Week 73: Ali Bosworth

The rotating gallery features the work of an 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.

This week, Bree Apperley interviews Ali Bosworth.

Bree Apperley: Your photos have such a nice vibe to them, it reminds me of looking through my parents old photos, like kind of watching their relationship grow over time, year after year, the vacations, the holidays, the seasons…I used to spend hours pouring over our family photo albums. Your photos trigger these same sort of emotions, especially the ones with your girlfriend in them - I tend to get caught up in the narrative of your relationship…even the colouring of the photos seems washed out and faded golden yellow like an old photograph. Was this consciously something you were kind of going for or did it just happen? Do you alter the photos at all to get that golden effect or does it just happen for you? Do you think the strength of your relationship to your subjects is partly what makes the photos come to life? Or am I just being sentimental??

Ali Bosworth: No, I don’t think you are just being sentimental.  I think the relationship/photo album/etc. aspect is definitely present but it was never anything that I was trying to do with my photos.  I guess it is just a side-effect of the way I take photographs, just sort of bits and pieces of my day-to-day life.  I think it is interesting that there can be so much drawn out of what I perceive as being quite a sparse and spotty representation of my/our life.  I like that idea though, the reconstruction of it all.

I don’t try and color my photographs to any specific end.  I only shoot negative film and I scan it all myself with a film scanner. As anyone who has spent time looking into it knows, it is actually pretty tricky for the scanner/software to accurately subtract the film base color from the raw scan.  A lot of scanning software sort of auto color balances each frame based on its contents, which is probably OK for most people but I find it inconsistent and variable (for instance if there is a lot of red in the image it might skew the results). I use a program called VueScan which gives you very detailed control over how the scanner will act and basically lets you capture as much data as possible from the negative.  Anyways, when it comes to color balancing my images I always find that I choose the settings that I do because that is what looks best. I do buy almost exclusively expired or close-date film but I wouldn’t credit that with the tonality (for me it is simply the economics).  I definitely tend to balance things on the warm side. Someone once told me that it is a result of me being born in the summer.  Weird idea, but who knows.  It’s like that thing when you think about how everyone might ‘see’ the color blue totally differently but there is nothing we can do about it because all our reference points are exactly the same and there is really no way to know.

BA: Being a techno-phobe myself I am kind of curious how you deal with that side of things. What camera do you use and what lenses? What kind of film? Or maybe you use digital? I’m not sure. Do you carry around a huge bag of stuff with you all the time? Do you ever find that the technical side of things holds you back - like taking too long to set-up a shot or something? Or do you kind of just go with it - like you know enough and can do it fast enough that it doesn’t hold you back. Your photos certainly don’t look like you are fussing around much in the background with all these different lenses etc. but maybe you have just got so good at it that a person can’t tell. Was/is technical stuff ever a problem for you?

AB: I have a lot of cameras, a bit of a collection I guess. I am into them as a bit more than just tools to make pictures with, but they aren’t sitting on display shelves or anything.  If I am going out to take photographs or if I am on a trip I usually use one of a few Olympus OM SLRs that I have: I have an OM-4, two OM-2Ns, and two OM-3s.  I usually use a 50mm or a really compact 35-70mm zoom, sometimes a 28mm.  For a long time I used a Canon Canonet QL17, I probably have about 5 of them.  I also have some other similar compact rangefinders: a few Olympus 35SPs, and a bunch of Olympus 35RCs (which all seem to die on me).  I have a Canon Demi half-frame which I used to use a bunch, and I recently bought an Olympus Pen FT half frame SLR which is very nice and probably my most expensive camera.  Getting 72+ photos per roll is pretty crazy, although I guess everyone else in the world is packing their memory cards with a thousand photos at a time or whatever.

If I am just out and about or going to and from work or whatever, I usually just have a little point-and-shoot in my bag.  I think the Olympus Stylus Epic is really great and I grab them up whenever I see them, I also have a few Konica Big Minis.  “What camera do you use?”  is such a funny question that gets bounced around (do painters ask each other about brushes?).  I get as interested as anyone in what other people use but I really feel that it doesn’t matter very much in the end.

I don’t tend to carry a lot of things around with me, probably just a camera or two at most. I’m not big into swapping lenses around or anything like that.  But I am pretty into the ‘technical side of things’.  I don’t have lighting kits or tripods or anything, but I am into the details of how everything works.  I don’t really spend any time setting anything up, and I am pretty shy about even holding a camera or taking a picture. If I am trying to take a picture and someone walks by I’ll probably hide my camera! Ha, probably something I should get over.

With my girlfriend Sinead, the whole process of taking a photo of/with her is so natural at this point.  It might not necessarily seem like a vary natural process because she is looking right into the camera sometimes, but it is more that she is doing something or looking at me or whatever and I pull out the camera and take the picture. Obviously there is some level of orchestration on both our parts, but it really is just something that is done in passing amongst other things.  We never go out to take pictures of her or anything, I rarely even go out specifically to take pictures.

BA How did you get started with photography? Did you go to school for it or start as a hobbyist? Do you think it is important to go to school for photography? If you did go to art school how do you think that plays into things? Do you feel as though your work is part of the discourse of contemporary photography or just don’t really care either way? What are your thoughts about digital vs. film and the direction of the medium? Maybe you just do your thing and don’t get into it.

AB: I just started taking photographs on my own, my dad first gave me some little camera before a family trip and then later an old SLR for my birthday.   For me school doesn’t really factor into it.  I have done half of a degree in Visual Art at the University here, but I only decided to try that out after I was already pretty comfortable with photography. I have taken all the photo classes that I could take and have enjoyed them but I am not sure if it has affected my photo taking much.  It is nice to have more of a context for things, because I had never really gotten into knowing about all the big names and everything.  Having said that, I’m sure school can be totally influential and formative for some people.

I have never thought about my photos as being part of the discourse of contemporary photography, or really any discourse at all. Of course nothing exists in a bubble and it is an interesting topic, just not one that I have considered much. I don’t hang out with a lot of photographers, and in Victoria there is really only one person that I know who I can relate to in terms of the type of photos we take and the way we take them (Chris Taylor: www.winnersblues.com).  So I do think the internet is great in the way that I can casually ‘know’ (or ‘know of’) other people and check out their photos.  That being said I don’t really feel part of any community on the internet either.

Because I post so much to flickr (basically everything I shoot) it does occur to me that people might be regularly following along with what I’m up to, which was never something I was trying to foster (in general I am pretty reserved), but I guess it is kind of neat.  Sinead occasionally gets approached by people who recognize her. The weirdest thing is the apparent number of people who are under the impression that she is Ali Bosworth and that all of the photographs of her are actually self portraits. I totally understand that my name could be a girls name but how could she take all the pictures of her riding her bike, etc?  That would put an entirely different spin on things!  I think there might be a desire by some to project the girl as the photographer, documenting her own life, setting up these portraits where she is directly addressing the audience (rather than the photographer).

I don’t have any interest in using digital cameras, they are all so fiddly and plasticky.  Whats with all the massive bulky SLRs? They seem like they are hollow or something.  I’m sure there are some nice ones that don’t feel like a piece of junk though.  Aside from the aesthetics/feel/usability I also have pretty big concerns about something that never exists in the physical world. It’s not that I am anti-digital, I’m totally into the digital side of things and I spend a lot of time scanning/organizing/etc.  I get my negatives developed without any prints (which is way cheaper than with prints), scan them myself, and don’t often get anything printed because I only rarely have any reason to.  But I always have all the negatives filed away, and if i need a bigger scan for something, or if I need to get something printed large, I just go back to the negative.  So I am happy to be between both worlds right now. I like that I can buy a nice old camera for $50 and it will work great.  To get comparable quality from a digital camera I’d probably have to spend 10 times as much and I wouldn’t like using it and I’d have to charge it all the time and I’d be afraid that I was going to drop it and break it the second I tried to use it.

BA: Do you see yourself moving in new directions - even subtle ones? How has your practice of picture-taking evolved? For example I think of Ryan McGinley and how he started off goofing around - taking photos of friends and at parties, really spontaneously, and then kind of moved on to more set-up situations where he was casting models and using props and scouting for locations - have you seen yourself approach how you take a photo differently over time? If you had all the money you could need would you do things differently?

AB: I don’t see myself drastically moving in any direction.  Of course I hope things continue evolve on their own. When I started I took really a lot of photos of our family cat.  And then there was a summer when I took lots and lots of photos of these two friends of mine, Andy and Talia, just because we were hanging out a lot.  And then when Sinead and I started dating and eventually moved in together it was just natural to take a lot of photos of her and our house, etc.  I guess I am a little obsessive when it comes to taking pictures, but at the same time it seems very natural just to photograph my immediate surroundings, things I am comfortable with.  I’m not really one to stick my neck out.

The furthest I get from my own surroundings (photographically) is when we are on some sort of trip.  Sinead and I went to Greece and Turkey for a little over 3 months in 2008 and it was great. My parents met in Greece and lived on one of the islands for most of the 70s. I was born in Ontario but when I was little we went to Greece and lived there for a year and a half.  So, when Sinead and I were on our trip I took a lot of photos, about about 110 rolls.  The whole process was interesting because I didn’t get anything developed until we got back home, so there was no “feedback loop” for the photographs for the duration of the trip, which was scary and exciting at the same time.  And then when we got home we were starting classes and finding a new house and everything, so it took me a pretty long time to work through scanning it all.  I guess there is definitely still a personal narrative present even though we are totally out of our normal surroundings and routine, and I’d like to think that the trip photos share something in common with my photos form home.

BA: Do you have a day job? How do balance having the freedom and space to make a lot of work with paying rent and the bills? Have you found a way to make some money with your photos? What about commercial work - do you do any? How do you feel about it? Would you rather not or are you okay with it?

AB: I definitely have a job. I am a web developer and I work with a friend who has a little company with a bunch of designers and a few developers. It is really flexible and I enjoy it.

I have never had trouble finding time to take pictures because for the most part the photographs just happen.  There are certainly periods where I won’t shoot much but I’m OK with that, it’s not like I don’t know what to do with myself if I don’t have a camera in my hands or anything.

I have made a little bit of money through photos.  The most interesting thing was having a photo used on the cover of an Italian translation of a German book put out by a publishing company which was started by this left-wing activist who originally smuggled the manuscript for Doctor Zhivago out of the Soviet Union and published it.  I have done a few other things where I got some money for something, but never any real commercial work.  I’m not sure how I’d feel about it, it would all depend.  For example, I took some pictures of Sinead wearing clothes that our friends made, and I was fine with that. I would probably be uncomfortable trying to replicate the naturally occurring elements of my photos for someone else’s purposes or ideas.

BA: Any upcoming things you are excited about? Projects or exhibitions? I think I saw that you were doing a book with the Gottlund Verlag press - Wow! Is that true? Anything you would like to say about it? Any big future ambitions? Or moves? Or maybe you are just going to settle down in a sweet little bungalow on Vancouver Island with your lady and your cats. That sounds perfect…

AB: No big projects. Maybe a few group shows in the next few months.  Yes, Nicholas and I have been discussing something which should be cool.  I have made miniature attempts on my own at booklets and stuff but I never get very far.  I bought a really fancy stack cutter for edging books which comes in handy every 6 months or so but I haven’t really put it to proper to use. As I said earlier, a lot of my stuff mostly only  exists as scans, but I do really like the idea of something you can hold in your hand, keep on a shelf, etc.  I still have to update my site with older stuff and newer stuff. It was quite a bit of work to edit things down into manageable groups and I really intended to regularly add more segments, but I haven’t yet.

I don’t think we are going to settle down in Victoria quite yet!  It already feels like we have been settled down in sleepy Victoria for the last little while.  Sinead will be finished her Women’s Studies degree after this school year so we will probably try living somewhere else for a bit.  Not sure where yet but we will see what happens.

BA: Thanks so much Ali! I appreciate you taking the time out to answer all my questions. Good Luck with all your stuff okay?