Week 24: Timothy Briner

The rotating gallery features the work of a young emerging photographer as well as an interview with him/her, and will change every Wednesday. The gallery is based off ‘collective curatorship’, where the photographer from week 1 chooses and interviews a photographer for week 2, week 2 chooses/interviews week 3, etc. There is only one stipulation to the process: Next weeks photographer has to be someone he/she has not had direct contact with yet. Ideally, this will take the gallery on a linked tour around the Internet, and exploring and unearthing new photographers as it goes. It’s a good thing people have connections like o2 broadband, or flying around the web would be a little harder when you’re downloading images that now come at an average of ten million pixels when taken.

This week, Dalton Rooney interviews Timothy Briner.

Dalton Rooney: Your most recent project, Boonville, is a view of small-town America through the lens of six real towns all sharing the same name. I was intrigued with the idea immediately, before I had even seen any images. I am happy to say that the photographs fulfill the promise of the idea and quite a bit more. Can you talk a little bit about where the idea for Boonville came from, and about the work required to bring it to life?

Timothy Briner: The idea for this project started in 2002 while a friend and I were visiting Boonville, New York. We spent 7 days living between a cabin just out of town and in a local motel. The town immediately had a hold on both of us. There was a sense of freedom and power amongst the landscape and the people. We spent most of our days and nights meeting strangers at the bar and on the streets. When I got home I started editing through the photos I made that week. Nothing much came of that work, but I never forgot the town.

I grew up in a small community in Indiana that was not much different then Boonville, New York. I grew up in “The Boonies,” as people liked to call it. So when I first came upon Boonville, New York I did a double take. The name evoked such a strong feeling in me, especially after moving to New York City. People in NY can often clump one part of the nation in with the next, or assume one small town is the same as the next. The name Boonville came off to me as a bit ironic, but I believe the name perfectly evokes the typical stereotypes surrounding small towns across the US. Although this project is about these six different towns juxtaposed together, my inspiration comes directly from my hometown and my memories of growing up in a small community in Indiana.

The combination of those things inspired me to begin the journey. It’s been seven years in the making. Three of those years have been spent on the fundraising, shooting, and editing; about a full year for each.

DR: In the several years between your first visit to Boonville, NY, and when you actually hit the road to start shooting, you had time to solidify your ideas and plan the logistics of the project. Reading some of the earliest entries on the Boonville blog, you obviously had a good idea of what you wanted this project to become. But I’m curious, how much did your notion of Boonville change between when you first left and when you finally came home, almost a year later?

TB: It changed pretty quickly. Between you and me, I really had no idea what I was doing when I started driving from New York to Boonville, Missouri. I had a sense of what I wanted. But I knew this journey was meant to push myself and my art the fullest extent. I had a very stressful time focusing when I started. I sought advice from a few friends during weeks 2 and 3. They helped calm me down and get me focused on the bigger picture: the journey, not the destination. I did the best I could to give into my anxiety regarding the unknown. From that point on I sort of just followed my gut.

DR: At some point, after the tough start, I imagine it got easier, right? What were a couple of high points from the trip?

TB: The whole trip was a high point. I loved every minute of those struggles. I learned so much from my mistakes and isolation. But I do remember the greatest feeling was always moments after I captured an image I felt very proud of. I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment when those moments came along. They don’t last long, but they are inspiring.

DR: I wonder if you could talk a bit about your aesthetic inspiration for the project? Does Boonville represent a significant change in direction for you compared to your earlier work?

TB: The work is not a significant change. But it was the first time I let my eye and instincts take over without thinking to much about it. I feel as if I came into my own during this project. I’m proud of much of my early work, but there was a turning point were it didn’t feel genuine anymore; it felt too much like other peoples’ work. When I left on Boonville, I spent a good month going through all my film from the last 8 or 9 years. I began to connect with the earliest landscapes and portraits. I quickly realized these were mostly free of influence, and that they had more personality then anything else I had done since. I thought a lot about that work while traveling.

My biggest influence, regarding this project, would have to be Kerouac. My best friend in High School was a foreign exchange student from Australia. He loved the beat generation and Kerouac. We spent a year practically talking about nothing else. That was when I first became obsessed with traveling across the US with just my camera. I wanted it to be something I would remember. I wanted it to be an epic chapter in my life.

There are many artists that have inspired me over the years, but I would have to say Duane Michals and Robert Adams have had the biggest influence on me photographically.

DR: Seven years is an incredible amount of time and dedication to put into a project. It must be very fulfilling to be able to stand back now and see it as a complete body of work. I know you are working on a book of photographs from the project, as well as preparing for a gallery show at Daniel Cooney Fine Art in Chelsea. Let’s talk about the book first. How long have you been planning that? Can you tell us a little bit about the editing process?

TB: Yes, It feels wonderful to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s been a long journey.

The editing process has proven to be the most difficult part of the project. I’ve been editing off and on since December of 2007, while I was still on the road. I sent out shot film from the road every week or two to a friend in Kentucky who was doing my developing and contact printing. He would return it to me usually within a few weeks.

When I got home I thought I had a good sense of what would make the final edit and what wouldn’t. I started out with about 350 finals and was hoping to get it down to 60 in about a month. A month eventually turned into a year.

The process in the beginning was simple:  I taped all the prints up on my dining room wall and hallway and left them up for about 2 months. Every day I would sit and stare, maybe taking one or two down, and maybe put one back up. About six months into the whole process I was down to about 100 finals. I made 8×10 prints of those and went through the same process. It was at about this time that I went back through every single negative I shot and took another look at the images I initially discarded. There were 10-15 that I ended up putting back in the mix. I did this another 3 times before I finished. If I learned anything, it was that I needed to give myself sufficient space between the actual moment that was experienced and the reproduction of it. Essentially, once I forgot the details surrounding the moment photographed, the image became clear.

I’ve been thinking about this project in book form ever since I started planning the trip. The first book mock-up I made had 60 loose prints enclosed in something similar to a book cover. This gave the impression of a book, but the sequence of the work could easily be moved around.

After months of playing with the edit and the sequencing came the bound book, which I printed and sewed myself. These will be sent out to a select number of publishers.

DR: I imagine that the process of editing for the book has helped with selecting images for the exhibition as well. Naturally you have to cut the selection down even further for the show. Have you had any difficulty with this? Does the story you’re trying to tell change as the edit gets tighter?

TB: Nothing is final as of yet regarding the exhibition. We are looking at about 15 or so images for the show in January. The book edit helped, but I am thinking about them as two separate representations of the work.

I don’t actually consider it a story, so the editing doesn’t change it much in those terms. One of my goals was for each image to create their own narrative and for them to stand on their own. I’ve always been attracted to geometry, and I tried to construct a thread that connects the work together not only through concept, but through spacial relations. There are a number of reoccurring geometrical themes running throughout the work, as well as subject matter, etc. The story is really left up to the viewer to create and interpret.

In terms of the show, the edit chosen will surely be a difficult one. But It’s a challenge I am really excited about. In my opinion the work is as strong with 37 images as it is with a select 15. It’s just a matter of choosing 15 that make sense for the space.

DR: I look forward to getting my copy of the book and can’t wait to see the exhibition. This work to me has a lot of depth; I can imagine seeing it for many years to come and always coming away with new ways to think about it.

I would ask “what’s next?,” but I have a feeling your hands are still pretty full. Thanks for taking the time to do this interview.

TB: Thanks, Dalton!  I’m very proud of it.

I did start a new project recently, but I am still working it out in my head. My full time project is getting these mock-ups out into the world. I’m also going into the darkroom this week to begin printing for the exhibit in January. But I’m very excited to begin something new.

Boonville was created with support from Cannery Works, a New York-based non-profit arts organization. Timothy Briner is represented by Daniel Cooney Fine Art.