How To Become A World Famous Photographer

WORDS BY JAMES KNIGHT

PHOTOS BY JAMIE LEE CURTIS TAETE

Have you noticed how everyone is a photographer these days? Boring, isn’t it? Thanks a lot, digital technology, for convincing millions of idiots that they’re the next Wolfgang Tillmans or Terry Richardson. In reality, a tiny percentage of wannabe snappers will ever make it. The industry is near impossible to break into and the sheer number of people who want in has made it crazily difficult to get your images seen anywhere other than Facebook or Flickr. Having just come back from showing in LA, and with two solo shows in the works, it’s safe to say that 23-year-old Vice photograper Jamie Lee Curtis Taete’s pictures are being seen in lots of places. So we asked him how that happened and what advice he has to make it happen for you too.

Vice: Hi Jamie. Where did you grow up?

Jamie Lee Curtis Taete:

In a village called Burbage in the Midlands that no one has heard of. It’s in the dead centre of the country.

When did you start taking photos?

When I was about 12 my dad got a digital camera and I kept stealing it. Before that I shot on film cameras. I don’t really remember what I was shooting, my memory is awful and I have a real habit of losing stuff or stuff being stolen so I can’t go back and remind myself of whatever it was I might or might not have been taking photos of. I think I may actually have the worst memory in the world. I am great at useless trivia, but anything to do with my past or feelings I can’t do.

What were you shooting once you had your hands on your dad’s digital camera?

I used to go to a lot of gigs in Birmingham. I used to be really into this band called King Adora. They’d attract a lot of Manic Street Preachers fans – lots of feather boas and tiaras and boys in nail polish.

What else did you take photos of?

Just the crap kids I used to hang around with. There are a lot of abandoned factories in and around the town—which were relics of when the local hosiery industry fell apart—that were kind of amazing to shoot in.

So, in between taking photos of your friends in abandoned panty factories, did you fit any school in?

I got a GCSE in some made up course called “speaking and listening” and a second in drama so I went to college. You needed five GCSEs to get in, but I turned up and no one checked, which, looking back, seems a bit ridiculous. The course I ended up on had a really long name like “audio engineering and moving image design” or something.

Did you apply for that because you thought photography would be involved?

No, I actually applied for the photography course but it turned out it didn’t even exist so I was redirected to that course automatically. I got a national diploma at the end of it, which I always think sounds a bit like something for disabled people or something they give to people who have been on the dole for too long.

As you didn’t go to uni, do you feel you missed out on the student life?

Totally. I felt really cheated. That is possibly why I moved to Leicester for a bit and lived with students. When I was there I totally embraced the student lifestyle. I lived in a big, cheap house with lots of other people who got drunk during the day. I even considered going to uni just to feel better about doing nothing. In fact, what am I talking about? I live like a student now. I live in a cheap place in Whitechapel, work for about one hour a week and cook food to last four days. Maybe I’m a perpetual student in spirit. I never wanted to study photography though. I took a gap year without really thinking about it. I decided to go to LA with the money I saved working in a Disney store in Leicester.

What were you shooting then?

I have always constantly documented things. Throughout college I was still just taking photos of my friends but by the time I’d got to LA I had started filming things. I just constantly filmed everything.

How did you end up with the job you have now as one of our in-house photo guys?

I had this blog called Princessfaces, which was a name I came up with when I was really high listening to Gwen Stefani and thought the words “princess” and “faces” were two of the funniest things ever to be put next to each other in history. I guess some people saw that blog and I’d had a spot on Tim Barber’s website Tinyvices. That was shots of all the kids I’d taught at summer camps in the US. That was probably the first real bit of exposure. I’d also done this drawing for Amy [Kellner,

Vice

US Associate Editor]’s website Teenageunicorn, so I knew Amy and I think a few of my photos were being used in the magazine and it just kind of snowballed from there.

Has your approach to photography changed since you’ve started doing it for a living?

Yeah, completely. I have stopped taking photos of my friends. I just got sick of seeing them all the time in my pictures. I am working on an exhibition, it’s a continuation of a load of celebrity shit I was doing a while ago.

Why the celebrity obsession?

I have no idea. I actually have little to no interest in celebrities, but I have an amazing capacity to remember useless trivia about them. Maybe that is what is pushing all my other memories out of my head. I would love to apply some of that memory space to anything other than crap celebrities. The trivia just sinks in. Like the whole Lady Gaga being a hermaphrodite thing, I have no idea how I even heard about it but I did and now I know loads about it. I am an authority on it.

So what would Jamie Lee Curtis Taete’s advice be to aspiring photography student?

Well, you don’t have to actually study photography to be OK at it. Just document everything, shoot loads of photos and then shoot some more, and also schmooze. I am really good at schmoozing.