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Thingstätte Tom's Story
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In 1966 I traded all my Kinks records (singles) for a camera. Went to the local swimming pool, put the camera in a plastic bag, and went into the water. Ruined the damn thing.
Both my parents were amateur photographers. They had an enlarger set up in the bathroom. Mom showed me how to use it, and every now and then I did a project from concept to finished print. There was something wonderfully mysterious about that dim amber atmosphere. To this day, I like to work on images while listening to movie soundtracks on the headphones. 1976 I put down the guitar, left the houseboat in Amsterdam for America, and began my photography studies. Ed Shuster had an enormous library of images, and introduced me to the work of Robert Frank, Duane Michaels, the east-coast view. My next teacher was Ted Orland, Ansel Adam's protégé, who taught the zone system. Dry stuff, but the assignments were fun: "the air itself". I promptly called myself a professional and set about shooting little ads and covering the music scene. This eventually led to photojournalism and that's where I spent the next few years. One day covering lowriders in the Barrio, boxing, followed by the city ballet, or a spread of cuisine. John Mcwade was art director and encouraged my own view. Years later he was one of the first to see the power of computer in design, and set up an office, barren but for a desk with a computer on it.
Meanwhile restless here moved to San Francisco and became an Artist. The scene was reactionary, anti art. Dada painting wild canvases, only to roll them up and bind them in barbed wire. Spent a year on the couch with a camera permanently trained at the television, multi-exposing film, charting every image. Journals, collage, coffee- houses, and bars, lot's of bars. Had a couple of shows, and went to a lot of bars. A couple of record jackets and well, you get the picture.
In 1986 I moved back to Berlin, and was accepted into the Berufs Verband Bildender Kunstler Berlin, (BBK). Berlin was as good a place as any to make up your mind. Better than most actually, when it all comes down. I had been living the life, doing art that was rather uncomfortable, post verbal expressionist bark, you know, though, every now and then it hit the mark. And I talked a good game. It's rather wistfully appropriate that that Berlin is gone now, too.
I came back to America to settle down and put the camera away for almost a year. Eventually I was prompted to pick it up again. So that's what happened. Down to Los Angeles to be a fashion photographer. And starve! Got a few gigs doing my old in-camera trickery, portraits, reportage, and other bits people were kind enough to send my way. I did get an agent, and Valery Katzco was most encouraging and supportive. She even gave me her old set of cutlery when she came over once to discover that I had one spoon one fork and a pot without a handle, and when I was about to be homeless, offered to let me crash in a back room of the agency. But as a fashion shooter it was all hell trying to get women to shoot with me. I had more success finding models as an artist. So assisting it was. I ran like crazy, carrying sandbags, trying to keep up with all the 18 year old assistants. Then one day a friend introduced me to Angelika Schubert, who owns Celestine, one of the top hair/makeup, and styling agencies in the world. God knows why, or what she saw, but I suspect it was in her nature. For a year she helped put together my crews, convincing her artists to test with me, and editing my work. And everything changed. Bit by bit, I learned what to look for, what to look with. I was testing almost every day, and on the road to fashion Valhalla, perfectly content making a living with what I enjoyed doing.
You know how the truth never arrives as foreign information? Well, I got pretty good, but when the time came to head to Europe to shoot for tear-sheets, the wind just went out of my sail. I could give a hoot about whether hemlines go up or down. A fashion shot, by definition, is subject to the criteria of effectiveness. At its best, it is selling, not a dress, but style: movement at its most elegant and economic expression. I had been shooting some very beautiful women, but it was the woman I wanted to photograph; the dress I could live without. And so, as some of the models shot with me without their clothes on, I became re-acquainted with the Muse. And everybody knows what happens when love calls you by name.
Here's what evolved into the criteria: No copies of what others were doing. No shots of a woman just to snap her without her clothes, a spiral trap, however inviting. And I would shoot with a woman in mind. If there were a secret, this last would be it. And in fact women have turned out to be my best editors and critics. Of course there was a conflict. Art versus sex. You can probably see issues looming over the horizon on that one. I did. So for months I asked the models to avert their eyes for the shot, lest a gaze ignite prurient interest. My approach was that of a choirboy entering the private rooms at Pompei. Slowly I learned to trust that which informs, though, and let it lead me where it needs to go.
One day Playboy called and so I met with them and suddenly became very interested in shooting for them. They shoot Kodachrome exclusively for their books of lingerie. Used to shoot that stuff all the time as a photojournalist, because of National Geographic, you know. Kodachrome is the only film that tells you how to shoot it. It's practically a mandate. So I went and tested the film, tweaking it this way, then that, and by the time the shoot proper came up, I had done everything but just plain shoot and process the damn stuff straight up. And so in my eagerness to give them more than what they asked for, rank snobbery frankly, I pretty much missed the target. That was my cup of coffee with them.
Meanwhile, it became important for me again to tackle difficult themes. Ones rife with cliché, traps, and generally anathema to a classically accepted view: sex! And I began a series on well- endowed women. These two themes are still ongoing but sometimes the thread is so hard to follow and I just have to shelve the idea for a while. Like I said, there are no road maps for where I wish to go. Photography, unlike painting, insists on an occurrence, an event. Something has to actually happen. But my favourite shots are ones that don't really look like they happen in real time at all. They are about the wistful ardour of longing, rather than the illusion of accessibility. It's more the idea than the thing. And goes into an area where aesthetics can cause sensibility to blush. And that's where we go off the map.
So that's where I've spent the last few years, fashion, nudes. Occasionally, a show, or record jacket. And now this!
Here's what happened, I got a computer and played cards for three months. Then one day the penny dropped, the curtains closed, and I went to work. Shooting for some of the cooler web sites, learning a little about computers and the internet along the way. I still went to the occasional art opening to hook up with friends and drink bottled water. The gallery scene is swell. But it's a little like stepping into a church, all rich and rare and ritual. And besides, by stepping in I was somehow already saying yes to it all, which is just fine. But my work for the internet was whispering something to me about the big picture. And when my friend agreed to design this site, well the clouds parted and the choir began to sing. This little gallery could offer my work and services from Tokyo to Tierra del Fuego.
So please feel encouraged to click on the e-mail clicker and drop me a line.