PH : The Language of Photography Will Mosgrove

Transcription

1 PH : The Language of Photography Will Mosgrove FINAL PAPER: An Interview with Jesse Kalisher by Rachel Shuler

2 Jesse Kalisher is a fine art photographer, based in Chapel Hill, NC, whose photographic works have a place amongst the distinguished collections of the Smithsonian, the DeYoung in San Francisco, the Museum of Fine Art in Houston and the Louvre, to name just a few. His ʻAround the world in 89 photographsʼ collection includes a stunning array of frozen moments where form and composition meet life, and merge to create something that will never be seen in the same way again. Amongst the most recognizable are: The Pyramids at Dawn Cleaning the Reflecting Pools at the Taj Mahal

3 The Louvre - Art Watching San Francisco Sunrise

4 Obama

5 Outside of his work with museums and collectors, he has also carved a quite unique niche for himself as the art provider to many of the top international hotels and businesses. As someone with such venerable credentials, it is refreshing to find that he is also passionate about not restricting his work just to the wealthy or to galleries, but is proud to be able to make photography accessible to everyone. Mr. Kalisher did not begin his career with photography, although his father, Simon Kalisher, was a photographer and he was exposed to the business at a young age. Whilst accustomed to the equipment, to image making and to having a darkroom in the bathroom, he was dissuaded from following that path and headed instead for a career in advertising in both San Francisco and New York. Whilst successful, Kalisher began to feel the Madison Avenue life was not fulfilling, and at the age of 33 he took the determined step to leave it behind and travel. Not having explored extensively outside of the States before, he chose to visit Vietnam; a place which shaped the culture of America so greatly during his school years, but a place whose true culture was not really taught at the time. Vietnam and the war were, as he phrased it ʻnot yet historyʼ and therefore of heightened interest. This period and destination, as it happened, turned out to be a seminal experience in shaping his future as a photographer. Culturally, it was a completely different place, but rather than simply being intellectually aware of the fact, Kalisher states how, suddenly, he found himself viscerally awakened to it. Armed with only a point-and-shoot at the time, he started capturing the lives he saw there, but found that he was actually composing, framing and making images rather than just ʻsnapshootingʼ. He found, in what he was creating, a level of meaning that heʼd been looking for and during that time, as he described it, reawakened his inner photographer. His interest in other cultures, and other lives in general, appears as a common thread in much of his work and provides endless sources for fascinating images. He astutely points out, however, that a photograph is not interesting merely because it is of a different culture, but that it needs to have more ʻthereʼ there. Another welcome aspect to Jesse Kalisher is that he refuses to be pigeonholed into one category of photography. When asked about finding his ʻvoiceʼ as an artist, he laughingly informed me I was asking the wrong photographer and that heʼd give up trying to do that! He maintains that his medium is photography and his subject is whatever captures his regard - be that in storytelling, or an interesting aspect of geometry or history. This response was reminiscent of quotes from such greats as Paul Strand, who spoke of how his subjects ʻcalled to himʼ. Strand also covered a multitude of subjects throughout his career with an apparently similar deep emotional connection to what he saw and the people he photographed. Whilst Kalisher admitted that many photographers become commercially successful because they focus on, and become know for, one style or subject, he also pointed out artists like Picasso whose rounded artistic expression included a multitude of media from painting to various forms of sculpture. Whilst he supports the argument that a recognizable style is important for many commercial photographic avenues such as advertising and graphic design, he is himself evidence that that is not an absolute, and a more Renaissance approach also has merit. With a decadeʼs experience in the ʻdog-eat-dogʼ advertising world and an equal span as a professional photographer, I was keen to ask him his advice on entering into the business. Whilst he did not have specific mentorship when starting out, he did take with him his Fatherʼs experience, but also a solid background in marketing which helped him tackle the problems of self-promotion. More importantly, however, and from what I can discern, he took with him a strong ethic of hard work and determination, and what he described as a ʻhealthy disrespectʼ for what it takes to be a photographer, which is perhaps what has enabled him, so successfully, to define his own path. When asked about the early period in his working life as a photographer, he describes how he started small, basically doing everything for himself, by hand. And by ʻeverythingʼ he truly meant everything, from getting clients and running the business to matting his own prints and hand-delivering them to the customer.

6 He poignantly described the hurdles of overcoming any hint of ego in order to walk into a gift-shop and ask if theyʼd be willing to sell your work - work into which much love and effort had been poured - and only expect to see a fraction of the sales. In retrospect, Kalisher views this lesson in humility as an important one for anyone starting out. He even goes as far as expressing a certain arrogance of going into such a venture at all and just assuming youʼll succeed. An additional challenge he encountered was one, it seems, that many businesses which start to attain success meet - how you transition from small to large scale! Kalisher related how he found himself, at one point, having to utilize a small trolley to deliver his prints and how the production side of photography - the printing, matting, etc - absorbed so much time that he was prevented from traveling and photographing anything at all. It was at this very stage, when asked, that he said he was closest to abandoning the whole idea and it was only by a close friendʼs persuasion that he did not. In his description of overcoming this issue of scale, Kalisher hit on another impactful statement. He explained how he saw that others were achieving what he wanted to, so he knew it was possible, but he just had to figure out how. On one level, this may seem like an obvious statement, but it is so often the case that we come across what we feel are insurmountable problems, however, if other people can ʻsurmountʼ them, surely there is hope? Having achieved success in the industry and overcome numerous challenges of which, Iʼm sure only a few have been mentioned here, he still seems able to continually grow in his art and keep it interesting for himself and his viewers. When asked the secret, his response boiled down to this: he picks up his camera! For him, overcoming momentum and getting out of the gallery to shoot is of primary importance. He explained how, when he holds his camera, something physical takes place and that a powerful inertia propels him to see differently and capture those essential moments in the world around him, which go into making captivating photographs. ʻCreative blockʼ does not seem to be an issue for Kalisher. He is fortunate to have an open brief, for the most part, with regards to photographic subject and although that could seem daunting, he was reassuring that, with experience, you not only gain confidence but the clients begin hiring ʻyou for youʼ and know, to some extent, what to expect. He also stressed the importance of having your own viewpoint on the world and a personal take on what you shoot. In addition his own Father, he cites Winogrand, Frank and Salgado amongst his influences, all of whom have the knack of capturing the ʻessenceʼ of life in their images, but all with their own unique style. Kalisher also has the gift of capturing these fleeting moments of humanity, but in a way which makes it his own. He likens it to a chefʼs use of ingredients, wherein the basic elements are the same and there is no fundamentally new material, but no two peopleʼs use of them is exactly alike. As Kalisher dwells primarily in the fine art realm, I was curious to know his opinions of the fine art world of photography in general; about how he aligned with art critics and what photographic trends he sees emerging in the future. Again referring to the great artists of the past, he laments the feeling that photographers are losing the ability to look for, identify and capture what Cartier-Bresson called the ʻdecisive momentʼ - a concept upon which much of Kalisherʼs work seems to rely. Referring, somewhat tongue-in-cheek to David Ogilvyʼs advertising quote, if you have nothing to say, sing it, he is of the opinion that many contemporary photographers work on the principal that if you have nothing to say, make it big!! The positive implication of these observations are that, those who make a point to develop the right skills will stand head-and-shoulders above the rest. His opinions on the elevation of digital, photoshop and ʻsnapshootersʼ follow a similar vein. He drew parallels in photography to the literary craze of the 1990s, after the inception of word-processing, when ʻeveryone became a novelistʼ. Whilst nowadays, everyone is a photographer he maintains that, far from diminishing photography as an art, there will be more respect for those who create true works of art with the camera. It is not as simple as owning a camera he states, there has to be more to it

7 than that, and primarily the people who will suffer are those who invested in expensive equipment, but did not invest in their skills and talents in using it. Finally, and after what had mainly been a conversation filled with poignant comments and valuable points of view, I felt compelled to take a slightly different tack! However, this proved to be one of the few time in which Iʼve asked a silly question but got a sensible answer! My parting question to Jesse Kalisher was If you were stuck on a desert island with just one camera and lens, (whether pertinent to location or not) what would it be? He intelligently replied, without hesitation, that by taking a Nikon 105mm lens with, macro capability, you would not only have options of landscape shots, but have subject matter enough, on the macro-level, to keep you occupied for months! What more can I say!? To see more of Jesse Kalisherʼs work, visit stop by his gallery in Chapel Hill North Carolina... or check into almost any major hotel chain across the U.S.!