09.17.2013Comments are off for this post.

ISO Magazine | Everyday Eccentricities

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by Erica Dye

All the time, it feels like I’m in these ridiculous and unique situations, and it’s kind of wild that I’m there, in that place,” Brian Finke told, me, laughing incredulously.  Going through his work, I feel the same.  I am entranced by the exoticism of the everyday and find myself wondering how I got there from such a familiar environment.

Although he refers to himself as a stylized documentary photographer and is accustomed to commercial work, Fine believes that the content of an image should embrace and transcend the intention or function of it.  By frequently using flash, his images contain a sense of heightened reality, and along with the saturation of his photographs, his work tends to feel larger than life while simultaneously focusing on the minutiae of the ordinary.  Finke’s photographs accentuate the brief brush of a touch, an emotionally charged passing glance.  “How I shoot, it’s a lot about capturing the expressions and the gestures that reveal something about the personality of the people that I’m photographing,” Finke said.  “I try to focus on the characters and the subtle aspects: how someone holds themselves, their body language, their gestures.”

His ability to notice these intricacies is what differentiates him as an editorial photographer.  Like most photographers on assignment for a publication, he is rarely afforded much time with subjects.  Despite this, he embeds himself in a place and creates work with an emotional proximity that reflects intimacy.  Considering the subject matter of his photography, one could assume that it is easy for Finke to take a critical look at his subjects.  “Some of my pictures can be sarcastic.  They can also be sentimental.  They can also have a sense of humor.  I think what makes an interesting story of images is when it touches on all those different emotions,” he said.  Finke continued to explain that it would be just as easy to make overly romanticized photographs as it would to make critical or judgmental imagery, concluding that it is best to represent a realistic range of feelings.

When I look at Brian Finke’s work, I see distinct groups of people—subsets of a population all bound by a commonality.  I can pick apart and formalize what binds them together: vocation, hobby, obsession, profession.  More generally, I look at his work and see people expressing identity.  His photography exhibits identity that is coded by clothing, as seen most obviously in his project 2,4,6,8: American Cheerleaders and Football Players.  Viewers can immediately place the subjects into stereotypes by their uniforms or attire.  They are bound by their physical appearance, but Finke complicates our way of seeing them by focusing on their ranging temperaments.  His subjects could function as symbols or archetypes, but instead transcend stereotyping through the complexity of emotion that everyone can relate to.

Another unifying aspect of his work is demonstrated by disjointing his subjects from spaces in which they are typically seen.  Finke explained, “With the project of flight attendants, it was about seeing them in their working space, but then seeing them in less familiar places was important as well.  Taking them out of the context of how we’re used to looking at them and associating with them.”  As he complicates our preconceptions of what is normal behavior or what is a normal environment for each of his subjects, viewers are faced with unfamiliarity, and that allows the work to feel strange.

Flight attendants smile, directing us up a staircase that leads to nothing.  A cheerleader cries out, desperately grasping to those around her.  A woman serenely rides atop an elephant, embracing her dear friend.  There is an everyday that does not make sense to pause to think about.  As a storyteller, Finke elucidates the eccentricities­—which are ultimately uniting—in the everyday.  It is when the familiar is made unfamiliar that we question how peculiar we all really are.

 

06.23.2013Comments are off for this post.

Spot Magazine | Houston Center for Photography

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By Edith Zimmerman @edithzimmerman

Photographer Brian Finke is known for his pictures of groups -- of flight attendants, bodybuilders, and cheerleaders -- and his latest project focuses on construction workers. “Construction” is currently on display at ClampArt gallery in Chelsea, and available in print from Decode Books. Brian and I talked recently about his projects over drinks in Brooklyn.

Brian Finke: So your favorite picture from “Construction” I know.

Edith Zimmerman: Right, the hot guy with the Mountain Dew. I want it for my apartment, but it might be weird to have a picture of a stranger looming so large in a studio. Maybe I'd put it in my bathroom.

BF: But you can't put it your bathroom, because of the humidity.

EZ: Right, right. I'd find a way, though.

BF: [Laughs.] Any other ones you like?

EZ: Any pictures of hot guys. Also hot girls! I like your sensibility, because there's a dirty-ish aspect: you give people the opportunity to look really closely at someone's face -- their pores, their sweat, the curve of their lips -- and since that's generally not acceptable in real life, you feel a little guilty, but it's irresistible.

BF: It's the same thing with the process of taking pictures -- it gives you the chance to stare at people and be judgmental, because otherwise [without the camera] it'd be pretty awkward. But that kind of looking and seeing -- to a certain extent I think I'm a very easy person to be around, because I can talk, but I'm not intrusive or intimidating.

EZ: I would agree with that. To what degree do you fall in love with the people you're photographing? And does it happen when you're there with the camera in their face, or later when you're alone with the picture?

BF: I like that. To get so involved, and spend so much time, I really do have to fall in love with it that way.

EZ: But I mean the individuals. Flight attendants, football players.

BF: It's kind of a love-hate with the individual pictures, because you see 'em so much. And then some of the pictures that become popular -- you could love them AND hate 'em because you get kinda sick of reprinting them.

EZ: Like playing your greatest hit?

BF: Yeah. But about revisiting subject matter, and whether it's boring -- for instance, ESPN the magazine hired four photographers to cover different aspects of this giant pep rally at the University of Kansas called Midnight Madness. I was like, "I want to shoot the cheerleaders!" but they were like "The crowd." So I took some picture of fans -- but then I made some nice new, beautiful cheerleader pictures.

EZ: Well cheerleaders are very PRETTY, so there's also that.

BF: Right. [Laughs.] There was this one picture I made, it felt so nice, and to me was totally different than all the other cheerleader pictures I’ve made. So they're practicing on the basketball field before the game, and there was this one girl -- also when I'm shooting I get crushes on people --

EZ: I asked that! Brian, I said, "Do you fall in love with the people you're shooting?"

BF: [Laughs.] I was talking to a photo editor at a party a few months ago, I was totally drunk and talking a lot, saying that I really get crushes on people when I'm shooting -- like you're physically drawn to them --

EZ: This is what I ASKED. I just want to put that out there. Anyway, glad we're coming around.

BF: So yeah, with this cheerleader, it was her blonde hair, and how it fell just below her ears, and there was this great red lipstick, and the royal blue of her uniform, and there was this one shot where she was staring at me, this deadpan stare, and the background went black, and it was just amazing. That look of indifference, and then the style and aesthetics. And yeah, the physical attraction, of course. It's awesome. Such a good picture.

I think photography in general is very intuitive; it doesn't have to make sense. I'm good at obsessing about things. I can commit to something, and stick with it, and delve into it, and I don't get sick of it for a long time. And even when I do, it's just like moving on to a slight variation, really. It's very repetitive. And I mean even the books, they're all the same size. They're all square.

[His three photography books are stacked between us on the table, and he touches them on all sides.]

EZ: You're making like your own Brian Finke totem.

BF: It's my boxed set!

EZ: How did being drawn to more attractive people play out on the construction site?

BF: I was like, "This is going to be the hottest construction site ever!" It was a conscious decision; I want to take pictures of people I want to look at. It's not necessarily like people always have to be, quote unquote, good looking, it’s just that there’s something about them.

EZ: Is it harder to photograph someone you know than to photograph a stranger?

BF: Yeah.

EZ: And are friends ever disappointed that you don't take pictures of them? Or maybe I'm just shedding light on my own --

BF: You want your picture taken?

EZ: No! Well --

BF: There we go! [Laughs.] Last night I went out with my agent from Milan, and we were taking pictures at dinner, and she was like "YES" -- she was being sincere -- like, "Ahh you took my picture!"

EZ: See?

BF: I was just like -- it didn't really cross my mind. She just had these great red nails, this great red phone, and this great red lipstick. So, maybe if you put some makeup on?

EZ: Fuck you! [Laughs.] I HAVE makeup on. I have eyeliner on. Shit. Okay.

BF: See, now you know my fetish, the red thing, the red lipstick. It's a fetish thing, really, photography.

EZ: That should be your next book, Women in Red Lipstick. But no, actually your next series is on the US Marshals. How's that going?

BF: This past weekend I went to Texas, and one of the pictures I got there was of these two Marshals who look like they're 15. But they have these giant guns, and one of them looks like Steve Urkel, with this little awkward giggle, and they're in this person's home. It's just very awkward and wonderful. Being physically WITH people when I take their picture, being very close to them -- I like that proximity. You can see how the person holds himself.

EZ: Can you give me a picture of that hot guy from the construction site?

BF: [Laughs.] I'm happy to.

 

03.28.2013Comments are off for this post.

Los Angeles Times | Arts & Books

View Slideshow, reFramed article: In conversation with Brian Finke.

 

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Brian Finke is a photographer living and working in Brooklyn. He wrote "2-4-6-8: American Cheerleaders and Football Players," "Flight Attendants" and "Construction."
--
How did you get started in photography?
It started back in the day with high school photo classes, with the idealistic motivations of social awareness and from reading about the amazing life and work of photojournalist W. Eugene Smith. While my projects are still documentary in approach, I'm much more interested in making a social comment about my own culture.
--
Your "Flight Attendants" series was born out of two years of crisscrossing the globe on assignment. Can you tell me how and why this project came to be?
When I started working for magazines and traveling a bunch is when the project presented itself, the flight attendants were right there in front of me. My previous body of work was about cheerleaders and football players. From that I started becoming interested in costuming and uniforms. I was also interested in the challenge of photographing on planes in a post-9/11 world. But for me photography is so much about the process, I love the experience of making images, being out in the world, and making pictures at 40,000 feet.
--
I love that you not only capture the high-flying profession in the air but you also capture behind the scenes of flight attendants' daily life. Can you tell me about getting such well-rounded access?
I pitched various fashion and travel stories to editorial clients I shoot for, then we'd approach the airlines together and they'd either be totally into the idea or want nothing to do with it. With flight attendants we're used of course to seeing them on planes, but I wanted to also take them out of that context and show them in the everyday, at home, in the store, picking up their kid after school.
--
Your most recent series, "Construction," explores building sites in New York City. Again, you have a wonderful way of visually championing the ordinary.
I first approached the contractors but without any success. Then I started contacting the architects, them being the creatives, they got my project, and that's how I began gaining access to the various sites. It had been a long process gaining access, the toughest of any of my projects.

01.16.2013Comments are off for this post.

Photo L.A.

DECODE Books will be exhibiting at Photo L.A. January 17-21, 2003, showing Construction and other recent monographs by Amy Stein, Stacy Arezou Mehrfar, and Bill Jacobson.

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01.08.2013Comments are off for this post.

Photographie.com

Article Construction reviewed.

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01.07.2013Comments are off for this post.

PDN Notable Photo Books of 2012

Article.

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"Based as we are in a city of perpetual renewal (New York City), the sight of construction projects is nothing new to us. Yet through Brian Finke’s new book, succinctly titled Construction, we see the craft of building large edifices in a way we never can through the cracks in the plywood barriers that commonly protect construction areas. Finke’s look is all-access, and his brightly lit, almost hyper-real images make the workers and the work quite beautiful. Finke’s sense of color and composition—the results of which are often playful and intriguing—engage us with patterns of I-beams, dotted with workers, reaching into cerulean skies; with bright blue valves and tangles of yellow ropes; with muscular (and not-so-muscular) workers sporting well-decorated and -worn hardhats; with yellow earth movers and green re-bar; and even piles of rock and fill. As he has with previous projects on flight attendants and on high school cheerleaders and football players, Finke encourages us to look again at something quintessentially American that we think we know. Finke’s construction is not the loud, gritty, dirty, traffic-menacing headache we experience from the outside. It’s a world of wonder, and it’s actually quite lovely."

 

 

11.14.2012Comments are off for this post.

LA Times Interview

reFramed: In conversation with Brian Finke
By: Barbara Davidson
“reFramed” is a feature showcasing fine art photography and vision-forward photojournalism. It is curated by Los Angeles Times staff photographer Barbara Davidson.


………………..

Brian Finke is a photographer living and working in Brooklyn, NY. He is the author of 2-4-6-8: American Cheerleaders and Football Players (Umbrage Editions, 2003), Flight Attendants (powerhouse Books and Filigrane Editions 2008), and Construction, DECODE Books 2012. Recent editorial clients include The New York Times Magazine, GQ, ESPN the Magazine, and Wired.

………………..

Q: How did you get started in photography?

A: Been making pictures forever. It started back in the day with high school photo classes, with the idealistic motivations of social awareness and from reading about the amazing life and work of photojournalist W. Eugene Smith. While my projects are still documentary in approach, I’m much more interested in making a social comment about my own culture.

………………..

Q: Your work comes from a perspective of observer, much like the world of documentary photography. Can you tell me about your photographic approach and why you are drawn to team cultures and groups of people, and how you are able to find diversity in uniformity?

A: I want my images to be straightforward and honest about the characters I photograph, to see the subtleties of the small gestures whether it be squinting eyes or the way someone holds themselves, describing them through their body language.

………………..

Q: Your “Flight Attendants” series was born out of two years of crisscrossing the globe on assignment. Can you tell me how, and why, this project came to be?

A: When I started working for magazines and traveling a bunch is when the project presented itself, the flight attendants were right there in front of me. I come to projects many different ways. My previous body of work was about cheerleaders and football players. From that I started becoming interested in costuming and uniforms. I was also interested in the challenge of photographing on planes in a post-9/11 world. But for me photography is so much about the process, I love the experience of making images, being out in the world, and making pictures at 40,000 feet.

………………..

Q: I love that you not only capture the high-flying profession in the air but you also capture behind the scenes of flight attendants’ daily life. Can you tell me about getting such well-rounded access – especially at the flight attendant school?

A: To produce the project, I pitched various fashion and travel stories to editorial clients I shoot for, then we’d approach the airlines together and they’d either be totally into the idea or want nothing to do with it. My subject matter is very relatable. With flight attendants we’re used of course to seeing them on planes, but I wanted to also take them out of that context and show them in the everyday, at home, in the store, picking up their kid after school. After photographing in-flight, the schools were another aspect of their jobs.

………………..

Q: Your most recent series, “Construction,” explores building sites in New York City. Again, like your other series, you have a wonderful way of visually championing the ordinary. Can you tell me what inspired this project and how the financial crisis of 2008 impacted the work?

A: I’d been living in NYC for many years, and simply all this construction was going on all around me. When I began working on access, I first approached the contractors but without any success. Then I started contacting the architects, them being the creatives, they got my project and that’s how I began gaining access to the various sites. It had been a long process gaining access, the toughest of any of my projects. By the time I started photographing, the financial crisis had begun.

………………..

Q: Both of these essays were shot using film, flash and a Hasselblad. Why film, flash and medium format?

A: I use the various tools to create images that heighten the everyday, to create a reality that is larger than life and through the use of the medium format Hasselblad, and adding flash to saturate the scene with light.
barbara.davidson@latimes.com

06.07.2012Comments are off for this post.

On-Press

in Shenzhen... published by DECODE Books release September 6, 2012.

04.25.2012Comments are off for this post.

coming September 2012

Construction | Brian Finke
published by DECODE Books

02.13.2012Comments are off for this post.

book proofs

round 1...  Construction release Fall 2012 published by DECODE Books.