JONATHAN CHERRY: What was the last photography book you picked up?

MATTHEW AUSTIN: Long Life Cool White by Moyra Davey. My friend David Robert Elliott lent it to me at a critique about a month ago, it’s an incredible book. It provides a pretty amazing example of what it means to be fascinated by photography. Her self-criticisms are really honest and comforting, I think most photographers would relate to her writing.

JC: Over the last week has anything particularly inspired you?

MA: When I did laundry this week, I lost a collar tab from one of my collared shirts which inspired me to photograph it. I guess it was just interesting to feel like I should be disappointed in something so unnecessary: something to keep my collar stiff. Also, I recently watched the film Synecdoche, New York which was pretty amazing; that inspired me to carry on with a Phillip Seymour Hoffman marathon of movie watching.

JC: What equipment do you use and how do you feel it is appropriate to leaning itself to your way of shooting?

MA: I primarily use color negative film and a Tachihara 4x5. I would say most of the work that I make has something to do with encouraging further consideration for an idea. So, in the case of the large format, I’m forced to carefully think about the making of the photograph and then actually see the resultant image on the ground glass. I also can’t deny the fact that the camera itself has its controlling characteristics. I think the camera is intriguing to most people being photographed, intimidating or confusing; it has a significant presence.

JC: What is wake all about and where did the ideas stem from?

MA: Wake is a photographic narrative that began with my father’s eviction while I was studying abroad in Ireland. I couldn’t help him move his things being 7,000 miles away, so we kept in touch frequently via e-mail while he was going through this difficult experience. The book Wake includes photographs and journal entries of mine, along with intermittent excerpts of e-mails from my dad while I was in Ireland. After returning to America, I began making photographs strictly of me and my dad hugging in different locations of tragic memory, as a kind of visitation or closure on what had happened. The work continued to develop when we began to experience a number of deaths within our extended family. I began to see metaphorical connections between our present economic time and physical death. I wanted to treat the project like a reflective ceremony, as if it were a wake or a funeral; so making images then became far more intuitive. I would generally treat making a photograph like a reflection on a certain event or idea that had happened, which is why most of the imagery in the book is metaphorical and not documentary. So Wake was wrapped up as I realized its function as my personal understanding of our situation and the current universality of the story among many people who can now relate to these types of experiences.

JC: How have you found making photography work and ‘being seen’ during this time of culture / financial shift?

MA: I don’t think the financial changes in our economy has changed anything about the rate in which I make work, I owe that to the sometimes irresponsible priority of making work above certain other expenses. As far as “being seen,” I don’t know if I can say that I know a difference between making work in the current time of culture or another. I’m also not sure if I can compare ‘being seen’ to anything else, have I been seen? While not knowing if I’ve been seen, I guess I try to remind myself that there’s something worthwhile in my hopes with inviting people to look at work such as this book, even if making it is mostly self-satisfying. For me, I think that idea is supported by how often artists’ work is not seen; and that maybe no one involved in the contemporary photo-world would notice if I stopped photographing. Most likely, only my family and friends would be disappointed because they understood that photography meant something to me. So in that sense, I think one’s dedication to their work has to be enough for most of the time.

JC: What are you excited about for 2010?

MA: I’m excited to learn about what life is like not being a student. I’m also excited for the after school digital photography program that I’ll be continuing to teach in February at Jones College Prep.

JC: Have you found the photography / art blogosphere to be a benefit when coming to promoting your work and sharing thoughts?

MA: Yeah, definitely. It’s great having such access to learn about current exhibitions, awards being won, and work being made. I think that often the whole experience of participating in it can get pretty weird. Just in the way that it’s so easy to create celebrity out of artists whose work you really like, and then how weird it must be for them to receive that treatment. But overall, I think it’s very helpful. I find myself enjoying the sites that strictly feature artists such as this one, and Too Much Chocolate, and also the blogs that give you unexpected posts like Little Brown Mushroom and Pete Halupka’s blog.

JC: Any other thoughts?

MA: For anyone who’s interested in reading Wake, e-mail me at mattaustinphoto [at] gmail [dot] com to receive a PDF of it. And for those in Chicago, I’m checking out copies of the book like a library, so e-mail me to get on that list if you want.

Matthew continues to work and teach in Chicago, US. He blogs here.