Jason Dibley. Paper Ladder, 2007. Silver Gelatin Print. 5 x 4 1/4 inches.

Rachel Hewlett. Hung to dry, 2007. C-print. 6 1/2 x 9 inches



Rachel Hewlett. Tracks, 2008. C-print. 6 1/2 x 9 inches

Jason Dibley. The Engineer, 2006. Silver Gelatin Print. 5 x 4 1/4 inches.

Rachel Hewlett. Behind the barn, 2007. C-print. 6 1/2 x 9 inches

Rachel Hewlett. As big as I am going to get, 2007. C-print.
6 1/2 x 9 inches.


Rachel Hewlett, Grandma´s backdoor, 2008, C-print, 6 1/2 x 9 inches.

In celebration of HCP’s upcoming Print Sale on November 1st from 4-8pm, we are profiling an artist each week. HCP Staff Members and Houston-based photographers, Rachel Hewlett, Education Coordinator, and Jason Dibley, Program Coordinator, held a email dialogue on their history with the camera, what inspires them, and their personal photographic process.

Rachel Hewlett: Jason, it has been a pleasure having you on the HCP team so far, I am happy to have another photographer around. How long have you been photographing?

Jason Dibley: I have been using a camera in different incarnations since high school when I was working on the newspaper staff. Wait! Actually, the more I think about it, when I was younger than that, my mom had a Kodak disc camera like the one in front of the soldier in Richard Misrach’s Desert Cantos. I just got all my books out of storage and I have been REALLY FREAKING OUT at that body of work the past day or so. I stared at that image for 30 minutes last night before going to bed. Right into the tiny lens on the camera. The title of the image is Camouflaged Soldier, E.A.F.B., 1983. I can’t find an image online but I found this [see link below].

I remember sneaking the camera out of the drawer in the kitchen where it was kept and going to make improbably close photographs of toy cars and plants. After I made the pictures and without telling my mom, I would sneak the camera back into the drawer and wait for her to develop them. Sometimes it took several weeks to take all the pictures on the disc. When the pictures came back from a local independent photofinisher (The Photo Finish. I can smell the chemistry right now…), there would be some photographs of me playing outside, a picture or two of the house and our immaculately kept yard of St. Augustine grass and two or three unintelligible “macro” pictures.

RH: Whoa crazy, I was on the yearbook staff and my mother would take forever to develop rolls of film too! It used to drive me crazy, there was one roll that I used for yearbook photos of my school bonfire that turned out to be an already exposed roll, so we got pictures back of my sister and my cat on fire. It was pretty funny, not very useful for the yearbook, but luckily I shot more than one roll. This is making me nostalgic for my Pentax K1000. I loved, actually still do love that camera. This is making me want to go take pictures. I think I am going to leave work and pursue my dream now. Oh wait, no I am not, I have a meeting. Darn.

JD: You can’t leave now, it’s 5 o’clock. If you have half of the things to do that I have, you should be able to go home some time in late March 2009. It is sometimes difficult to make the pictures I think I should be making but pretty easy to make photographs in general. The small still life images I have been making over the last few years require an inordinate amount of space to make (I have tried to change this fact several times…) and sometimes an extended period of time being set-up while I move lights/make drawings, etc. Additionally! Polaroid type 55 film has gone up in price astronomically over the last 5 years so while I try to use less of the precious sheets, doing so changes how I work. RE: slower.

All the above being said, I still think about images and ideas all the time and try to carry my point and shoot with me wherever I go.

RH: I am soooooooo bummed out about Polaroid. I got really into Polaroid for a few years, kind of right when digital point and shoot became popular. I did that “I hate digital I am a film person” thing, but it wasn’t even a conscious decision, I just love the feel and color of Polaroid. I actually have my parents Polaroid camera from the 70’s with now 7 flash bulbs left, I think the film in there is expired but I still like it. Now I feel so nervous about taking a shot since it is so expensive, I am back to 6x4.5. Not that it is any cheaper really, but it is all in my mind.

I got a little stifled for a moment working at HCP and being around photography all the time. It is weird being surrounded by what you love all the time, you start to see all the faults. But I have now embraced them and am back to investigating my space and other’s habits. I also had a hard time adjusting to the light here in Houston after living in San Francisco for 5 years. San Fran light is so much cooler and softer, it worked so well with my naturally lighted, soft focus images. Houston can be so yellow and harsh, it has taken some adjustment.

JD: Being in school, I was constantly making work - sometimes for class and a lot of the time not and trying to turn that work in look at photographers who have dedicated themselves to documenting vanishing/fringe societies or socially relevant groups and I melt a little on the inside. I look at my own photographic history and it seems to pale in comparison to what these people have done. A couple of examples, both from Fort Worth, TX:

Peter Feresten: http://www.afterimagegallery.com/feresten.htm
Loli Kantor: http://www.lolikantor.com/gallery-imgs/whatwas/index.html

There are so many photographers using the medium to make really affecting and wonderful work. This kind of work inspires me get out of the studio and make photographs of the real world. This world is so strange and so eclectic, you really don’t have to go very far to make important photographs. The work that I have seen of yours seems to point in this direction as well as that of paying attention to the overlooked things in life and giving little (or big) narratives in a single image. What is your general M.O. for shooting these days?

All of a sudden I feel off base by characterizing your work like that. How do feel about your own work?

RH: I think it is a good characterization. My images are investigations into our daily lives and how objects are involved in them, how they are altered by us. I generally shoot mundane objects or situations that have a beauty or simplicity to me and also a quietness. They are remnants of what we have done, how we organize, how we are perceived by one another. They are also snapshot memories for me, as with probably every photo, there is a personal story to go along with it. I love to think that each image conjures up a story or memory for the viewer, that they can create a mini narrative about what had happened before. I am especially drawn to food - eating, cooking, what was not eaten, the food itself. Which is why I am excited about Collaborations this year since we are dealing with the local food scene, but that is a whole other can of worms.

Is there anything is Houston that is inspiring you to take on the projects like the people you just mentioned? What is your next project going to be? No pressure…

JD: “They are also snapshot memories for me...” Right on. Total essence of medium. Earlier when I made the Misrach reference, it was the camera in the photograph that made me remember exactly what camera my mom used to keep in that drawer. You could probably talk to me about Kodak Disc cameras all day but until I actually saw an image of one, did I think about my own association. Don’t get me started on photography and fake memories… It is fun to make up fake memories.

When I was in school, I made a handful of photographs at house shows and parties. There was a great group of people who would bring in national punk and hardcore acts to play in their rental houses. Looking back, the opportunity to see these bands seems so rare. This is no anomaly in any college town but the brief association I had with these people/shows and the tinge of regret I have for not documenting this time more for my own sake, is enough to make me want to document someone else’s scene now.

Realistically, I am old and have not really put the time into finding these shows. That can change, of course. In the meantime and I suppose in addition to that little unrealized project, I need to polish off the last few sheets of type 55 and learn to shoot film again.