Behind Photographs – Tim Mantoani
Phil, Painters series – Mark Scholey
I came across a post on live books with a Questions and Answers session with Tim Mantoani. The Q&A session itself is interesting and Tim’s sign off reply is one that is always worth remembering:
“Every photographer has a personal project they want to shoot. JUST GO DO IT!!!! There will always be a bunch of reasons not to: money, time, risk. But at the end of the day, the images you shoot for YOU are the ones that will be your best and the most rewarding. The roller coaster is more fun than the merry-go-round.”
However, what really impressed me was the work on Tim’s website, especially his Behind Photographs series. I’ve always been interested in portraits of artists, writers, performers and poets (famous or not), especially those that have the artists with their work or in their studio/workplace. Indeed I have an ongoing series about artists in their studio, a shot from which is on the right.
Tim’s series has a very stripped back aesthetic, one that makes you directly compare the subject of Tim’s photograph with their own subjects which they are holding. I like how the photographers are in a studio/setup so in a sense they are already in a working environment that they should be at least somewhat familiar with, just on the wrong side of the camera; as we all know just how much many photographers hate being on that side of the lens, and just how much that can make for interesting photographs.
