FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Vice Blog

I’m A Cliché

Doing a degree in photography is a gigantic, expensive, pointless scam. There is no camera on Earth that takes more than a day to learn how to use. You will spend three years learning how to “read” photos while unqualified, failed...

I’M A CLICHÉ

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY JAMIE LEE CURTIS TAETE

STYLING BY SAM VOULTERS

Models: Jamie, Sam, Miss Apple Tart and Stacey

Doing a degree in photography is a gigantic, expensive, pointless scam. There is no camera on Earth that takes more than a day to learn how to use. You will spend three years learning how to “read” photos while unqualified, failed photographers attempt to give you career advice. However, if you do insist on going, here are some photographic styles that 99 percent of your contemporaries will inevitably end up claiming as their own, but which you should never ever attempt on pain of death, so help you God.

Advertisement

Fred Perry jumper, vintage shirt, trousers and shoes

Now, Where was I?
This body of work explores themes of memory, loss and isolation. The images are of my grandad, who has been living alone since 1999. I wanted to raise awareness about the way society forgets people once they are no longer considered “useful”.

Fly53 jumper, Vans hat

Untitled (1984 was a Typo)
I wanted to create work as a response to the way the government controls and oppresses us through a capitalist system and how we have been robbed of our right to express ourselves freely.

What Katy Did underwear

Female Trouble
I wanted to explore the pressure the media puts on women to look and act a certain way and prove that you don’t have to be a size-zero Paris Hilton airhead to be beautiful.

Levi’s jeans, Onitsuka Tiger shoes

The Life Pursuit
Through these photos I wanted to take the viewer on a journey. They were taken over the course of a month as I explored areas of the city I had never visited. Through these photos I want to blur the line between subject and viewer and force people to question the role “art” plays in society.

Pull-In underwear

It’s Fun to Lose and to Pretend, London 2010
This is a picture of my friends Lisa and Chris. It was taken at 4 AM, shortly after we’d been kicked out of a party we’d crashed at Bungalow 8. I decided to juxtapose the Osama mask with the American flag underwear to make a statement about the war in Iraq.

Vans jumper, Carhartt jeans, Converse shoes

Fourth Circle (Avarice and Prodigality)
With this series of self-portraits I wanted to inhabit the spaces in between. I’m fascinated with the way nature has slowly begun to reclaim urban spaces. I want my work to make the viewer aware of their own temporal nature.

Levi’s jeans

Untitled #31 (Yet We Do These Things [Move Through This Life])
I decided to turn the camera on myself for this series in order to explore the fragile and detached world of my own consciousness. It’s a documentation of my fears and feelings of worthlessness.