An Interview with Frank Hamrick

The Game, 10 x 10″, selenium toned gelatin silver print, 2007.

Frank Hamrick’s exhibition is up and runs through December 12, 2009.  We are excited to be showing his work and recently asked him a few questions:

You have chosen to photograph in black and white with a (4×5? 8×10?) view camera.  What photographic issues or ideas does this allow you to specifically address?

I actually use a variety of cameras in my work. These photographs being shown at Texas Tech were created using a 4×5 view camera, a 2 ¼ Hasselblad, a Mamiya 7 and a Polaroid 600SE camera that uses 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ positive/negative film. Sometimes I consciously choose a specific camera when making a photograph. Other times I simply use what is available. There are other photographs from this series made using color film and digital cameras. They just aren’t part of this particular exhibit

A few years ago I began my job at Louisiana Tech University. Some of the equipment was new to me. I had used medium and large format cameras before, but not these particular models. So I would bring a camera home from school to make some photographs around the house. This allowed me to become comfortable with the equipment so I would feel more confident explaining to students how these cameras work and what kind of images they create.

A friend gave me the Polaroid camera in trade for one of my photographs. My dad bought the Mamiya 7 for me as a graduation present when I received my BFA.

The thing I have learned and now try to pass on to my students is the understanding that each camera has its own capabilities and limitations. They have characteristics they project upon the final image. The same thing goes with various films and papers. Digital tools and materials are the same as well.

Different cameras affect how a photographer approaches a subject and also affect how the model interacts with the camera and photographer. I know I’m going to create a different photograph with a waist level medium format camera strapped around my neck in comparison to a view camera mounted on a tripod.

Often I will photograph the same subject with multiple cameras knowing each camera will force me to approach the subject in a different way.

One of my goals is for an ambiguity of time to exist in my photographs. I’m not trying to make them look old. I just don’t want someone to look at my photographs and say, “Wow, he really captured the essence of 2005 with that photograph.” I consciously avoid fads in my imagery. Photographing in black & white helps dodge that trap whereas color can in time look dated.

Black and white photographs and view cameras have existed as long as photography has and they will continue to exist. Viewers can look at my images and think they were made fifty years ago or last week. Hopefully ten years from now they will still be seen as having that vagueness, “Was this photograph made in 1977 or 2019?”

With so many photographic artists increasingly using digital printing for their photographic images, could you tell us some of the reasons you continue to print in selenium toned gelatin silver?

I want the work to last, to be archival. That’s one reason. Time has shown that these kinds of prints are stable.

I have done some digital printing, but my best-known images tend to be traditional selenium toned gelatin silver prints. The software, printers, inks and papers used in digital printing are continuing to improve, but I still get a certain feeling of instability in digital printing. By instability I mean advancements are constantly being made. Inks and papers evolve. It is great and I take what I need from it when I need it, but I don’t care for my work to be a guinea pig right now. There’s a saying that the cutting edge of technology is also the bleeding edge. I realize darkroom printing is not the latest thing, but that is not what I’m after. Making work that holds up conceptually and physically are my goals.

I worked in a library for a few years. The archivist there showed us the difference between the 18th century books made from rag paper and the 20th century books made from wood pulp. The paperback books were falling apart because of cheap glue and newsprint.

I get a great deal of satisfaction out of making these traditional prints especially when so many people are now making digital prints or sending their files off to a lab to be printed by someone else. Each print I make is exposed and processed individually in the darkroom. The photographs are precious because each individual print represents a portion of my life.

Your photographs are beautifully lit and composed and you speak of your work from a romantic viewpoint.  How do ideas of beauty influence your work?

Romantic… hmmm… that’s interesting. I’ve never thought of it that way or heard anyone else describe it like that.

Personally, I believe I recognize the beauty in people, places and objects that many others might not think of if I asked someone to imagine a beautiful house or a beautiful flower.

This year a friend gave me a book about the Japanese concept Wabi Sabi, which basically identifies itself as imperfect, impermanent things that are seen as aesthetically pleasing. Your favorite pair of jeans or a well-worn t-shirt that you choose first from the closet could be examples of Wabi Sabi. This philosophy fits the way I see things and what I choose to photograph.

Perfect can be boring. I gravitate to the scarred and twisted trees. I focus on individuality. I prefer to photograph things as they are naturally, which includes using natural lighting.

These images conjure up thoughts of survival and natural selection, along with the idea of an individual finding one’s place in history. Could you talk about your personal connection to land and place that is being addressed by these images?

I grew up in a rural part of Georgia where there was a dairy farm half a mile to the north, another dairy half a mile to the south and a ranch right next door to the west. I did not have cable television or a Nintendo to suck away my youth. So my time after school was spent picking blackberries on the side of the road and wandering in the woods with a number of dogs. In the summers I would drill water wells with my grandfather and my uncles. During college I briefly worked on a small organic farm. Then I started growing my own organic garden.

This background has given me a deep connection to the land. I know first hand that our resources come from the land. I don’t grow all of my vegetables, but the food I do grow gives me a greater appreciation for the food I buy at the store or in a restaurant. I understand the time and effort that goes into its creation, so I respect it more and try not to waste any of it.

Growing a garden here in Louisiana has created a connection for me with this land that I previously did not have. I feel connected to the food I harvest. It means a lot to me to invite friends over and feed them with the food I grew in the yard. It also means a lot to photograph these plants that I have been involved with. I’m not buying carrots at the store to photograph. I’m planting seeds and patiently waiting months to harvest and use them as my subject matter.

I don’t want to buy everything I consume. I want to be able to produce some of the things I need. People are often referred to as consumers. I want to be seen as a producer. My artwork along with my teaching are my contributions back to society.

I speak with my students about the difference between being a consumer and a producer. They have to decide how they want to be remembered, for making thought provoking pieces of artwork or for playing a lot of video games.

Our culture is becoming increasingly impersonal. We don’t know where our food comes from or what is in it. We have friends online that we never actually meet. Our daily activities are becoming more virtual through devices and technology like camera phones and text messages. They make life more efficient but we don’t know how to deal with real objects or how to interact with people face to face.

So the quality connections we make with each other are becoming more meaningful because we have less of that in our everyday life. Getting a hand written letter these days takes on a significance and value it never had before.

In many ways, these images are aesthetically and conceptually similar to those of Keith Carter.  Are there specific artists working in similar ways that you with whom you identify?

Joy Christiansen-Erb and I worked together for a year. One of the things I picked up from her was the concept of a photographic family. For Joy, Jon Yamashiro, her undergraduate professor, was her photography dad, and Susan kae Grant, her graduate professor was her photography mother.

I identify with that concept and feel that other photographers and artists in other media can also be members of my creative family. I think of Joy as one of my photo sisters and my students are my photo children.

I’d like to think of Keith Carter as some distant uncle I discovered when I was in grad school. We have since connected with each other in the past couple of years. I have one of his postcards on my office wall and he has one of mine on his wall. Keith has been supportive of my work. This past year he selected my Standing Broom photograph to be in a show he juried and gave it an honorable mention.

Both Keith and I are photographers who grew up and continue to work in the south. I believe we both find subject matter in this region that is important to us and important to others once one of us holds it up for others to see. Although I realize more people pay attention when he holds up something for others to view.

I believe artists see what others might not otherwise notice and find ways to say things that everyone feels but can’t find the right way to express it.

In college I looked up to photographers like Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand. Guys who wandered the streets photographing in every city they passed through. Now I identify with artists that have a personal connection with their subject matter. Abelardo Morell, Emmet Gowin, and Sally Mann are photographers that immediately come to mind as artists with whom I identify.

Artists in other mediums that are important to me include the songwriter Sam Beam from the band Iron & Wine, Jim Sherraden the printmaker who manages Hatch Show Print in Nashville and David Clark, the writer from Cochran, Georgia.

Could you share with us some insights you have gained through this project on ways that your home functions?

I have realized home is not a place. Home is my attitude towards a place. It’s less about how my home functions and more about how I function in a location, how familiar I feel with a place.

Many thanks to Frank for his thoughtful answers.  Be sure to come see the show before we break for the holidays.