Nguyễn Quí Đức: I had an office close to Jamie’s studio and had an idea of what he was doing with the natural light coming through his one window. I came to the studio (to be photographed); it was dark, and it felt eerie, musty, and yet, I felt calm. Perhaps it’s the photographer’s quiet manners. He didn’t say much, and didn’t direct me other than to ask me to turn and move an arm here and there. Jamie moved like a ghost in the room. I wasn’t even aware of how he took off his clothes and sat behind me. I wasn’t afraid how I would look in the photo, I just wanted him to have a good sitting, a good photo in the end.
I wanted to know how you came up with the idea of using such props and creating a setting that in the end were so appropriate, moody and exquisite.
I have many questions for the series–about how you selected the room and were confident the light would work. I wanted to know how you came up with the idea of using such props and creating a setting that in the end were so appropriate, moody and exquisite. What was the process like – selecting subjects and positions, and the images after the series was done. I wanted to know how you talk to people about posing and choosing how to be in your photos. You seemed to have not asked me much. The reference to the old Dutch Masters’ paintings is there, yet you’ve made something very different. I’d like you to comment on that. I also would like to know how you feel being in the photographs yourself. Did you think of how your subjects would react?
Jamie Maxtone-Graham: I wouldn’t say I was overly confident the light in that room would work but I certainly had a sense it would, or could. I knew I had a good start with a large source of light (the window) and the direction it faced (north) would guarantee no direct sunlight would enter the space. The rest I knew I could take care of by diffusing the light itself with white fabric and shape it with large pieces of black cloth. You mention Dutch Masters – you know, it’s the light. And it’s the same light. Studio painters, and much later the early studio photographers, who painted still lifes or portraits worked in studios with north-facing windows. Since no direct sunlight entered, the shadows remained the same from morning until sunset. When you are working over the course of weeks or months, this is important. For me, this work was a kind of conversation with that work, with that light.
I began really playing around with the notion of what the chaotic or seemingly random arrangement of things could suggest by way of a location; an old attic, a forgotten studio – things along those lines.
As for the props – I’ll admit in the beginning, the scenes were much simpler than they became as I made more and more images. I began really playing around with the notion of what the chaotic or seemingly random arrangement of things could suggest by way of a location; an old attic, a forgotten studio – things along those lines. As for subjects, I was interested in a broad range of people and for very different reasons. Some people turned me down. Some people I knew well and others I literally just met. Interestingly, some of those images by people I didn’t know at all were among the most imaginative – somehow. The poses were not always predetermined although I certainly had a sense of what I was interested in. But very often people bring their own best, and better, ideas and I always try to respond to that, to let people bring what they have to an image. It’s usually always the better choice. Many of the best results came from a kind of improvisation that began with something specific and departed from that.
Being in the photographs myself was, right from the beginning, a very essential part of the work – to participate in the act, to enter the photographic space. It was an experiment in the beginning, I made some tests, but once I saw those, I knew this is what it had to be. I am pretty comfortable with nudity (both others’ and my own) and I have certainly asked enough people to pose nude for my camera before this. It felt like participating in the image stripped literally of all concealing devices, to give that back to the process somehow, to offer just that much to the act and to the subjects themselves, to make that the premise of the work as a photographer – to offer instead of to ask – felt like the right place to begin. And I knew in offering that, that something would be given in return by those who agreed to this idea of sitting with me. Because each image took upwards of 20 seconds for each exposure, the usual framework of portrait making was upended. The time became a palpable element of the work – creating each one was a small performance of stillness as we each sat for that time before the open shutter. That repeated act of sitting quietly, together and alone in that room, it actually made it less about the image and far more about the long moments of stillness. I think everyone who made images with me felt that.
