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About the archive singles
Since several years now I have been working as Freelancer together with Ethan Early for the Great Bowery New York City. He is the driving force in the background regarding photographer relations and recently archiving. In his photography works Ethan Early continues his exploration of gender identity with a series looking at ‘complex‘ masculinity in the US and has self published two books on the subject.
Interview
To start, can you talk a bit about your background as a photographer?
Sure! I grew up in a small town in the northern part of Pennsylvania. As a kid I was super involved in the music scene. I grew a bit older and started to find that I wanted to express some of what I was feeling musically in a visual way. I found an interest in photography and the rest was history. I went on to study Photography and Imaging at Ringling College of Art + Design and that passion grew into a career in the art industry.
Whether you call it ‘lens-based’ media or visual storytelling – there are so many ways to express oneself in a 21st-century world — how did your personal style of photography become your choice of expression?
The act of taking a photograph or shooting a film equally formed my ability to express myself with it. I was interested in the technical capabilities of the medium while also trying to find a voice in the art world and I think at least initially, they played off one another. The latter was harder and happened in a more profound way when I entered college. The remarkable thing about art school is that you are exposed to a bunch of ideas and amazing young artists that inspire and influence your own visual language.
I found a love for printing and physical media and all these photographic processes morphed and synergized into the way I think creatively today. A lot of the narrative, style, and editing in my work comes from me thinking about printing it. Over the years, what worked for me was engaged and emotional portraiture and I used that same voice in my imagery of places and scenes without people. I shoot a lot of film too, so it forces patience and curiosity in the creation stage.
Is your work more about your personal experience, or do you feel it translates well to other people’s experiences or lives?
I would say it is a mixture of both. My professor Sam Davis said to me at the beginning of my college career (I am paraphrasing) to find what it is I want to say, write it on a note, and discard it so nobody can see, but to keep that idea in my head. The idea being that for the rest of the body of work you show that idea, like a poem. That has always stuck with me. I would say a lot of my work is emotionally or philosophically charged, but open enough for people to have their own interpretation or inject their own past into the work–especially the scenes without people.
In the intro I mentioned two self published books of yours. Can you tell us more about them?
Yes, for sure. These were both from my college era and created as a part of my senior thesis project at Ringling. The first one, When the Boy was Young I look at more as an EP to the LP album, with Just Like a Man being the LP album. It was more developed and ran with the ideas I presented in the first book along with an exhibition that presented Polaroids as well as two large format prints.
In both books I tried to play with the idea of transitioning from boyhood to adulthood while remaining vulnerable and how that relates to perceived masculinity. I told my subjects to try to channel that thought and express themselves how they thought fit. I ended up with some powerful portraits. Some other underlying tones of desire, masculinity, and reinterpretation of the male gaze were present in the work too. In hindsight, there are most definitely things I would do differently–sequencing, more editing, etc. but I am proud of putting that work together back then.
Are you working on a new book or project at the moment?
I am! I have been working on a series of psychological night images that I am hoping to put together into a small book at the end of the year. Stay tuned!
How do you describe your photography to someone who is not familiar with it?
I would describe it as psychological and emotionally charged imagery of people and places with undertones of fashion and cinema.
What makes a good photograph in your opinion? How do you decide when something you create meets or exceeds your expectations?
I think it should be timeless. You are dealing with a medium that can stop time so take advantage of that. It should also have some sort of narrative, but not so obviously shown that the magic is lost—so leave something that grabs the attention of the viewer and makes them think for a bit.
In my own work those images come and go, and I usually can feel when I am stumbling into a good area creatively. However, I would be lying if I don’t take bad images too. I just do my best to edit those out and learn from them. If an image has what I mentioned above and it sparks some sort of emotion in my gut, then it gets my stamp of approval.
Artist Bio
Ethan Early received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography and Imaging, with honors, from Ringling College of Art and Design in 2018 and was awarded Ringling College Trustee Scholar, the highest honor presented by the institution.
Ethan Early completed a documentary of the prolific photojournalist and artist Herb Snitzer, in 2018, that screened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Saint Petersburg. This piece was re-screened in 2020 at The Breman Museum in Atlanta, Georgia. Early is currently working between the Great Bowery New York City headquarters and his home office in Saint Petersburg, Florida.
Photographer: Ethan Early
Instagram: @ethanearlystudio
Photos copyright Ethan Early
DRAWLIGHTS | 1/1 – one post/one photographer, weekly. Off-chain and on-chain. By Peter Nitsch, lens-based artist, a member of NFT Now 🌐, Jenny Metaverse and lifetime Member of the Royal Photographic Society of Thailand.