JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

BEN FRANKE: Multiple alarms and a cup of coffee.

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

BF: Luceo for sure. They are doing amazing work. They make me want to step up my game. Ben Norman is a great photographer. These aren’t emerging but Jake Stangel, Will Steacy, Emily Shur, Martin Schoeller, Chris Buck, Platon, Eugene Richards, August Sander. Also my friend Jonathan Goldberg inspires me to keep going and doing personal work. 

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

BF: I live in Park Slope Brooklyn right now a.k.a stroller country. I’ve been in New York for over 5 years now and the city continues to inspire me. There is an energy that you can feed off of living here. Everyone is doing something interesting and creative and it makes you want to hone your craft and create more and better work.

JC: Tell us more about your project in Serbia?

BF: My work from Serbia is a way for me to explore the ideas of home, nationality and how history effects our day to day lives. All the people I photographed were either too young to really know what was going on during the Breakup of Yugoslavia or were people who could have fled to Western Europe but chose to stay instead. I plan on going back there in the future to photograph people from the rest of the region. It is still very much a work in progress that I hope to keep working on for the next few years. 

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

BF: Lately it has been hard for me. I’ve been spending so much time focused on commercial assignments that I have let my personal work slide a bit. I’m just now trying to focus more on personal work and am in the process of planning a new project that I will be shooting in New York in the coming weeks.

JC: Any advice to recent photography graduates?

BF: I still consider myself a recent graduate but I would say focus on your vision and shoot as much as you can. Also don’t necessarily plan on making all your money from shooting in the first few years. I think its good to find alternative ways to support yourself while you are starting out.

JC: Favourite tree?

BF: Maple tree cause I love maple syrup.