Interview: Kate Hutchinson
Second up to the plate is Canada’s very own Kate Hutchinson.
Liz: I came across your work via Conscientious. Do you know how Jörg found out about your work, and what was your reaction to being mentioned on his blog?
Kate: After reading Jörg’s blog about bookstores in Massachusetts I felt compelled to e-mail him about a bookstore in Maine that I love. It’s a huge place called Big Chicken Barn. I also included a few photos that I had taken there. Jörg kindly e-mailed me back, and then two days later my work showed up on his blog. I was completely surprised and very excited.
L: So what’s your background or history with photography? How long have you been doing it? Is this how you make your living?
K: When I was ten, I got a point-and-shoot camera for Christmas. In two days, I shot all four rolls that were included with the camera. From then on, I was addicted to the process. I was a yearbook photographer in high school and got my first SLR when I was sixteen. Then I took the safe route and did a biology degree in university. I really didn’t think that it was feasible to work as a photographer at the time. There are no artistic types in my family, so it was not something that seemed possible or was encouraged. Toward the end of my biology degree, I decided that I didn’t want to pursue the sciences after school was done and so in my last two years of university I took every photography and art-history course that I could. At this point, I knew that photography was what I had to do. And so after university, I did Dawson College’s photography program. I finished that four years ago and I am very proud to say that I have been making a living solely off of my photography (and some photography teaching) since then.
L: My favorite project of yours is Why Am I Marrying Him? Did you start this project as a way of answering, for yourself, that question? You didn’t title the project, “Why I Am Marrying Him.” There’s a question mark there. Questioning relationships is completely natural for me—probably for most people. I think you’ve really hit on something truthful with the question and your photographic answers. I can tell from looking at the photos—where your fiancé is hanging out, being goofy, being the way with you that people are when they’re in love—why you’re marrying him. (There’s a question in there somewhere, I think.)
K: The Why Am I Marrying Him? series started out somewhat accidentally. When I see an interesting setting or beautiful light, I usually throw the nearest person into it and try to make a good portrait. Often that person is Chris, my fiancé. And so I ended up gathering a lot of good portraits of him. Then last summer I started putting these images together and realized that, through these photographs, I seemed to be trying to understand who he was and why I had chosen him. Since becoming conscious of this project, I have photographed Chris a lot, in an attempt to answer some of the questions I had. In the end most of the images in the series come from this period where I was consciously photographing him with the intent of answering the question, “Why am I marrying him?”
I am definitely someone who constantly questions relationships. I think that any relationship is a balancing act, and I wanted to make sure that I took a good long look at our relationship and our motivations for getting married before jumping into it. I feel that the images reflect this. There are the funny moments when he definitely makes me laugh, and in contrast there are the moments when he is sullen and quiet and nothing can change his mood. I wanted to show all sides of his personality and see if this was what I wanted in life. Just so you know, the answer was a resounding yes, but even so there are still parts of him that I don’t necessarily love and I think that that’s only normal and that it’s healthy to recognize this. The wedding is in May, but I’m hoping that this series won’t stop there. I think I will constantly be learning new things about Chris through the photographs, and in living our everyday lives, and so I will probably always photograph him.
L: I love your blog because it’s so apparent from looking at it—and this could be especially true because I read the entire thing, from your very first post to your most recent one, on one Saturday afternoon—is how much you love photographing (verb, not noun). Do you carry a camera with you everywhere you go, or does it just look that way?
K: I do love the act of photographing. Recently, I decided to enjoy the moment and the act of taking the picture as much as seeing the resulting print. In a way, I need to do this because often the results are not what I am looking for, so it is important to me to enjoy the journey as much as the end result. I think that this is possibly one of the reasons (but not the main reason) that I still prefer film. With digital, seeing the results right away takes away from this process. As for having my camera with me all the time, unfortunately I don’t, mostly because the projects that I am working on right now are deliberate and somewhat thought out before the shooting. I do bring my camera whenever I go somewhere interesting or do anything out of the ordinary, and that can often lead to good images and occasionally start me going in a whole new direction.
L: Where are you hoping to go with your work? What’s your photographic dream? Museums? Galleries? Books? World domination? Only making it big after you die?
K: Right now I just feel happy that people like my work and are willing to pay me for it. In the future, I know that I will always want to pursue personal projects and would definitely like to exhibit more and eventually be represented by a reputable gallery. In the fall, I will be having a solo show of my Why Am I Marrying Him? series in Montreal at an artist-run gallery, and I’m really excited about that. Although I would love to make a living solely off my personal work, I think that that may not be possible, or at least would take a very long time to happen. And so I will always need to supplement my income with other work. This other part of my career can go in one of two directions: Either I’ll teach more and do less commercial work, or I’ll do more commercial and editorial work and, therefore, teach less. I think I’ll have to see what comes up and what ends up stimulating me, and my work. And, of course, I share every photographer’s dream of publishing a book some day. Either self-published or through a publisher, I know that I’ll make that dream come true at some point.
L: I just got a US$37.50 store credit from photo-eye. What one photo book should I put that money toward buying? And why?
K: Well, my all-time favorite photographer is Sam Abell. (I hope to take one of his workshops sometime soon.) I bought my first photo book at the age of sixteen and it was Sam Abell’s Stay This Moment. Anything by Sam Abell is always a must for me. His quiet but powerful imagery is what I am always striving for. But right now the next photo book that I want to buy is Josef Sudek’s The Window of My Studio that just came out this year. In a similar vein, the last photo book I bought was Laura Letinsky’s Hardly More Than Ever: Photographs 1997–2004. [I couldn’t find that exact title at photo-eye, so I linked to another Laura Letinsky book that seems to contain photos from that project. If you’re interested in the specific book Kate mentions, you might be able to get it here.—Ed.] Both are very different interpretations of still life taken in the artists’ personal spaces, something that has been a recent interest of mine. I’m glad that you brought up photo books. They are a constant source of inspiration, and they are always furthering my photographic education.
Liz: I came across your work via Conscientious. Do you know how Jörg found out about your work, and what was your reaction to being mentioned on his blog?
Kate: After reading Jörg’s blog about bookstores in Massachusetts I felt compelled to e-mail him about a bookstore in Maine that I love. It’s a huge place called Big Chicken Barn. I also included a few photos that I had taken there. Jörg kindly e-mailed me back, and then two days later my work showed up on his blog. I was completely surprised and very excited.
L: So what’s your background or history with photography? How long have you been doing it? Is this how you make your living?
K: When I was ten, I got a point-and-shoot camera for Christmas. In two days, I shot all four rolls that were included with the camera. From then on, I was addicted to the process. I was a yearbook photographer in high school and got my first SLR when I was sixteen. Then I took the safe route and did a biology degree in university. I really didn’t think that it was feasible to work as a photographer at the time. There are no artistic types in my family, so it was not something that seemed possible or was encouraged. Toward the end of my biology degree, I decided that I didn’t want to pursue the sciences after school was done and so in my last two years of university I took every photography and art-history course that I could. At this point, I knew that photography was what I had to do. And so after university, I did Dawson College’s photography program. I finished that four years ago and I am very proud to say that I have been making a living solely off of my photography (and some photography teaching) since then.
L: My favorite project of yours is Why Am I Marrying Him? Did you start this project as a way of answering, for yourself, that question? You didn’t title the project, “Why I Am Marrying Him.” There’s a question mark there. Questioning relationships is completely natural for me—probably for most people. I think you’ve really hit on something truthful with the question and your photographic answers. I can tell from looking at the photos—where your fiancé is hanging out, being goofy, being the way with you that people are when they’re in love—why you’re marrying him. (There’s a question in there somewhere, I think.)
Copyright © Kate Hutchinson
K: The Why Am I Marrying Him? series started out somewhat accidentally. When I see an interesting setting or beautiful light, I usually throw the nearest person into it and try to make a good portrait. Often that person is Chris, my fiancé. And so I ended up gathering a lot of good portraits of him. Then last summer I started putting these images together and realized that, through these photographs, I seemed to be trying to understand who he was and why I had chosen him. Since becoming conscious of this project, I have photographed Chris a lot, in an attempt to answer some of the questions I had. In the end most of the images in the series come from this period where I was consciously photographing him with the intent of answering the question, “Why am I marrying him?”
I am definitely someone who constantly questions relationships. I think that any relationship is a balancing act, and I wanted to make sure that I took a good long look at our relationship and our motivations for getting married before jumping into it. I feel that the images reflect this. There are the funny moments when he definitely makes me laugh, and in contrast there are the moments when he is sullen and quiet and nothing can change his mood. I wanted to show all sides of his personality and see if this was what I wanted in life. Just so you know, the answer was a resounding yes, but even so there are still parts of him that I don’t necessarily love and I think that that’s only normal and that it’s healthy to recognize this. The wedding is in May, but I’m hoping that this series won’t stop there. I think I will constantly be learning new things about Chris through the photographs, and in living our everyday lives, and so I will probably always photograph him.
Copyright © Kate Hutchinson
L: I love your blog because it’s so apparent from looking at it—and this could be especially true because I read the entire thing, from your very first post to your most recent one, on one Saturday afternoon—is how much you love photographing (verb, not noun). Do you carry a camera with you everywhere you go, or does it just look that way?
K: I do love the act of photographing. Recently, I decided to enjoy the moment and the act of taking the picture as much as seeing the resulting print. In a way, I need to do this because often the results are not what I am looking for, so it is important to me to enjoy the journey as much as the end result. I think that this is possibly one of the reasons (but not the main reason) that I still prefer film. With digital, seeing the results right away takes away from this process. As for having my camera with me all the time, unfortunately I don’t, mostly because the projects that I am working on right now are deliberate and somewhat thought out before the shooting. I do bring my camera whenever I go somewhere interesting or do anything out of the ordinary, and that can often lead to good images and occasionally start me going in a whole new direction.
L: Where are you hoping to go with your work? What’s your photographic dream? Museums? Galleries? Books? World domination? Only making it big after you die?
K: Right now I just feel happy that people like my work and are willing to pay me for it. In the future, I know that I will always want to pursue personal projects and would definitely like to exhibit more and eventually be represented by a reputable gallery. In the fall, I will be having a solo show of my Why Am I Marrying Him? series in Montreal at an artist-run gallery, and I’m really excited about that. Although I would love to make a living solely off my personal work, I think that that may not be possible, or at least would take a very long time to happen. And so I will always need to supplement my income with other work. This other part of my career can go in one of two directions: Either I’ll teach more and do less commercial work, or I’ll do more commercial and editorial work and, therefore, teach less. I think I’ll have to see what comes up and what ends up stimulating me, and my work. And, of course, I share every photographer’s dream of publishing a book some day. Either self-published or through a publisher, I know that I’ll make that dream come true at some point.
L: I just got a US$37.50 store credit from photo-eye. What one photo book should I put that money toward buying? And why?
K: Well, my all-time favorite photographer is Sam Abell. (I hope to take one of his workshops sometime soon.) I bought my first photo book at the age of sixteen and it was Sam Abell’s Stay This Moment. Anything by Sam Abell is always a must for me. His quiet but powerful imagery is what I am always striving for. But right now the next photo book that I want to buy is Josef Sudek’s The Window of My Studio that just came out this year. In a similar vein, the last photo book I bought was Laura Letinsky’s Hardly More Than Ever: Photographs 1997–2004. [I couldn’t find that exact title at photo-eye, so I linked to another Laura Letinsky book that seems to contain photos from that project. If you’re interested in the specific book Kate mentions, you might be able to get it here.—Ed.] Both are very different interpretations of still life taken in the artists’ personal spaces, something that has been a recent interest of mine. I’m glad that you brought up photo books. They are a constant source of inspiration, and they are always furthering my photographic education.
Labels: blogs, books, day job, interviews, Josef Sudek, Jörg Colberg, Kate Hutchinson, Laura Letinsky, photographers, portraits, Sam Abell
posted by Liz at 8:50 AM
1 Comments:
Actually, I did find Kate's website before she emailed me (forgot where), and then the day I was going to post it, Heather Morton also pointed to it (albeit to a completely different series). So it's all rather convoluted really, things coming together over the web (that's why/how I like it).
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