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Hi Brian, tell us about your professional background?
I earned a BFA in Photography in 1996 and a MFA in Photography in 2004. I’ve been teaching photography since 2000.

What does the name of your site “notifbutwhen” signify?
Not If But When came from the weeks after 9/11. On one day it seemed this phrase was the headline of every newspaper and for me signified the messaging from the media the psychological climate of this country should shift from one of empathy and grieving to one of fear. I decided to co-opt this phrase to try and turn it against itself. Using ‘Not If But When’ as a moniker for my projects as an artist gives the phrase new meaning.

Why is photography important to you? What drives you to create, curate and teach in this field?
I am fascinated with photography’s ability to render the world in a such a realistic way that viewers will have a visceral, emotional response to an image. Photography is one of the most powerful mediums simply because people will believe it, even in the age of clear understanding of digital manipulation, we can’t help but be moved. If this wasn’t so, advertising wouldn’t work.

One teacher, Pat Bishop, early on as an undergrad really reached out and had a huge impact on me. Part time teaching is certainly not a lucrative endeavor, but if I can have a similar effect on students it is certainly worth it. Curating is much of the same, I love photography and art, many people have helped me along the way so it becomes important to try and do the same for people whose work I respect and admire.

How do your surroundings influence your photography?
My current project, Copia, is one that started as a small idea of making photographs in shopping malls and stores and has become a long term investigation of ideas of consumerism in America across many middle, lower, upper and working classes. It has become such a big project, (at the moment it’s about half done), simply because once I started paying attention and spending long periods of looking at something as simple as a supermarket checkout, I came to understand that how powerful, sublime and manipulative that environment is. The proverbial light-bulb (blue light;) went off in that, a picture of such a simple everyday stupid moment can transcend those things and hopefully becomes an idea that asks us to evaluate our own decisions and self reflect. It’s quite amazing that this works but I often hear from people who tell me they cannot go into a store the same again, that now a trip to Target brings to mind my photographs.

Your work often seems like a commentary on society, particularly consumerism. Describe your thought process in the creation of the “Copia” series. Did you have any preconceived goals for the project?
As I mentioned above, the aim wasn’t something huge but simply to see if it was even possible to make any pictures in stores. Most of the pictures in ‘Retail’ (big box stores) were done candidly so I was of course worried I would be tackled by security as soon as I took out a camera. Surprisingly that was not at all the case. What kept me going back was the idea that shopping in the wake of the politicized climate of post 9/11 was an instruction from the government. I wanted to see if people were actually out shopping because it was something patriotic to do. Once I got past the awkwardness and worries about how to make the pictures, the portraits of shoppers were mainly focused on a psychological moment where we might be able to get inside the psyche of the subject. Initially the pictures were more critical but I quickly realized that I wanted the pictures to be more empathetic. If viewers identify with the people in the pictures we can’t help but think of ourselves in the same situation.
The Copia project began to grow as the more I investigated, researched, read and photographed the more complex a subject I was dealing with. At present Copia consists of 2 chapters, Retail and Thrift and I’ve begun work on 2 more. Retail deals with big box middle class shopping. Thrift came from a curiosity about what happens to all this stuff once it’s sold. The thrift store pictures are different though, more formal, elegant, and surreal with portraits of the workers making connections to things a bit more art historical, (classical portraiture). I always have ideas but photography really asks one to obverse so often paying attention takes me in a very different direction than what I could dream up.

Have your viewpoints or consumer habits changed as a result of the “Copia” series?
Indeed. Personally I am pretty analytical and that nature applied to this idea can be a catastrophe! Actually what it really means is I’ll often second-guess my ideas as I learn more. In terms of being a consumer at the moment I believe that the dilemma we have created for ourselves is one that may not exactly be the result of individual habits but a bigger corporate ideology that has shaped our landscape. This is not to absolve myself or anyone else for owning things but more that as a collective culture our environment is one crafted on desire, selfishness and apathy and what really needs to change is that environment.
Earlier I began questioning every thing I bought and owned and realized there is so much that I can do little about. If I live in a house I need to have heat and electricity, I can either get those things from 1 utility company and in effect support that company or not have electricity. We often talk about our abundance of choice but choice is really an illusion when that choice comes from 2 major food distributors, 1 major media company, 2 meat suppliers for the nation, etc. It is quite a quagmire but more people are becoming aware and hopefully this dialogue effects change.

Every picture in the series has something special about it that makes it interesting. What do you see as the most important elements of your photographs?
The ceiling! I often joke that one of the reasons this project has become so ongoing is that I have no idea what to do with sky. In the interiors you can use the diverging lines, or endless rows of lights and ceiling to point the viewer around the frame. Actually something I seriously think is more important is that the pictures look real, they’re sharp and hopefully when you look at them the camera disappears a little. If it works, it’s a bit like looking in a mirror.

You state that the images from “Copia” were taken with medium and large format cameras. Can you elaborate on the equipment that you use?
To make many of the candid pictures I wanted to use a larger camera to get a better quality negative (I shoot film), so I use a medium format camera with a slightly wider lens. It has a viewfinder that I look down into so the camera is never really to my eye. This helps to be more candid and also helps me be a little more conscious of the entire frame of the image. It’s not easy though, I have to hold quite still and hope that people don’t move. The lighting often sucks and most things are outside my control, but when it works it’s quite amazing.

The bigger problem with much of this project is how does one make a picture of something you see everyday and make it transcend that? The camera does play a vital role. When taking pictures without people it was more of an issue. I began to use a 4×5 large format camera because it can do exactly this. It can make very dumb things very serious and important, that especially came into use with the Thrift store pictures. I wanted them to look more like 17th century still lifes and less like piles of junk. By making a picture with sharpness and fidelity I think a photograph can bring about many of the issues I mentioned above.

Has the web impacted your career? And what are your thoughts on community photography websites such as Flickr?
The web has been the number one most important tool for getting the work out into the world and starting much of this dialogue.

It is obvious you are passionate about the art of photography, not only your own but the work of others. Name three current day photographers who you feel are producing outstanding work.
Ugh this is tough, there are so many.

The Big Ones:
Rineke Dijkstra
Paul Shambroom
Naoya Hatakeyama

The Up & Comers:
Bill Sullivan
Amy Stein
Kevin Bewersdorf

What are your future plans?
To finish this project! I’d like to see it as a series of 4 individual books, one for each chapter. From there sipping tall drinks with little umbrellas on a beach somewhere.

To view more of Brian’s work visit: www.notifbutwhen.com

Digital Media (Karlskrona) - For the upcoming start in fall 2007, the program Digital Media in Karlskrona will have an international touch. This means the students getting prepared to do internship and work globally. The change also open up the opportunity for English speaking persons getting admitted to the program. Last day to apply is May 25, 2007.
Interactive Art Director (Stockholm) - The Interactive Art Director program starts in August 2007! Last day to apply to the program is May 25.

“We work equally with LED, traditional lighting and projection technologies as sculptural elements; our bespoke software approach allows us to use existing technologies in new and unusual ways.”

This screensaver is wonderful!

I just made a Virb profile. Let’s all face it - MySpace is ugly, old and useless. Virb is cute, new and it actually works.
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Team TSP

Alex Trochut is a graphic designer from Barcelona. After working for 2 years with Vasava, he is now on his own as a freelancer. His principle statement is: More is more. Very colorful and detailed illustrations and amazing type treatment.

Ida Sjöstedt was born in Stockholm, Sweden 1976. She moved to London 1996 and in 2000 she graduated with a BA Honours diploma in fashion design from University of Westminster.

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The interface to this data is a self-organizing particle system, where each particle represents a single feeling posted by a single individual. The particles’ properties – color, size, shape, opacity – indicate the nature of the feeling inside, and any particle can be clicked to reveal the full sentence or photograph it contains. The particles careen wildly around the screen until asked to self-organize along any number of axes, expressing various pictures of human emotion. We Feel Fine paints these pictures in six formal movements titled: Madness, Murmurs, Montage, Mobs, Metrics, and Mounds.

An ongoing collection of security patterns found on envelopes curated by Joseph King. Quite an interesting look at something often unobserved.

Finally after a long time of waiting Yokoland have put their portfolio together. The portfolio contains so much work and you can spend hours browsing and just admire the beauty that these 3 norwegians have created over the years. This is pure quality.

Coolio.

Some seriously good-looking & stylish t-shirts from Finland, by CTRL Clothing for their Fall 2007 collection.

Pretty much retarded good.

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Great website… brilliant work.

New website for the always interesting écal.

Rui updates with some new work. Check it out!