Ed Freeman
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cinemafia: The images in your Urban Realty series present a very unique perspective of Los Angeles. There's a sense of isolation and disconnection that comes through in your merged landscapes, and it's a feeling that I get from the city itself. On one hand, I have the idea that your delicate manipulations are drawing out sensibilities that are already there, latent in the structures and the spaces you're photographing. On first view, I'd think it would be difficult for most people to realize that there was any manipulation at all. I'd like to know a bit about your pre-visualization here, how you scout your locations and how you setup, as well as some of the process you go through to you arrive at these very compelling final images.
Ed Freeman: I pretty much just drive around town, and when I see something that grabs my attention, I photograph it. In that way I don't think I'm any different from any other photographer. Some things grab my attention more than others- fast food restaurants, for example. Their design is so completely fanciful, outrageous- Disneyland architecture. And we're so used to them, nobody pays them any attention, really- unless you're hungry and there's nothing else around. I love freeways, because we all think of them as so unforgivably ugly, and yet in certain places and from certain angles they are very beautiful- obnoxious, threatening, dehumanizing, neighborhood-destroying- but beautiful.
And, some buildings are so funny, or intriguing, or quaint, or sad or ominous- maybe you wouldn't notice that about them in their natural context, but if you REMOVE them from their natural context and set them apart, which is what I do with Photoshop- their specialness becomes evident. I've taken enough of these pictures so that I know exactly what I'm going to do in the computer before I click the shutter- and half the time I change my mind and end up doing something completely different. I'd love to say that it's a totally controlled, premeditated process, but it isn't.
Taking the pictures takes almost no time- they're really just careful snapshots. Some of them I shoot double-parked without even turning off the engine. The real work is in the computer- I spend hours retouching out any distracting flaws and putting together the ideal background. What I'm aiming for is a picture that stretches your credulity almost to the breaking point- and sometimes beyond. I am deliberately toying with your natural inclination to believe that photographs are real. When I see someone examining one of my prints with a puzzled look on their face and hear them ask, "Is that a...photograph?" I know I've hit the mark.
cinemafia: This is very interesting, and it reminds me of the concept of the 'true image'. It's the idea that a photograph conveys a situation or a message that we, as the viewer, accept immediately, and unquestionably. I'm going to use Gregory Crewdson as an example here, partly because your work reminds me of his (and vice versa), and partly because he's probably the most well-known example of what I'm talking about. So, Gregory has this real city street populated by very carefully choreographed actors or models, and it's all very slowly calculated and put together. But, the end result is in some way no different from a snapshot. That fact allows the viewer to accept the image as real, as an actual moment of life, which I would think was Crewdson's original intention. What do you think?
Ed Freeman: Gregory Crewdson's work is at once beautiful, haunting and very powerful; I'm a big fan. But while we're both dealing in artificially constructed realities, his objectives -and techniques- and mine are quite different.
Crewdson constructs elaborate tableaux to probe the psychology and spirituality of the people who inhabit them. I have no idea to what extent he uses computers to enhance his vision, and frankly, it's of little importance; I think of Crewdson as a philosopher and psychologist first, and a photographer second- even though he makes arresting images, the real importance of his work is in the troubling questions he brings up that stay with you long after the memory of the images that spawned them has faded from consciousness.
What I'm doing is fundamentally different: for one thing, my pictures truly are snapshots- everything is photographed exactly the way it is. I don't construct anything. I'm photographing the real world and manipulating it. Crewdson is manipulating the real world and photographing it.
People are conspicuously absent from my pictures, and when they do appear, they are profoundly depersonalized. I'm elevating the computer with its unsurpassed ability to tell lies to be on an equal level with that of a camera as a technology for telling the truth. I'm celebrating the frailties and ambivalence of our human experience, not directly and intimately, as Crewdson does, but indirectly in a more generalized context, by looking at our very imperfect creations.
cinemafia: Your images, also like Crewdson's, read like a very well-crafted film set. There is that slight sense of un-reality, it could be the lighting or the scale or the geometry, something about it that gives it that sense of magic realism. It's almost as if, well, this is Hollywood, and the idea of reality has transformed, and now we're all living in a film set. What do you think? Is there any kind of social narrative that's maybe running through this series?
Ed Freeman: That sense of unreality is very deliberate. I am not doing documentary photography. Am I using this process, this technique to make a social or political statement? Yes, to the extent that raising consciousness about the unremarkable, wonderful, horrible environment we exist in is inherently a social and political statement. Confusing, you might say, because I am celebrating both the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the unique and the banal at the same time? Yes, that is deliberate too.
cinemafia: I actually discovered your work in a recent issue of Color, the fine art photography magazine. The first thing I'd like to ask you about this where do you feel that you fit into the industry of fine art photography? I'm asking this because, and I'm just going to be honest here, there wasn't a lot of work in that magazine that I found particularly interesting. Orthodontist waiting room wall material, sure, but then suddenly I came to the pages with your Urban Realty images. They really stuck out for me in an amazing way, and I really had to wonder why they were there. They seemed not to fit at all with the rest of the work I was seeing there, and I mean that in the best possible way, they seemed to be carrying a very different message that I identified with.
Ed Freeman: You saw my work in Color? Gee, I wonder how it got there- I don't remember sending them anything. My memory sucks, though. Do you happen to remember which issue?
cinemafia: It was Color issue #10, which came out November, 2010. It was some kind of 'portfolio contest winners' edition, and apparently they'd given you a merit award- which for me doesn't instill a lot of faith in their editorial judgement!
Another thing I'd like to ask you about this is where you feel the industry itself is. I'm pretty sure nobody gets into fine art photography to make a lot of money, but either way we're just starting to come up out of what has been one of the worst economic situations of our lifetimes. From your point of view, what has that meant for artists producing and selling this type of work? What do you think about the buyers?
Ed Freeman: I wasn't making any money on fine art before the recession, so our financial meltdown didn't really affect me much. Photography is maybe the least expensive art form, so it was probably less hurt by hard times than higher ticket items such as paintings or sculpture. As for the state of the art- I spent some time a while back at Photo L.A. and it seems like fine art photography has splattered in so many directions, being unique these days is more important than being good. But having said that, I saw some really wonderful, creative stuff that was very different- and very mature at the same time. Overall, I feel quite upbeat about our medium- and with all the amazing new technology creating more and more options, the best is surely yet to come. As for buyers, if I had any clue about how and what they think, maybe I'd sell more than I do.
cinemafia: The other side of this series, Desert Realty, presents a dreamlike view of mid-century human structures that are in various states of abandonment. These iconic, peeling-paint Route 66 motels and rotting neon signs are put together in such a careful way, they certainly don't feel out of place, because I think as Americans we are very familiar with the kind of things you come across in the desert expanse. Yet, there is an underlying disquiet there, something a bit uneasy about the images. They certainly don't meld with the easy-digestibility of most pop or nature or landscape photography. Could you tell me some of what these altered-natural spaces mean to you?
Ed Freeman: The technique I used for the Desert Realty and Urban Realty series is identical, but different subjects call for different treatments, and different impressions inspire different responses. Driving through the desert, a hundred miles from anything most of us would call civilization, and coming upon a forlorn, abandoned shack at twilight in the haunting silence of the middle of nowhere is a quite different experience from discovering the perfect, iconic Carl's Jr on a busy street in downtown L.A. at two in the afternoon. There are similarities I suppose- I love the desert but I wouldn't think of living there, same as I love the look of McDonald's, but I wouldn't dream of eating there. But in the desert, as an outsider, I feel more deferential to my subject matter; the city is my stomping ground and I feel more in command there, and I think the difference in my attitudes shows up in the pictures.
cinemafia: This isn't related to your architecture and landscape series, but I was reading your profile on Model Mayhem and found it quite interesting. You seem to have a very clear idea of what you're looking for in a model, what you expect out of them and what you want them to expect from you. You say this is demanding, and I understand how it might seem that way to people, but I think it's both a very brave and generous thing to be so clear and exact about your work, why it takes the time it does, why you're not going to pay a model, that sort of thing. Could you tell me about how the process of selecting and working with models has played into your work-flow as an artist?
Ed Freeman: I'm extremely fortunate in that I have more people wanting me to photograph them than I could possibly ever work with. I pick people -men and women- who I think have sexy, beautiful bodies and are completely at ease being photographed nude. But I have some models I work with over and over, because they have a certain indefinable sensuality that comes through no matter how much I distort and manipulate their images. It may not look it, but I am extremely influenced by my models- everybody thinks differently, moves differently, photographs differently. I give models very little direction- I just let them play and shoot them almost as if I were doing candid street photography.
A friend who was looking over my pictures once said, "but, aren't all your models exhibitionists?" To which I replied, "I certainly hope so!" Very important for anybody who wants to pose nude- you have to want to show off. However, I've noticed that people who wear their sexuality on their sleeve -who are blatantly gay or blatantly straight and want the whole world to know- seldom make good models. At least, not for me. I'm not interested in photographing their orientation; I'm interested in their physicality.
cinemafia: Finally, I'd like to ask you about any advice you have for the younger generation. Now more than ever, there are kids and teenagers out there who have the capabilities to make some very interesting work with very inexpensive gear. What do you think they should be doing now to pave the way for a career in fine art photography? Do you think going through a formal school process is a necessity these days?
Ed Freeman: Sure- but doesn't everybody give the same advice?
Go to school- not too little, or you'll need to spend half your career reinventing the wheel. But not too much, or you'll end up absorbing your teachers' limitations along with their knowledge.
Look at lots of pictures. Not just the kind of stuff you like, but also great work that has nothing to do with what you want to shoot. Libraries (yes, they still exist) have thousands of books of fine art photography. Spend an afternoon in one someday. It'll change your life. Don't think that looking at pictures online is the same thing as looking at them on paper- it isn't.
Take lots of pictures. Every day. At least fifty- come on, it's digital, it isn't costing you anything. Critique them mercilessly, save the best one, throw the rest away, and do even better the next day. I'm amazed at people who say they want to be photographers and then don't take any pictures for weeks on end. Don't say you don't have anything to shoot.
Go shoot anything- photograph your dirty laundry, for God's sake. Take an unforgettable picture of a wall plug. You can do it. One of the most famous pictures of all time is Edward Weston's close-up of a green pepper - probably cost him ten cents at the local grocery store. And prints have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And, finally, the smartest advice of all: Make a very detailed study of the way I run my business. Take careful note of everything I do. And then don't do that.
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Ed Freeman web
http://www.edfreeman.com