blog – Camera Obscura

Interview with Aline Smithson

Fabiano Busdraghi — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 10:20:55 +0000

Interview with Aline Smithson, fine art photographer and curator of Lenscratch blogzine.

Fabiano Busdraghi: After working as a fashion editor with many master photographers, you become a successful photographer and artist. Today you are also the editor of Lenscratch, one of the most important photography blogs in the world, as well as a portfolio reviewer and curator for several magazines and galleries. Finally, you perform several educational activities in form of workshops and lectures.

© Aline Smithson
Please visit Interview with Aline Smithson for the full size image.

A current romantic cliché is that an artist should concentrate all his energy on artistic creation only. Personally I think an eclectic array of occupations makes life interesting and enriching, but -for example in my case personal- it’s easy to do to many things and never finish any of them. As a consequence, sometimes I’m afraid that too many different activities can somehow dilute artistic production. At the same time an interesting life, makes interesting art works possible.

Do you think that all your activities support and improve your artistic creation? Or all the different aspects of your professional and artistic life are just different manifestations of your love for photography? Or maybe your various experiences are simply the results of your eclectic interests?

Aline Smithson: Honestly, I am not sure that my activities support or improve my work… in fact, I think they hinder me in the sense that I have less time to make work and focus on myself. Truly, there are days that I just want to throw in the towel when I see so many amazing projects being created in the photography world. It’s inspiring and depressing to see:

how many photographers are making work these days;
how good so much of it is;
what one can achieve with an iPhone.

But none of that stops me from making work, or influences the work I make. I have a strong personal vision, but that doesn’t mean I don’t drool over work I see other photographers making.

My enthusiasm for photography, and my desire to understand and give back to my community is what drives all the things that surround the production of my own work. When I started writing my blog, it was going to be a place for me to share new work and ideas, but after a few months, I became bored with the idea of me, me, me and looked at it as an opportunity to learn about contemporary image makers, right along with the readers. And as an educator, I thought my students would grow from a daily dose of photography too.

When I feel like I have too many balls in the air, I clear some space—take a week with no distractions and clean my office, make some new work, read some articles and reboot myself. I wish we could have at least one day a week with no e-mail… it’s the e-mail that is beginning to kill me.

Fabiano Busdraghi: You have been quite successful in every field you explored. What do you think is the key of your success?

Aline Smithson: Hard work, not taking myself too seriously, being curious, kind, and professional. Saying thank you to every hand that has pulled me along. Celebrating those around me. Staying true to my own vision of the world. And did I say, hard work?

Fabiano Busdraghi: Personally, I think it’s very difficult to promote my photographic work. I enjoy every step in the process of creation, but promotion is something almost painful. Yet I understand is necessary. It’s a shame to close my photos inside a box or a hard drive, so I regularly force my self to make some promotion. When it happens, it seems to me that it takes all my energies and time, leaving no space for new creations. Recently, attending a lecture on young photography at Festival Circulations, I asked to all the present photographers, how they where able to find an equilibrium between creation and promotion. Everyone’s answer was that it is quite difficult, and extremely time consuming.

Do you agree with this statement? In your personal case, how do you balance diffusion and creation? In your opinion, how one young photographer should deal with promotional activities?

Aline Smithson: Promotion is like exercise… you don’t enjoy it, but you need to do it! I tell my students that they had better be making work that they will be happy to promote for the next 10 years. After you finish a body of work, you will be struggling to get it under the eyes of the photography world for years. After an intensive year in 2011 of exhibitions and travel, I have backed off submissions this year and now am only submitting to things where the juror or the venue is of interest. I am not jumping on all the varied bandwagons. One has to think of this journey as a long road, and we don’t need rush it or show up at every party. I slogged away for years, submitting, knocking on doors, attending portfolio reviews—none of what I have achieved has come without effort. But life gets in the way, and we can’t always have the same focus or energy to create and promote work, and once you make your peace with that, it feels more comfortable. I am in for the long haul, and if one year I’m in lots of shows, it’s fine with me to slow down the following year. We truly need time to NOT promote ourselves. I step in and out of the promotion place and the creative place all the time… you sort of get used to the rhythm of it.

But it IS a drag to have to constantly promote your work. You feel as if you are waving a flag saying, “Look at me, Look at my work”, and I hate that. But, the key is to surround yourself with a supportive community and when they wave their flags, you celebrate them in kind. As photographers, we are SO lucky to have the amount of opportunities available to get our work out into the world. There are amazing organizations like Center and Photolucida that totally support emerging photographers, and many many galleries and photo centers offering exhibition opportunities. Plus the on-line opportunities are endless. I’d suggest setting small goals… submit to something once a week… a small thing on-line, or one major thing a month. But spend the most time on making quality work.

Fabiano Busdraghi: How late-2000s financial crisis affected your practice? What is your business strategy during these difficult years? Do you have any suggestion for emerging fine arts photographers?

Aline Smithson: To be honest, there are very few fine art photographers that can actually make a living off of their work. Most are educators or work in some other field or are retired. I am teaching more and more, I have a stock agency, I have an agent that places my work into TV shows and movies, and I try to have lots of little venues to make money so it adds up to something. I am selling the same amount of work—actually selling well in Europe, but the galleries are drying up, and that is really, really sad. It’s time that we create a new template to selling work. It seems that the low and high end continues to sell, but the middle range is very slow. And technology has made everyone a photographer, so people are basically giving it all away.

Fabiano Busdraghi: I have been blogging with Camera Obscura during the last five years, and I still ask myself why I’m doing it. I know the answer, it’s not only to spread photographic culture, but above all my way to keep thinking and exercise my mind. A kind of brain gym. Anyway, the question is still important for me, and I like to ask the same thing to all the bloggers out there.

Can you describe why you decided starting your blogzine Lenscratch and why you still curate it today? Why blogging is an important activity for you?

Aline Smithson: I too often ask myself why I am carving out so much of my time to promote other people. On those nights, when I’ve had a cocktail or two and I’m just fading into sleep, I’ll remember that I didn’t write tomorrow’s post and force myself to do it. I have set a very high standard for myself by posting everyday—I may change that up in the future, but writing every day is truly, as you say, a brain gym. By writing daily, it becomes easier and easier. I remember once reading that soap opera stars had incredible memories as they had to recite pages of dialogue each day, and this feels the same.

I have also met or connected with hundreds of photographers through Lenscratch and when I can help them further along their road to success, it makes me very happy. I don’t want my photo journey to be a solo expedition, I want a band of merry makers along with me, and the blog has provided that. I have heard from photographers who have been working in isolation, what a remarkable thing it is to have someone take the time to really look at their work and who they are. That makes it all worthwhile.

Fabiano Busdraghi: Everyone will agree if I say that the Internet is a formidable tool to spread a photographic work to a really wide audience. But at the same time I have the feeling that is quite difficult to use it to convert the simple diffusion of the artist work in a concrete business. I mean, an art gallery exposition usually is visited by a maximum of a few hundreds visitors only, but often some of them will buy some prints. An on-line portfolio may be visited thousands of time every month, but how many visitors are interested in actually buying the artworks? Printed magazines generate money but most of the blogs are no profit. It seems to me that, even if Internet is perfect to spread a photographer name, this not necessary imply that it will be easier for him to sell his work and finally make a living from his art.

What is your opinion about this topic? Do you think is really useful for photographers to spend a lot of time and energy to spread their work on the Internet or is still better to make promotional work in the real word?

Aline Smithson: Well, ultimately, the work has to be stellar, and then it really doesn’t matter how the word gets out. In the commercial world, the pendulum is swinging back to physical promotional tools—postcards, etc, as art directors are tired of the flood of promotional newsletters and mailings. The Internet will get your work all over the world in a heartbeat—photographers I have featured have been contacted the next day by publications all over the world, showing interest in their work. That never could have happened by snail mail. We don’t even have a clue as to the amount of Internet opportunities these days—new magazines, blogs, and sales sites are starting up daily. We can spend our whole lives going down the rabbit holes of things to submit to or explore.

If you want to get your work into the world, the gallery show should not be the goal. Getting your work in a well-read magazine or blog will bring the eyes of the world to the work. And then think about galleries…

I am making sales because of that exposure. My galleries can also benefit from the exposure and my own self-promotion. My friend, Cole Thompson, sells directly from his site, and when I asked him who his collectors were, he said that most were photographers themselves. I think when Jen Beckman’s 20×200 started, every photographer I know was collecting work from that site. So all that exposure, geared to the photographic audience, pays off. We are supporting each other.

Fabiano Busdraghi: Another surprising aspect of Internet is the amount of available information and how this impacts our approach to information. I receive every day tens of post in my feed reader, and it’s difficult to find enough time and concentration to carefully read each of them. A well-known Internet behavior is that visitors tend to scan a page instead reading it. Sure, there is a lot of noise out there, and we have to find filtering strategies, but I notice that even the valuable information is still too abundant to be assimilated. In my opinion this problem determine a kind of cultural consumerism, and a tendency to superficially read every text, no matter the quality of the information inside it.

Do you agree with this description of Internet fruition? Is still valuable to write long and in depth analysis or it would be better just to tweet? What can be done to inverse this tendency?

Aline Smithson: I am one of those scanners. I hardly have time to read other blogs, and I’ve always been a person who is first drawn to the pictures before reading the article itself. I also think everyone has Attention Deficit Disorder. My children talk and text in a new language and the whole world is just looking for the next soundbite. Writing the blog is one of the few times during the day that I completely focus myself. Otherwise I’m doing a million things at once and not totally focused on one element. I sadly don’t have time to digest long, indepth articles, though I do read tweets… and I am fully aware that I am digesting the fast food of photography, and it doesn’t always make me feel good.

I’m not sure how to change it… Actually, I think it’s only going to get worse. I worry about the effects of all of this on our children. As someone who grew up without a computer, it feels like a tidal wave of technological pressure is always nipping at my heels. I know my children don’t feel that at all, and look at every new invention and app as something to relish.

Fabiano Busdraghi: I’m particularly interested in real life stories, anecdotes and behind the scenes. Can you chose some photos from your portfolio that are a bit special for you and tell their stories?

Harmony
© Aline Smithson
Please visit Interview with Aline Smithson for the full size image.

Aline Smithson: The image, Harmony, was created when I was in the throws of learning photography. One of my teachers told me that I needed to stake out what I was going to shoot and wait for the light. This is not always easy with small children underfoot. So, I was on a family vacation and was in the driver’s seat on the way down the California coast. It was raining and I passed a sign that said “Harmony” and knew it was make a great shot. I did a wild U-turn on Highway 101 and pulled over as my husband and children were all screaming at me. I jumped out with my toy camera and took one shot. I never followed that teacher’s advice again.

Lexie with a Peacock
© Aline Smithson
Please visit Interview with Aline Smithson for the full size image.

Lexie with a Peacock is an image that I thought about for a long time. I have always been enchanted by Lewis Carroll’s images of children, and I love the idea of color, texture, and exotic props all adding to the beauty of a composition. It also doesn’t hurt that I happen to own a taxidermied peacock. Lexie lives down the street and looks a lot like my daughter at that age; she also has that old soul quality that brings more substance to the portrait. What the viewer doesn’t see is that her mother, little sister, and a 13 year-old boy cousin from the Midwest, are sitting behind me thinking, “What is this woman doing!” In today’s photographic conversation, I think we have turned away from beautiful things and the desire to make beautiful work. I just felt like it was time to make some.

The Middle Fingers
© Aline Smithson
Please visit Interview with Aline Smithson for the full size image.

I can’t help it, but I like to be irreverent some of the time. This still life, The Middle Fingers, just made me laugh.

As much as I like to make work that has poignancy and meaning, I love to create something out of nothing, and images that are quirky. This image, Hugos in Hollywood, was created when I was visiting a friend staying in a swanky hotel before she attended the Golden Globes. I “just happened” to have 3 of my Hugo dolls with me and they were able to enjoy the remnants of her breakfast in bed.

Hugos in Hollywood
© Aline Smithson
Please visit Interview with Aline Smithson for the full size image.

And finally, I just loved this portrait of Elizabeth Taylor so much—the color and pose—that I wanted to figure out a way to celebrate it. It started me creating a little series of portraits in books I love, called Portraits of Portraits. And this one is titled, Roses and Liz.

For more informations, please visit Aline Smithson website or subscribe to Lenscratch, a blogzine dedicated to contemporary photography.

Roses and Liz
© Aline Smithson
Please visit Interview with Aline Smithson for the full size image.

The Asian photography, by Ch’ng Yaohong

Fabiano Busdraghi — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 22:17:00 +0000

Ch’ng Yaohong is a young photographer based in Singapore.

In addition to photographing for his personal projects and for commission works, Ch’ng Yaohong is also the author of one of my favourite weblog, Asian Photography Blog, and it is easy to understand why. Ch’ng Yaohong site is about two of my great nowadays passions: Asia and photography. Every week you can discover splendid works and incredibly talented photographers, most of the time completely unknown in Europe, even to a specialized audience. Sometimes the blog of contemporary art and photography repeat the same authors, the same styles, the same approach, the same vision of the world. The blog by Ch’ng Yaohong in the current blogsphere is a nice example of novelty and differences.

For these reasons I was very happy when Ch’ng Yaohong agreed to participate in an interview that discusses photography in Asia in general and his personal photographic work.

Fabiano Busdraghi: In the Occident word it is now difficult to speak about a European or American photography, contemporary photography is extremely varied. Do you think that photography is pretty uniform and consistent in Asia? Is it characterized by a fundamental uniformity, or contrary is it as varied and diverse as in the West?

Ch’ng Yaohong: From my experience in running the Asian photography blog, I have seen works that vary across different cultures and nations. Asian photographers have very diverse styles, concepts and shoot in so many genres. I believe that it is as diverse, if not more so than work coming from Europe or America. Many photographers return from education outside of Asia and they bring with them the distinctive styles or approaches of their adopted countries. Even within Asia, different countries have their own approaches to photography. This is especially so in Japan, where photography has had many decades of tradition. If one was to enter a room filled with photography from the world, it may be easy to identify the various geographical locations based on subject matter but ultimately, the photographer behind it could easily have been Asian, American, European or African!

Fabiano Busdraghi: These differences are mainly due to personality or to the photographers origins? Do you think that one can talk about a Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Thai… photography? Or a distinction based on the countries nowadays makes little sense, and is the personality of photographers who counts?

Ch’ng Yaohong: In every country, photographers work in different ways and it is hard to categorize them in this manner. The subject matter or political background may be the same but it is the photographer’s personality, life experiences and thought processes that shape his/her works. Traces of a country’s history and culture may be infused into certain works but the individual makes all the difference. The stylistic differences may be different, Japanese photographers tend to shoot street photography in the same manner due to heavy influence by Daido Moriyama, Indonesian photojournalists cover the same events as their Western counterparts; yet each image is the distillation of the photographer’s mind and soul and it is futile to say that a particular photographer’s work is Chinese, Indian or Japanese.

Fabiano Busdraghi: Do you think that Asian photography is fundamentally different than the western one? Or today is the contemporary photography global around the world? Is it now impossible to speak about photo “schools” based on country of origin of the photographers?

Ch’ng Yaohong: I would dare say that specific countries have their own schools of thoughts but the Internet has blurred boundaries between the schools. Globalization plays a huge role in how people thing. We are becoming more westernised; we eat the same kind of food, get exposed to the same kinds of media. Moreover, many Asian photographers are schooled in America or Europe and have adopted similar ways of thinking and seeing. They then infuse their own cultures into their work when they return home. Fundamentally, photography is photography. Schools of thoughts dictate how an individual may approach a subject but it is the individual that makes the difference.

Fabiano Busdraghi: In Asia traditions are very important, the past still has a very strong weight. As regards China, the country of which I know better the culture, ideas and philosophical theories of art have always confronted with the past, constantly reinventing it, but always starting from the tradition. Over the last century, however, the situation seems to have reversed. It almost seems that Asian countries run a race to deny their past, to innovate, to discover a new modernity, to make a great leap forward. In recent years instead, always in China, there has been a return to the roots and traditions.

Do you think that photography in Asia follow a similar path? Do you think tradition and evolution are equally present, or either one of these aspect is predominant?

Ch’ng Yaohong: I think that the new generation of photographers in China are scrambling to reclaim their traditions due to the Cultural Revolution. Cynically, I would say that they are taking advantage of that to enter the Western art markets, as that is what consumers demand. China’s situation is different from other Asian countries as it is moving forward at great speed, seeking to become a global superpower. This creates an imbalance as the past is quickly wiped out to make room for the future. Some photographers are looking for ways to connect the disconnected, to actively look at the past and make criticisms of the country’s direction.

Despite this, many countries have rich traditions and cultures that have endured millennia, which is being wiped out by a homogenization of culture. Yet, I think that many photographers and artists are striving very hard to preserve their own cultural identity; to make statements against the blatant erasure of one’s past.

I see a greater confluence of photography and tradition recently. While some photographers romanticize about the past, others use it as a springboard to create something new. I think that it is important for us to know about our past, before we can move forward. However, we cannot allow ourselves to be bound by it, refusing to accept new ways of thinking or working. Tradition and evolution exist hand in hand, it all depends on the individual artist. I wouldn’t say that one takes precedence over the other but they are surely mutually influential.

Fabiano Busdraghi: Who are the Asian photographers whose work you consider more interesting?

Ch’ng Yaohong: You just have to visit my blog! I only feature work that I find interesting.

My preference changes every year depending on what I am currently working on. I like work that is unsettling, things out of the extraordinary. There’s just too much pretty work out there.

Fabiano Busdraghi: Can you describe the panorama of contemporary art photography in Asia? The exhibitions, festivals, cultural events are frequent and followed? The states subsidize the artistic photography?

Ch’ng Yaohong: There are so many events happening across Asia that the sheer number overwhelms me. There’s a plethora of festivals happening every year: Chobi Mela in Bangladesh, Fotofest Beijing and Pingyao International Photography Festival in China, Angkor Photography Festival in Cambodia, Thailand’s Month of Photography, Singapore’s Month of Photography and the inaugural Singapore International Photography Festival. This is excluding the numerous exhibitions across the various cities happening every day in Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Manila and New Delhi. Frankly, I think it’s impossible to be there for every single event! I’m not particularly sure about state subsidies in other countries but in Singapore, the National Art Council provides monetary assistance for large nation-wide events.

Fabiano Busdraghi: Here in Europe a lot of people says that the photo industry is now going to Asia, and that in Europe there is almost no more place for business. How is the situation concerning commercial photography in Asia? Can you find good assignments and under which conditions?

Ch’ng Yaohong: There is definitely work to be done here ranging from editorial to advertising work. Photojournalism is well and strong here, especially in places where social strife is prevalent. It’s pretty much how good you are and the people you know that gets you the assignments here. However, margins are increasingly being pushed down due to the proliferation of digital photography. People purchase a digital SLR and turn into a professional instantly. As supply outweighs demand in the lower rungs, profit margins are lower and competition tougher. But at the top, the big names still command impressive prices.

Fabiano Busdraghi: Same of the last two questions, but more particularly as regards Singapore, the city where you live. Is there a lot of gallery, expositions, museum, festival dedicated to photography?

Ch’ng Yaohong: Singapore is starting to open up artistically over the past few years and I’ve seen an increasing number of exhibitions being held here. Also, big gallery names like Valentine Willie are setting base here to tap the emerging art market. Also, the government is pushing for the arts to take off here, with an increased focus on art education.

This year’s inaugural Singapore International Photography Festival (of which I played a small role) was perhaps the biggest photography event I have witnessed here. The Month of Photography organized by the French Embassy is well into its third year. Even the National Museum has started to promote photography in its latest Seasons of Photography, showcasing work by Magnum photographer Chien-chi Chang and American Robert Wilson. I believe that as Singapore progresses towards becoming a renaissance city, we would be seeing more galleries opening and events happening within our small city-state.

Fabiano Busdraghi: A few more personal questions. What is your history as a photographer? How did you come closer to photography?

Ch’ng Yaohong: Like most photographers, I picked up a camera when I was 10 or 11 and made my father buy me an SLR when I was 13. I spent the next 3 to 4 years in the darkroom developing my own pictures and it was an on-off affair when I got into junior college. After that, I was in the army for 2.5 years, where I saved up enough to get myself a digital kit back in 2005. I had just started freshman year in the university. A few months later, I managed to get into Objectifs’ Shooting Home workshop, a mentorship program aimed at developing local talent. That was the turning point for me, as I was introduced into a larger world of photography.

I started freelancing in between lessons, while concurrently heading my school’s photography society. I also had a few group shows and I only started writing about photography last year in 2007. As I am attending a business school, I had to learn many things through my own reading. I devoured books on critical theory, photo history, art history and contemporary art. The web helped a lot as I was introduced to contemporary photography from all over the world; especially from Jörg Colberg’s, Conscientious, and Alec Soth’s now defunct blog.

Fabiano Busdraghi: What is photography for you?

Ch’ng Yaohong: An exhilarating way to meditate on life.

Fabiano Busdraghi: What are you working on? What are your current and future projects?

Ch’ng Yaohong: Right now I’m shooting a portraiture series that seeks to explore the individual’s reaction to life’s many uncertainties. I’m also revisiting my previous series on rubbish left behind by people. Next year, I hope to embark on a series to explore my own heritage, which will take me through Malaysia and China.

Fabiano Busdraghi: In addition to shoot your own photography, as we said before, you also write a blog devoted to photography in Asia. What prompted you to write about photography?

Ch’ng Yaohong: Basically, I was setting up my online portfolio and was looking at ways to differentiate myself from the masses. I enjoy writing (I’ve been blogging before it was called blogging back in 1998) and loved to discover work on the Internet. Like a collector, I would save images and link of works that interest me. I saw what Jörg Colberg and Shane Lavalette were doing and it struck me that nobody was writing about photography in Asia. Since I’m bilingual in English and Chinese, I thought that I could do something more. I had everything cobbled together in a month and launched it in Aug 2007. I think I started gaining traction after 3 months and the rest, as they say, is history.

Fabiano Busdraghi: Do you believe that the blogging activity is useful for photographic career, the two activities are closely related or completely different? Does your blog has allowed you to find interesting contacts, both human and professional?

Ch’ng Yaohong: Haha! I think it’s rather detrimental actually. I’m known more as a writer/blogger now than a photographer. I haven’t gotten any commercial assignments off my blog but many parties have approached me to write about photography.

However, it has been an excellent conversational topic and I have made many contacts and friends off the blog. I get to shuttle between the different cities and there’s always somebody to show me what’s happening in the photographic scene there.

I’ve just started writing my own column in the Singapore Art Gallery Guide. I’m still waiting for someone to approach me to publish a book on Asian photography though!

Fabiano Busdraghi: Exactly the same that happened to me! A lot of work, a lot of time spent writing and studying. But at the same time a lot of personal learning, some virtual friends, a lot of contacts and thoughts exchange with interesting people. And this what I really prefer in Internet.

Do you think that nowadays internet can substitute the traditional diffusion channels of photography? Or it is still essential to expose in the real world?

Ch’ng Yaohong: Essentially, it is easier for photographers to show their works on-line now. They are granted an audience without much costs. However, I still prefer looking at photographs in galleries and books. Nothing beats seeing a well-printed photograph on a gallery wall. Having a solo exhibition is still the dream of many and it is a form of saying that one has finally arrived.

Fabiano Busdraghi: Some questions about your personal tastes: what music are you listening? What are your favourite books and movies?

Ch’ng Yaohong: I listen to quite an eclectic mix of music, which depends on my mood. I tend to gravitate towards music where lyrics are not that important, as my aural abilities are not very well developed. I find Icelandic bands such as Mum and Sigur Ros to be oddly inspirational. But I’m a big fan of Damien Rice.

I’m an avid reader and my favourite fiction authors include Haruki Murakami, Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Safran. I also read non-fiction books on finance and economics but I totally detest my textbooks. Right now, I’m starting to get into poetry and philosophy again. I’m also quite the movie addict! Some of my favorite movies are Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Pulp Fiction, Amelie, Fight Club and Donnie Darko.