Photographer duo Guzman (Constance Hansen and Russell Peacock) on studying to see your work objectively – The Artistic Independent

I just lately tried to get a lamp rewired, and the restore man mentioned it truly labored nice, and “you’d be surprised how many people just have two bad light bulbs lying around.” I preserve eager about that particular perception and questioning what I do know. Do you are feeling like you could have some perception about folks primarily based on the character of your work?

Russell: Insight into the human situation?

Yes.

Russell: Gee, you’re going to make us suppose.

Constance: You know what? I’d say in a number of methods we’re voyeurs, and so we’re all the time watching how folks react to sure issues. It’s like a visible dialogue somewhat than writing it down. So yeah, we do take into consideration what’s happening in a sly means. A variety of occasions we perhaps add little bits of it into our work. It’s ambiguous, however it’s in there.

Collaboration is a major a part of your life and work collectively. Has your strategy modified over time?

Russell: When we first began, we each took photos. We took turns form of alternating, not each different shot, however it could fluctuate. We did that for some time till in regards to the 12 months 2000. And then I ended taking photos completely, and Connie simply took the images and I’d form of be round placing my two cents in. So that’s the most important shift in strategy. And then inside that, issues change.

Constance: We don’t actually give it some thought. If somebody has to climb a tree, go underneath water, I’m like, “Hey, Russell, you want to do that?” It’s not so regulated, it’s simply that he likes to face proper there and he has a dialogue with the individual. He makes options, and I feel it really works out very well. In different phrases, I really feel that we form of know when the suitable second is, and we work at it by taking part in with the individual. In the start, we wouldn’t actually know who was going to take the image typically, or the image may find yourself being from the aspect, a special angle.

Russell: The different factor I used to be simply eager about, is when each persons are taking the image, it’s form of like a…

Constance: …press convention.

Russell: One individual goes in a path, and for instance, the individual at the moment photographing would say, “Oh, can you stand up and go over there?” Then the opposite individual photographing has to start out with them standing over there. It’s as in the event you’re doing a drawing with two folks and somebody attracts one thing after which the opposite individual has so as to add onto that. It’s a forwards and backwards between the 2 of us and the topic. It’s a special dynamic than in the event you could be by your self taking an image of an individual.

That’s fascinating. Earlier I used to be eager about likelihood and spontaneity when it comes to outdoors forces with the work that you simply do, however now I’m eager about the way it’s additionally with each other.

Constance: Oh, yeah. Even somebody saying one thing may change the whole lot. When we go in to shoot, we deliver all completely different dimension cameras and there’s 4 eyes as a substitute of two eyes, so we’re like a monster. A variety of occasions we’d have assistants for every of us, and we might have all these cameras, and we anticipated the cameras to be loaded, there could be no time for one individual to get all that stuffed. We’re determining, “oh this is perfect for four by five,” as a result of 4 by 5 adjustments the attitude, you’re lengthening folks and twisting in actuality. And then you could have 35 millimeter, which is grainy and extra off the cuff and spontaneous, two and 1 / 4, which is extra formal, an enormous digicam. We would play with all of it, we loved taking part in.

Russell: The different factor that’s a part of that is, there’s a specific amount of pre-thought earlier than you even begin taking photos. That’s form of half of the photograph shoot proper there, however not all the time. Sometimes there’s no thought in any respect. You simply go in and take photos.

Constance: Well, we’ve got plans, and typically there’s sabotage, however in a means, we form of embrace that.

Russell: To a sure diploma, pictures is a collaboration anyway. First of all, between topic and photographer, then typically you could have…

Constance: Set designers, stylists, hair, make-up.

Russell:…relying on what you’re doing. Not not like doing a movie, there’s a number of issues which might be getting put in. It’s not solitary. Photography’s all the time form of on this planet.

Constance: And we additionally collaborate lots. I used to be truly simply speaking to [set designer] Marla Weinhoff this morning as a result of [we were looking at that] Ozzy [Osbourne] image, I’m like, “Marla, did you bring that car?” She goes, I don’t bear in mind. “Did you put the dirt on the West Side Highway?”

Russell: A stylist may say, “Oh, I have this great jacket. Can you try it on?” To the topic. And you then take a look at the jacket and it leads you in one other path, so you’re simply piling on with concepts. That’s the enjoyable half, you actually don’t know the place you’re going to finish up. The greatest shoots are the place you create an atmosphere the place folks can collaborate and have their enter all form of go in a path. Sometimes you go off observe and also you’re like, “What are we doing? This took two hours and it’s not working.”

Constance: We had this nice concept with a truck and a ship, and we have been going to take Soundgarden on a tour up forty second Street.

Russell: The concept is an previous boat on a flatbed truck, so once you {photograph} the band within the boat, you solely see the boat, you’re form of wanting up at it, and so they’re floating by way of Manhattan. We thought it was an amazing concept. It was an editorial shoot for {a magazine}. Not an enormous funds, however we one way or the other received that every one collectively. But they got here in, we gave the thought, and so they mentioned, “Nah.”

Constance: “We’re not doing that.” We’re like, “Oh.”

Russell: So you’re like, okay, you then’re doing one other plan B, plan C.

Constance: We did deliver a chainsaw.

Russell: And then on the finish of the shoot they’re like, “Oh, let’s do the boat.”

Constance: They received into the shoot, they received so snug. But by then it was too darkish. We’re like…

That ship has sailed.

Russell: Bands sometimes are form of cautious about being manipulated, particularly various bands. They need authenticity. They don’t wish to find yourself wanting silly, which I perceive.

Constance: We threw knives at…

Russell: Jon Stewart. You know that carnival occasion the place somebody’s throwing knives at a woman on the wheel?

I can think about.

Russell: The wheel’s spinning and the man’s throwing knives. So we had Jon Stewart do this, and he was like…

Constance: Brand new, actually. He was hysterical.

Russell: It was the ’90s.

Constance: We have been laughing so onerous.

Russell: With portraits, you need to form of understand how far you may go along with somebody. Sometimes they are saying no and that’s okay. You’re higher off pushing and never being afraid to ask one thing that you simply wish to do. Sometimes you’re like, “Oh gee, I wish I had tried this, but maybe there was not enough time.”

Could you discuss a few of your most up-to-date work, through which you mine your archives and repurpose older photos?

Constance: Everything we took, we contemplate truthful sport, so to talk. We’re all the time pulling issues out and going like, “Oh, this is going to be a really good picture.” It may have been shot for Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman—who is aware of—however we determine we’re going to redo it. We’re all the time fidgeting with the whole lot we do and we deliver it ahead. Our work isn’t linear in any respect. We may need shot one thing within the early 2000s or within the ’90s and even within the ’80s, and after we deliver it ahead, it loses context, it has no reference to what it was. Right now we’re pondering of doing a gun present as a result of over time [of our archive] there are pictures of individuals which might be pretending to have a gun, [or] they’ve a gun. Looking at it when it comes to society, we all the time add one thing about what’s happening. If we predict one thing is annoying, we would handle it type of subversively, and also you discover it, however we’re not writing it out or we’re not hitting you on the top with it. It’s simply there. We don’t actually inform a narrative, we simply provide you with one thing to play with.

Russell: You might take into consideration this too in your work: when you could have one picture—whether or not it’s an summary portray or {a photograph} of one thing, it speaks about one thing—after which once you put completely different work or pictures collectively, context adjustments. In our case, the context can drastically change from that one picture to the subsequent. That’s why books are fascinating as a result of they’re capable of kind a story.

Constance: But you don’t even should know what this narrative is about.

Russell: The narrative is what this juxtaposition of images are collectively.

Constance: It’s extra emotional, I feel.

Russell: Our means of working is—we’re asking questions, we’re not attempting to reply any. You can simply put it on the market. That’s in all probability how you’re employed. You create one thing, and it’s fascinating how folks reply to your work.

Constance: Also, we’re not pure. For our final present, we dipped pictures in persimmon and put collectively collages and reduce issues out.

Russell: And we have been simply form of going again and taking a look at previous work with a theme in thoughts. It’s a great train. Sometimes it’s good to have a field to work inside, after which you may form of see the place that goes. That helps us.

Constance: Yeah, it’s terrifying, I feel, if you are able to do something.

Russell: A quite common feeling for lots of photographers is there’s nothing extra terrifying than it’s only a clean white wall to {photograph} somebody in opposition to, however we love that. If it’s simply the individual and also you, there’s no different option to go.

No chainsaw.

Russell: Yeah, no chainsaw.

Constance: Well, we do find yourself sneaking stuff in. We would possibly hand them a hammer or one thing.

Russell: And it’s onerous for an individual being photographed to simply be form of in opposition to this stark wall. They don’t know tips on how to stand. They can stand awkward so it’s a problem.

Constance: But typically you employ that stiffness. Sometimes we simply adore it. You know what I imply? We wish to seize that. We need that feeling.

Russell: People are fascinating as topics as a result of everybody’s completely different. How they stand and reply to the digicam, it’s by no means the identical.

Yeah, I’m positive even from hour to hour.

Constance: Yeah, they’re solely completely different, typically from the start after they are available in and so they’re simply getting used to us to the place they’re throwing themselves, now they’re aggravated.

Russell: And that’s to not say the primary image the place they’re actually uncomfortable and awkward is unhealthy.

Constance: It may very well be our favourite.

Russell: Yeah, it may very well be the perfect one.

There’s a lot motion and physicality in your course of in the best way you discuss it, too, which leads me to marvel about self-portraiture and your archive over a few years of working.

Constance: It’s fascinating as a result of once you’re youthful, you’re photographing yourselves too. From the very starting, from the primary time we’ve got cameras, self-portraits. When you add 40 some odd years and also you’re getting older and older, it positively turns into much more intense, since you’re realizing you could have much more behind you than you could have in entrance of you. So that does inform me.

Russell: Well, that is frequent to self-portraiture usually, whether or not it’s pictures or portray, no matter, you start to see your self objectively, and also you’re identical to one other character. That’s form of liberating. I feel once you’re youthful, you’re extra self-conscious about who you’re and the way you wish to be perceived, after which once you grow old, you simply say, fuck it. And it’s form of liberating.

What would you say to your youthful self or youthful artists?

Russell: Where does one start?

Constance: Well, I don’t know what I may even say to my youthful self, however perhaps that I see your life, and I wouldn’t remorse something.

Russell: It’s form of unimaginable.

Constance: I not often remorse, I simply preserve going ahead after I give it some thought. “Oh yeah, that was stupid, or that was a sidetrack, or whatever.” But I don’t actually remorse it as a result of it received us right here, you simply preserve going ahead and also you’re simply positive. It’s one factor ruminating in your individual mind, however to place it on the market on this planet, it’s very sophisticated.

Russell: And then as Connie says, you’re negating all of the belongings you did proper. You don’t inform on these.

Right. And nobody actually is aware of.

Russell: That’s it.

Constance: Yeah, I imply, all of the expertise I had was simply because I’m like, “Oh, there’s this door I’m going to open it,” or “Oh, I think I’ll try this.” I by no means had a plan. I’ve simply been floating by way of this.