JONATHAN CHERRY: What got you started with photography?

TYSON MILLAR: Falling into the gen-y (just) clan doesn’t help… It was the digi-revolution of cameras that got me into chasing light and shadows. I dipped my toes into the photography-pond with a Nikon D70. I began shooting my cousin who is a professional vert skater from Melbourne, although I shot him in my home town of Perth, at an X-Games event. It was a good event to join him at the coping of the ramp. I soon realised I was having no fun with post-processing and moved rapidly in to the deep end by purchasing a med-format Twin Len Reflex Yashica for $180 Aussie dollars on Ebay and it all spawned from there. I don’t like to talk about studying photography as I don’t feel it gave me much inspiration or drive to pursue long term desires in my passion.

I now exclusively shoot film running through anywhere between 2-10 rolls a week, developing and scanning it myself at home. Life’s good.

JC: Any emerging artists inspiring you at the mo?

TM: There’s so much to trawl through these days with web-hosting and blog sites being built for exploiting your images, it’ rad. But I really get impressed by those who live and die by the sword, you know, those film camera kids who lug their equipment everywhere. And anyone who can emulate that nostalgic, vivid feel of film. Artist’s like William Broadhurst & Karla Read, google them if you have to, but for me these guys have got life dialed.

I have a strong passion for music and I see great prospects from bands like Two Wounded Birds and The Vincent Gallows as well as solo artists; Joe McKee and Andy Citawarman.

JC: Whats your current project all about?

TM: I still consider my stuff as foot-finding, and I am not sure I’ll ever be comfortable with one set project but I am concerntrating on emulating the 60/70’s film era of music and bands. I spend a lot of time sifting through gig-guides and reviews trying to find the the emerging artists who usually prove elusive or difficult to shoot in low light situations. It’s an ongoing portion of work that is a perpetually concurrent passion for me.

JC: Where are you currently living and how is it shaping you?

TM: I am living in London, UK and have been here for a little over a year now (since moving from Brisbane, Australia). Every eye-popping walk through Liverpool Street, every homeless man, every corporate banker riding to work with his hem tucked into his socks has shaped me since moving on from a difficult time in my life last year. The capital city is so fast paced especilly when you hail from the most isolated capital city in Australia. But it’s the contrasts of the city that grip you - the scum is awe inspiring and beautiful is simple and alluring.

JC: One piece of advice to recent photography graduates?

TM: I think I am better at giving my solemn views and opinions than giving anyone photography advice so I will say that the more the camera is in your hands firing that shutter the more you will grow as photographer. For me, I don’t try to think about the shots I take, instead I believe I capture what I think about.

JC: Any big plans for 2012?

TM: Nothing big, but my plan is to shoot and develop more rolls than I did last year, but I am not going to count them out. I know I will already surpass it. I also know that it will shape me more in terms of personal progression and experience.

I will hang photos in a gallery also, but when and where is really up to those who would want my work cluttering their wall.

JC: Favourite tree?

TM: The tree I shot on my 13th Jan Tumblr post. It’s evil and beautiful in the same breath. I love all tress though, they’re a little harder to come by in a place like London.

MULL IT OVER is proud to recommend Matt Nager this February! Matt has an extensive portfolio of personal and commercial work. He has good eyes.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

MATT NAGER: Usually coffee! Actually, I am not a morning person, so my day usually begins slowly around 9am. On a deeper level though, I look at each day as an opportunity to discover something new, whether that be new inspiration for a photo project, meeting a new person on an assigned photo shoot, or having a great day in the mountains. 

JC: Are there any emerging artists inspiring you at the moment?

MN: Although they are already pretty experienced my favorite two photographers at the moment are Michael Christopher Brown and Carolyn Drake. They do amazing work. Mostly documentary in nature, their photography is both journalistic and art.

JC: What is your current project all about?

MN: At the moment I am between projects. I have several projects in the research phase, but nothing that I am shooting right now. I recently finished filming and photographing my first documentary looking into the rise in health issues in Southern Italy due to toxic waste disposal in the region. Check out the website for that film here and the photos here. 

JC: What draws you to portraiture?

MN: I love people and I love telling stories. I originally went to journalism school with the idea of working for a newspaper. Unfortunately, that industry has seen quite a rough few years. When I started freelancing in Dallas a few years ago portraits were what I was hired to do. As I developed my skills shooting portraits, I really grew to enjoy meeting people, talking with them, and photographing them… in their environment. I still enjoy longer term documentary projects which enable me to spend months with a person or an idea a photograph it in a variety of ways, but there is something magical about capturing a person, or a place for that matter, in a ingle portrait.

JC: What equipment are you currently using? (cameras, software, hardware)

MN: I currently shoot on Nikon digital equipment. The Nikon D700 to be exact. I also shoot film and love my Mamiya 6 medium format camera.

JC: How do you find juggling personal & commercial work?

MN: It is not a struggle at all. I find time to do both personal work and commercial work because my personal projects tend to be long term and require a lot of research before the project begins. I take that time to earn money through commercial work which will allow me to photograph my personal projects. I also always try to think of projects that I can potentially sell when researching potential personal work. That way, I often make my money back after I am done working.

JC: Any advice to recent photography graduates?

MN: It takes time, but think about what you like to shoot and focus on those subjects. If you want to make money or be successful in photography, you need to find your corner and become the master of that corner. If you like shooting portraits focus on finding your style as a portrait photographer. Also, don’t loose motivation to shoot how you want simply because of how others shoot. Follow what you enjoy and the work will come.

JC: Favourite tree?

MN: Currently… the Maple Tree.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

ALEXANDRA CORNEANU: When I have to get up early, my alarm clock. But besides those days, I usually wake up at noon. I’m more of a night owl and I get most of my work done after 5pm.

JC: Are there any emerging photographers inspiring you at the moment?

AC: I find Lukasz Wierzbowski’s work really inspiring right now for it’s unique style and use of colors. Also, cargocollective.com is a great community of talented young photographers and a place where you can showcase your own work, find inspiration and grow as an artist.

JC: What is your current project all about?

AC: I’m currently developing the final project for my Bachelor’s Degree which looks at visual identity of the artist’s practice. I’ve created an alter ego for myself that plays around and changes it’s appearace going through different phases of my evolution. It explores the conscious and subconscious as a point from where the creative process starts. So, it constructs itself as a fragmentary narrative where the self-reflexive process of work reveals subjects and symbols that are recurrent in my images.

JC: What initially drew you to photography?

AC: As a child I was passionate about drawing and painting and growing up I believed that I would end up as a painter. This all changed once I received my first digital camera as a gift from my parents. I grew more and more attracted towards photography, learning what I could do through experiments, from various communities over the internet. I loved all the endless possibilities of the photographic medium, from film to digital, but I was mostly drawn by the way I could manage the use of colors. I finally ended up photographing more than drawing and decided to pursue this in the future.

JC: Where do you live and how is it shaping you?

AC: I’m from a small cvasi-known country called Romania. I still live in my hometown, Iasi, although I recently came back from studying in Manchester for three months. Living here all my life is making this city feel oddly claustrophobic at the moment, just because it’s so much part of who I am that I feel the need to escape it more and more. If I think about it, taking aside the raw beauty of this place, there’s not much to do here for a young artist. I mean, regarding opportunities to work and develop oneself. I consider I’ve reached maturity in terms of how this place could shape me and that it’s time to move on to somewhere new.

JC: Favourite tree?

AC: Any tree with lights on its branches, like a Christmas tree.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What got you started with photography?

FABRIZIO ALBERTINI: During my years of study in Directing and Production, at the International Academy of Lugano, I’ve got the opportunity to compare myself with other audiovisual disciplines. Among all other photography and editing gave me a way to experiment. For me taking pictures is a necessity to accrue my eye. It’s an immediate way to approach that, unlike the movie idea, can give me the possibility to make by myself.

JC: Any emerging artists inspiring you at the moment?

FA: Now I don’t know enough photographers to have one favourite in particular. I take inspiration starting by aesthetic concepts, instinct, way to look and to shoot pics. Sometimes I take inspiration starting from a single pics made by one photographer. Among the emerging artists I’m really impressed from Daniel Shea. He’s amazing.

JC: What is the project Handball all about?

FA: Handball is a series of pics shot in a single game court in New York. Geometries, musculature, players and the game play. I found in the black & white film the ideal support for describe this space full of light. Handball is a “physical documentary” where the point of view moves inside the playground. During the game. Into the game.

JC: Where are you currently living and how is it shaping you?

FA: I live in Italy, in Cannobio, a little town on Lake Maggiore. Really close to the Swiss border. Lakes and Mountains; that’s my landscape. I’ve set all my audiovisual works here and I think that, in a way, has trained me to a certain sensibilty. For example I’m fascinated by the idea to taking pics in peripheral spots, with anyone or very few people. 

JC: One piece of advice to recent photography graduates?

FA: I don’t know really. I’m not graduated in photography. The advice that I can try to give it’s to work with a consistent glance. Working on a series, a concept. An idea of series, documentary, gallery who talk about a very precise way to look.

JC: Any big plans for 2012?

FA: Many hopes! I hope to find a producer who wants to invest energy in my ideas of audiovisual projects. For what concern photography I hope to complete projects I’m working on right now. I hope to find a place where I can show these projects. A way to promote these works. And I think that join myself to a photo collective would be great.

JC: Favourite tree?

FA: Pine at the moment.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

PAVEL TERESHKOVETS: The thought that I’ll have enough time to sleep in the afterlife.

JC: Are there any emerging photographers inspiring you at the moment?

PT: I especially get inspired by the mind blowing surrealism of Rodney Smith’s photo works, the beautiful geometry of Antoine Gonine’s shots and by the wonderful works of the russian travel photographer Sergey Danyushevskiy.

JC: What is your current project all about?

PT: At the moment I’m working on the project that is about the forlorness of the night city I’m living in. The project is a little bit mysterious, because the mystery comes already during the process of creating this series - I’m spending nights outside in very weird and strange places where there are no people at all or just a few of them - bums, tramps and so on. Sometimes it gets pretty dangerous in such outlying places - in our country it’s forbidden to make shots of lots of objects, so you have to be very careful and stay unnoticed.

JC: What initially drew you to photography?

PT: My father was an alpinist, a climber. Every summer he went to a new place on the planet to win another mountain top. He always took his soviet camera Smena Lomo with him to show me afterwards all the beauty of those scenes unseen by me for I was too young to go with him. The photos I was looking at ispired me a lot so I began to photograph myself.

JC: How do you find juggling personal & commercial work?

PT: I’m always trying to combine these two things although it’s sometimes hardly possible. But the best case is when you’re doing things you like and they bring you money at the same time. I’m working on it because reaching the level where there is no more difference between your personal work and work bringing you money is the top of this world’s pleasure.

JC: Any advice to recent photography graduates?

PT: Don’t listen to anybody and don’t obey any rules in your creative work. Do what you like and how you feel. Be sure of your great future.

JC: Favourite tree?

PT: Palm trees of the Venice beach in L.A.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

MARNIX VAN UUM: My alarm and in the weekends my girlfriend. She’s really good at waking up early on a day off.

JC: Are there any emerging photographers inspiring you at the moment?

MU: Wessel Baarda. Not only is he a good photographer, he’s also a great friend. But like I said in previous interviews, I’m mostly inspired by things around me, things I read, hear, see. I’ve been very into postmodern philosophers for some time now. The idea that most of the things we experience is culturally defined is stuck in my head and I can’t seem to get it out because I feel like everything I see is substantiating that statement. Let’s hope it’s just a phase, haha. But yeah, those kind of things inspire me - they get me thinking.

JC: What is your current project all about?

MU: In my current project I’m trying to capture ordinary things, things we regard as ordinary, in a different context to show that what we consider as ‘normal’ shouldn’t be considered as ‘normal’. Why have we given that meaning to that object or that act? We are capable of giving meaning to things, so we should be embracing this by placing ‘ordinary’ things in different frameworks. 

JC: What draws you to making portraits?

MU: I don’t know why I’m so drawn to making portraits. I just like people more than nature and no, people aren’t part of nature anymore.

JC: How do you find juggling personal & commercial work?

MU: I haven’t done much commercial work. In fact, I’ve only done one fashion shoot of a collection for a friend of mine, but I thought it was horrible. It just didn’t work out the way I wanted it, there was too much time pressure and the location wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. I hope I’ll never have to do anything commercial again.

JC: Any advice to recent photography graduates?

MU: Stay true to your ideologies and don’t let anyone’s vision get in your way. And don’t get sucked in a major corporation. Promoting your work is also important.

JC: Favourite tree?

MU: Genetically modified trees.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

ERICA MCKEEHEN: My bladder, or my alarm, which is the opening to the song Zoo Station by U2. The lines are I’m ready. I’m ready for the laughing gas. I’m ready. I’m ready for what’s next.

JC:  Are there any emerging photographers inspiring you at the moment?

EM: I consider most of my photographer friends and peers to be emerging, though I’m not sure when the term emerging no longer applies. In any case, they all inspire me. I am a recent graduate of Ohio University, home to so many talented photographers and artists. I look at their work and it fills me with so many conflicting feelings… I am jealous, sometimes, of their bravery and persistence to pursue some of the serious and heartfelt work that they do. I am also proud, inspired (as you asked), and excited for them and for all of us making images in the world. In college I studied more commercial work and was pretty interested in that until my senior year when I just wanted to photograph people, but I’ve always had intense respect and admiration for documentary and journalistic work. I have more guts than I used to, but I never could’ve done it as a student. I hope that my work shows some sort of middle ground between the two, but in the end, it’s all passion that comes across, and I am inspired whenever I see it in someone’s images. To really answer the question, my current favorite emerging photographers are Brad Vest who just won College Photographer of the Year for his documentary work in Ohio and West Virginia and Peter Hoffman (not sure if he’s “emerging” by anyway) who consistently makes just plain beautiful images. Both of them are fellow Ohio University graduates.

JC: What is your current project all about?

EM: I don’t really have one specific project in mind but I recently compiled some images taken during a brief stint as a night-life photographer for Studio Paris (apart of Club Paris in Chicago, IL). When you look at the images, the term night-life doesn’t really seem to fit, but I believe I was originally commissioned to photograph flash-filled images of attractive, rich Chicagoans drinking champagne in the city’s River North (somewhat elite) neighborhood. I spent 5 Friday nights walking around the club, from 9pm until 1am, photographing what I saw… slinking into the dark corners of the club rather than inviting guests to step in front of my lens. I don’t really know if I had any real intentions at the time (I was just trying to do a job in the only manner I knew how), but I can tell you that I felt isolated and strange each evening. Now I look at the photographs and I think those emotions are obvious.

JC: What draws you to making portraits?

EM: People are important. I wish I had a more elaborate reason, but I think that’s enough. My favorite photographer has been, and always will be, Anton Corbijn. He makes portraits and they’re beautiful and rich and memorable, but he does more than that. He establishes real relationships with his subjects and he lovingly sustains them. He is curious and invested at the same time. He has captured the same people over the course of years and years. I am curious too, and I cannot help but be invested, but the truth is that I love taking photographs of people in my life. It is a compulsive need and I feel that I have done a poor job satisfying it. The portraits I keep close to my heart are of family, friends, lovers, and anyone who has claimed a piece of my heart. I collect photographs of them to remind myself that these people are important… they have made my life rich. Not only do I want to take their portrait, but I owe it to them.

JC: How do you find juggling personal & commercial work?

EM: I make commercial work (or commissioned/editorial work, in my case) personal. When I shoot a wedding, I try to do so intimately. When I am shooting a gym or a salon or a spa, I try to maintain my sincerity and point-of-view. Even if it’s not my primary interest, there’s little I do that isn’t personal. That’s just how I’m made, or maybe I just like the consistency.

JC: Any advice to recent photography graduates?

EM: This is sort of like giving advice to myself: no matter what you have to do to sustain your passion, to pay your bills, and to put food on the table, as long as you want to be, you are a photographer. No one can say differently. It is difficult making money solely on your photographs. I have only been out of college for a year and a half and I moved to Chicago right after graduating with this idea that I could live off of my photography almost immediately. I decided long ago that I didn’t really want to (nor am I really built to) assist commercial shooters, and so early on I eliminated one of the only jobs completely relevant to my college degree. I just wanted to make the photographs I wanted to make and let my life happen. I am not saying it’s a total impossibility to live off of freelance, but in certain circumstances, it’s much more difficult than I ever imagined. The truth is I love photography but I am still unsure what place my photos have in the world, and, further, I am still not sure what I want to be “when I grow up.” I was always a career-driven perfectionist, so accepting that it’s not so easy has been huge for me. I have worked really hard to survive in the big city and have taken some unforeseen opportunities to make my life and my photography here possible. Do not care about being impressive. Or making a lot of money (hard for that to happen even if you are getting more jobs). Care about your work… care about shooting what is meaningful to you. Stay genuine.

JC: Favourite tree?

EM: Weeping willows, easily.