JONATHAN CHERRY: What did you have for breakfast this morning?

HORATIO BALTZ: I haven’t had breakfast yet but I have a feeling its going to be what I had last night - baby fetus marinated in chicken broth.

JC: Are there any emerging photographers who are inspiring your practice at the moment?

HB: I wouldnt say they are emerging as much as they are inspiring and surpassing my efforts by leaps and bounds - Johanna Landscheidt, Erin Hanson, Andrew Musson, Omar Mullick, Alex Cretey.

JC: Who are your photography heroes?

HB: Weegee, Gregory Crewdson, Carl Van Vechten, Eddie Adams, W Eugene Smith, and Louis Mendes - who I run into from time to time and has cracked many an eggs of knowledge on the blackened skillet of a head of mine.

JC: How highly do you value the actual experience of photographing?

Every click of the shutter and crank of the film advance is a tiny orgasm that, over rolls and rolls of film, has the unlikely ability to unravel the very fabric of your personal universe. Your forehead first grows cold, then completely numb as you find yourself covered in a film of sweat and floating on a cloud that is somehow chemically composed of tanned burlap sacks brimming with $100 dollar bills. The world becomes completely silent with the exception of the faint rumbling of an 8 lane highway in the far distance that seems to put the world at ease. Palestinians are hugging Israelis, Israelis are high-fiving Palestinians, fireworks start at 10pm Sunday thru Monday, all items are 50% off and buy one get one free, a pack of american spirits costs $4.36, and eggs always land sunny side up.

JC: What is your current project all about?

HB: I’m not sure if I have one yet. The last project I did was a series of portraits in New Orleans toward the beginning of the year. I started playing in this old-time jazz band so I haven’t had much time to think about what’s next as far as photography is concerned. Before the summer I was touring down south for about about 2 weeks. This summer I’ve been down South again for about 2 weeks and touring in the Northeast for about 2 weeks. Now im back in New York city scratching my head and trying to piece together the images I took along the way. Other than that, I’ve been thinking a lot about hell’s kitchen, glory holes, section 8 housing, Thomas Ott, and vhs porn.

JC: What is in store for you photographically over the next 6 months?

HB: hopefully regaining custody of it. I haven’t been treating it too well lately. I plan on getting my 4x5 in order - it needs a lensboard. I want to check out the rust belt, the iron triangle, Newark, and, like I said, take a closer look at hell’s kitchen here in New York. I met and shot an actor once who told me there is very much still a vibrant network of male ecuadorian sex slaves that roam the area around 42nd and 8th avenue, soliciting men for sex in order to send money home to their families for food and school supplies. In the basements of many of the porno stores are elaborate and often times enormous spaces retrofitted with dozens upon dozens of 4ft by 4ft rooms where these men pay as little as 20 dollars a night to stay off the street. More often than not, business is also conducted in these basements as well. On a clear, crisp October night, if you stand on any corner, you can hear the faint moans of a thousand american dreams as they leak forth from the sewage grates into the gutters of hell’s kitchen.

JC: In your opinion what makes a successful portrait?

HB: You know, I’m not sure - I like environmental portraits, I like seeing people do things that people do. I guess a portrait is successful when filling in the gaps comes effortlessly.  whether this is by means of technique or by means of the situation and coincidence, I am not sure.

JC: What does photography mean to you?

HB: Photography is either 1 of 2 things - perhaps even both at once: 1) a dank, dark, cold hole at the bottom of the world brimming with self-deprecation, envy, processing costs, and realizations that perhaps all of your efforts are fruitless or 2) me at 3 in the morning sitting in a rickety wooden chair completely naked (with the exception of a stetson fedora) sweating profusely while scanning strips of negatives, listening to local public radio, chain smoking marlboro reds and wondering when to call it a night.