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Jonathan Auch: Well, I like Japanese photographers of the Provoke era. If I had to pigeonhole my influences to one movement, it would be that one.Have you been to Japan?
No, but I studied martial arts: aikido and iu-jitsu, some judo as well. That's how I became interested in Japanese culture, and began studying Japanese. Then I began to get into drawing.
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It's a technical school, started after WWII. It was meant to be a craft school. It has a harsh curriculum, focused on learning traditional techniques of design and illustration.At some point I got fed up with paying through the nose. I began to think about what I was going to do with the skills I was learning. The thought of doing illustrations for Russian Vogue never appealed to me. I had something to say that was the opposite of that. So I took time off, and I started looking at pictures. I went to Europe, and that was when I bought a camera for the first time. I started taking pictures on the street.
Just an old Nikon beater.I ask because you seem interested in the technical side of things.
I think the technical aspect gets you somewhere, but you can take a good picture using anything. You can take a good picture with a phone, although I haven't seen any. But, hypothetically, you could.
I'm not saying they don't exist. But people try to do photography with their phones like a regular camera. But the phone doesn't lend itself to that. The picture is low-resolution, and shit. They treat it like a regular camera, and it isn't one. I don't see anyone exploiting the phone in a way that's provocative or interesting. You don't need to have sharp photos—half of Moriyama's photos are out of focus or blurry—to be evocative. Some of them are quite compelling for that reason.
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Well, that's the difference between an artist and a craftsman. An artist makes those decisions all the way through from beginning to end. Like a director of a movie, you have to consider everything. I haven't seen anyone exploit the aesthetics of a phone picture.
No, but I don't think photography is much different than drawing.It is easier for people to use a pencil than a camera.
Maybe…I mean, there's a certain amount of technical knowledge required to use a camera.
But, these days, what technical knowledge do you need? For a lot of my pictures I use something like this.[He pulls two small point-and-shoot cameras out of his bag, a Ricoh and an Olympus, and lays them on the table. ]
These are just small mirrorless cameras. I don't think it maters. You can use whatever is available to you. You could use a Leica to make these same pictures. I don't have any money so I use cameras that are inexpensive.
Sure, whatever that term means. It's so broad it's almost meaningless. A "street photograph" could be anything.
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I think most street photography today is shit.I agree completely. It's so hard to make a good picture on the street, especially considering the legacy of those legendary figures.
I think that street photography should be something that has guts. That asks a questions versus gives answers. It's an open genre—you can take a picture of whatever you deem important, attractive, or interesting. But to me, most street photography done today is a stage, or it's a one-lined joke, a bad cliche. I don't think that has any artistic value.
Yeah, well, I see the world in a certain way, and that's why I take pictures the way I do. You can't escape your mind, your history, and your psychology. I think there are ideas that are not being addressed especially in our normal daily life, which is a subject that street photography is good at addressing.But you're also working in a way that's out of style. Today people have an obsession with sharpness, and I would say noticeable grain is not in vogue. But somehow, your pictures end up looking very contemporary. It has something to do with the way people are dressed, and I also think it has to do with digital tools. But something about your approach is unmistakably current. Who are you influences, beyond Moriyama?
Early on I saw a Robert Capa exhibition in Berlin. I thought I could do something like that, meaning war photography.
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Yeah, that was a mistake, but it made the pictures better. The best photographs Capa took.Well, like I said, Japanese photographers like Shōmei Tōmatsu, Eikoh Hosoe or Kikuji Kawada who did The Map. I like William Klein, and of course Robert Frank. Lisette Model, Gilden, Weegee…Those are all photographers with political leanings. Do you have strong political views?
Yes.
I think the economic system we have structures the world, and it structures our relationships with each other. This is especially prevalent in New York. In a way we don't see each other as human. There is an unspoken violence that exists in the way we treat each other on the streets in New York. Instead of trying to romanticize that, I'd rather show it plain.
I liked the pair of them. The man looks like he is walking toward death. The two of them lined up together looked like drama masks.How do you recognize scenes like this so quickly?
There's an instinct that develops. If I see something that has potential, I try and charge my way through the swarms of people to where it might happen, and either it happens or it doesn't. It's a bit like surfing, although that's more peaceful. Maybe it's more like bullfighting, I don't know.
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Sometimes. I try to tell them what I am doing. If people become aggressive I will defend myself.Do you ever end up dealing with the police?
Yeah, a lot.What happens?
After September 11th, there is a hyper awareness of anyone who it outside of the boundaries of "normal social behavior." The parameters to determine whatever normal social behavior is have tightened. New York has become less welcoming to people who fall outside of that.When you're taking pictures of people on the street, that's unusual behavior. The cops are there to keep people in line.I'm respectful and polite, but I try to avoid [the cops] because I don't want to deal with that. They do not know the law the are sworn to protect. Many times I have had cops tell me it is illegal to take pictures without asking.
I have strong political views, and will are always lean towards people who are on the edge of society, or disenfranchised in some way.
There is an attraction and a repulsion that exists. I think some of them are beautiful, and some of them are ugly.
What does that mean? You could take a camera and set it on burst, and shoot ten frames in one second. Every frame would have a different representation of what the person is. It's a still photograph, a split-second in time, and once you separate it from its original context it can be recontextualized again and again.Also, as the viewer you bring your own interpretation to it. For example, I find this guy (above) quite beautiful in his own way, but some people would find him hideous. What is beauty anyways?I don't have an answer for that one.
Me neither.See more of Jonathan Auch's pictures on his blog.Follow Matthew Leifheit on Twitter.