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I’ve
had an interest in photography since I was very young. My father
had a small darkroom in our house when I was growing up in St.
Louis. He used it primarely to develop and print photographs
from our many family vacations. When I was old enough, he taught
me the very basics of darkroom work, and that was pretty much my
only training as a photographer. I never studied it in school.
In
high school, I started taking a serious interest in photography.
Besides taking pictures, I also started studying other
photographers’ styles and techniques. I quickly became
obsessed with Richard Avedon and Diane Arbus. Like most new
photographers, I started out trying to mimic the styles of my
heroes, but I quickly realized that I had my own style and
aesthetic to develop. I used my friends as subjects and
concentrated on straight portraiture.
In
1985, I moved to Chicago to attend the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago. Instead of photography, I decided to study
film-making instead. I felt I already had achieved my style and
technique with photography, so I wanted to study something I did
not have technical know-how of. But I quickly realized that I
did not have the patience to deal with film-making. I would lose
interest in projects after only a few days. Still photography
gave me more immediate results so I decided to forgo my
cinematic dreams and concentrate on my still images. I still
refused to study photography in an academic setting so I just
ended up dropping out of art school after two years. I ended up
getting a job in a record store instead.
For
the next 13 years, I held record store jobs in Chicago. And it
was during that time that I shot most of my early classic fetish
work. That is all the work that is collected in my first book
“The Beauty of Fetish” (Edition Stemmle).
In
1998, I decided I needed a change of scenery and made the
decision to move to a new city and most importantly, a new
environment. I left the murky gray city of Chicago and headed
out to the color-saturated landscape of Southern California. It
was there that I made a whole new group of friends and contacts
who ultimately helped me forge my new style of photography. My
first three years in California produced most of the work found
in my newest book, “The Beauty of Fetish: Volume II” (also
on Edition Stemmle). |
