In conversation with a pedestrian shooter
William Olmsted’s work does not hit you over the head, or scream at you for attention. It is smarter than that. He shoots mainly with film and opts for an approach of selective shooting. Olmsted doesn’t chase the instant-gratification of shoot and review on-the-fly. Nor does he shoot first only to wade through hundreds of DSLR burst-mode images. Nope, he’s thoughtful and patient. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
“Sometimes I see something in the backyard, or the store parking lot. Shooting isn’t really a regular thing for me, it is more like something that might happen.”
Once a week or so, Olmsted takes a long walks around his local area with his camera. On some days, he doesn’t even make a picture. Other times, everything lines up.
“{i’ll see] something that catches my eye for a reason that is hidden from me at the time,” says Olmsted, “something that can potentially fit in a body of work, something that I can’t imagine as a photograph, something I want to record for 70-year-old me.”
His work includes images of birds and other animals native to his area. Some of the animals are trapped — both literally or figuratively in their environment. There are also images of discarded or broken objects — found by the roadside, or inside homes that appear to have sections that are not used, or the entire home may be abandoned. These thematic elements, his visual interplay with color or witty juxtaposed views, are well thought out.
The recurring motif of birds in Olmsted’s work might leave the viewer with the metaphoric idea of flight or escape, in a physical or possibly spiritual way. His use of elements common to his particular area of the country could seem surreal to people who live in very different places. Images of guns, knives, and the accoutrements of hunting carry different and emotional responses rural-folk and city-dwellers.
“All my photographs are from the same small town on the coast of Maine where I have lived my entire life,” says Olmsted who is trying, it seems, to present an alternative view to that of the picture postcard.
“My photographs are the result of my desire for my hometown’s demystification and a consequence of my liminal place here, a looking-back, to say goodbye before I pack things up and leave for good. While not an authoritative view on what is often portrayed as a beautiful vacation place, I hope my photographs stand as an alternative one, because I find Maine’s marginal landscapes more compelling and important than it’s beautiful ones.”
Q & A
Wobneb Magazine (WM): Why do you photograph?
William Olmsted (WO): I like the process, the wandering. I wouldn’t have discovered the kind of perambulatory exploration I now enjoy so much were it not for photography.
Photography is something I can do and I enjoy its limitations and lessons.
There is also the little excitement of looking at my pictures for the first time weeks or months after I take them. That never gets old.
WM: There are so many ways to express oneself in a 21st-century world; What makes still photography your choice of expression? Do you create work in other mediums?
WO: I drew a lot as a young kid, then in high school I found photography and have mostly had a monogamous relationship with it since.
For a couple years, 2011 and 2012, I didn’t take pictures at all. I dedicated myself to writing for hours a day, but it drove me nuts. A fundamental thing I learned from it was that I’m not a studio artist. I like being out in the world too much, and photography is a good compliment to that desire.
WM: What makes a good photograph?
WO: Reason for liking something can often be more ambiguous than not. I can tell you what makes a bad photograph, or why I don’t like something, but when something clicks and jives with my sensibilities, justifications often feel like hollow rationalization.
Maybe the one thing I could say is, something that is hinted at. There is usually a sense of a thing left unsaid that I like about quality photographs and projects.
WM: What and who are your photography inspirations?
WO: People who work seriously at something over a long period of time. That drive is compelling to me, even when it flies in the face of convenience or even good judgement.
WM: You’ve cited photographers such as Gregory Halpern, Stacy Kranitz, and Lars Tunbjork as influences. In a way, do you see your work being stylistically similar and/or making a statement in a similar fashion as some of your influences? What is your intent for the viewer?
WO: Those are pretty big names who create really stellar work. Their work has influenced me, but so has the work of others across disparate mediums. Maybe there is some relationship between me and them, but that is probably best for the viewer to decide. Between equipment and environment I am probably treading similar path, so I guess it’s only natural that we might share something in common.
WO: I know that a viewer will likely derive meaning from the work, so I could use that as a starting point for me work, but any intent I have for a viewer is mostly non-existent.
I want people to see my work and I like interacting with other photographers, so I throw my stuff on the Internet. But other persons’ readings of my work isn’t a primary concern right now. Don’t hold me to that though, my feelings about audience might change from project to project. I could see myself playing with the idea of viewership at some point.
WM: Do you feel your work makes a comment on a universal level, as well as the personal level? Your work is specific to a certain place — is it more about your experience, or do you feel it translates well to other people’s experiences or lives?
WO: My work is related to, and is a product of, my experience; but I don’t know how universal that is. Through the cadence of the photographs perhaps the viewer can enter the landscape and gain or feel something, even if their experience is distant from mine. Maybe that’s using the personal to access something less specific, more universal, I don’t know.
WM: Would you please explain the idea behind the Void Fraction series on your website? Why did you select these image to work together/against each other in a multipart series?
WO: Within photography’s coupling of vagueness and specificity I try to explore memory, sense of place and time as well as create as kind of clouded autobiography. I think these pictures ultimately reduce useful information about the places they were taken and create a kind of fictive alternate dimension which I enjoy adding to.
I wanted to create something that was inspired by a year here while playing with the sense of the seasons and day/night cycles. I also found myself photographing many of the same subjects at different times of the year and I noticed patterns emerging that I thought might coalesce into an interesting project.
WM: There are elements of nature, wildlife, landscape, man’s inclusion/interaction with nature in your work — will you comment on why you choose to depict these elements in the way you do?
WO: Maybe I feel my photos of this place are more honest in some way, even though I feel they are lying too. That desire to portray this landscape a little differently gets filtered through various limitations and comes out as whatever it is.
Mostly its just intuition.
WM: Who are the people that appear in your photographs? Do they have significance beyond the role of a “figure” in your scenes?
WO: The people in these photographs are all immediate family. I wanted to approach this project from everywhere. Landscapes, portraits, still life, whatever. If it’s lacking one thing at this point it’s more pictures of people, but I still have a years worth of film to develop so we’ll see how things go.
WM: Besides throwing your images out on the Internet, do you see other avenues for your work at this time? Photobook? A gallery exhibition? Have you looked for a gallery to represent you, or do you feel that is an antiquated idea?
WO: I like the idea of a book. I’ve made some PDFs that are on a hard drive somewhere around here that function as a kind of ersatz book. I’ve made some small zines and prints on request, but that is about it.
I’ve never looked for a gallery to represent me and wouldn’t know how to go about being represented. I don’t think I’ve ever even been inside a gallery, so my ignorance is great enough that I have no reason to feel the idea is antiquated either.
WM: Your statement that you are ready to pack up and leave your hometown for good leaves the impression that you possibly are at odds with the idea of your sense of place, and somewhat the idea of Beauty. Are not ‘marginal’ landscapes ones of Beauty as well? You could make strong work wherever you end up, but why leave Maine?
WO: I guess there is beauty, and then there is Beauty, and there is everything between. Perhaps conventional beauty is a better descriptor, or maybe I need to reword something.
Why leave? I’m finding other places more interesting, and this one less so.
Originally published at Wobneb Magazine, an online magazine featuring contemporary photography. Follow Wobneb on Tumblr, or Twitter
William Olmsted is a photographer based in Maine. Follow him on Flickr and Tumblr
All photographs © William Olmsted, used with permission.