Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Scott. I really, really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01It was such a fun conversation, and uh yeah, I'm looking forward to this, and thank you so much for thinking of me.com.