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Visual Meditation Of The World

Tom Griggs is a photographer from the US based in Colombia

“I admire photographers that continue to evolve their work instead of settling into a consistent way of working either technically or conceptually.”

Tom Griggs

Tom Griggs (born in 1974) is a contemporary photographer currently based in Medellín, Colombia. He studied photography at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Artist statement

Tom Griggs is a photographer, educator, and publisher. He lives in Medellín, Colombia where he teaches photography at La Fundación Universitaria Bellas Artes. Tom Griggs also runs the photography and microgrant site fototazo. He holds both an MFA and a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design as well as a BA from Wesleyan University. He grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.

Interview with Tom Griggs

Tom, what was your most memorable moment shooting pictures?

I don’t have one. There are, however, rare moments when I’m making an image and there is a feeling of everything coming together – it’s a sense of perfection that makes the situation transcendent. It’s the drug that makes a lot of photographers junkies.

Sometimes there is a similar feeling simply being in the world photographing. It usually comes when I have complete freedom to make images in a context that absorbs me. I can feel it even if I suspect the images aren’t great.

I hold the last time I had that feeling until the next.

Why did you become a photographer?

I started in visual arts as a painter, but felt isolated in the studio and frustrated with the lack of specificity in how I was able to use painting to ask and answer questions.

The camera allows me to create while in the world, in relationship to and working with people and previously unknown places, giving me experiences of life that validate the effort and time even when the images are worse than dreadful.

What does photography mean to you and what do you to want say with your pictures?

Photography’s meaning for me comes from both the experience of making and the experience of sharing. Both are essential.

In terms of making, meaning comes from the basic challenge of creating a relationship to changing elements of light, time, and space. It also comes from requiring me to experience the world directly, to meditate on it visually, to extend myself personally by making me confront discomforts, and from allowing me to be omnivorous and explore anything I’m curious about a person’s freckles, the sea, light on a wall, an election cycle.

It is important for me that the images be shared. This completes a circuit of communication that makes photography about more than myself, creates dialogues, and allows me to avoid perhaps delusionally – a sense of solipsism. Sharing also means taking part in the endlessly fascinating exploration of the photograph as visual language and trying to get images to work together to express a specific sensibility.

As for what I want to say, well, that depends on the project.

Which photographer has inspired you most?

Robert Frank is at the very beginning of my branch of photography. He moved the individual and psychological issues to the foreground of his images and explored the camera in a way that has influenced me.

What’s your favorite quote about photography?

I have lots of favorite photography quotes. In fact, I have whole Word documents full of favorite photography quotes. One is from the writer Fernando Pessoa’s “Book of Disquiet”:

What we see is not what we see but who we are.

How would you describe your photographic language and creative process?

I think that it’s difficult for me to say what kind of voice I have because I’ve approached projects in different ways based on their subject or theme. That’s something I believe in that photographers should choose the format and equipment as well as the formal ideas they work with based on a subject rather than treating all subjects similarly in both technique and form.

That being said, and looking for commonalities across images, I think my work is generally quiet, intimate, and kind of melancholic.

As for my way of working or creative process, I start with images, not with themes. Ideas tend to stay vague for me for a long time as I accumulate images. Once enough images accumulate, I look for the reasons why I’ve made them and begin to form thoughts about what they mean. I then begin to photograph in relation to the themes in order to fill in the body of images until I begin to repeat images. When that happens, I know I’m done. I work hard and am disciplined, but tend to work in circles. I have a hard time finishing anything.

What’s important in order to develop an own photographic voice?

An ability to look at your images, listen to them, and see where they lead.

What do you consider to be the axis of your work – technically and conceptually?

I hope that I can never answer this question very well because it will mean that my work is continuing to explore instead of reaching a definable way of working. I admire photographers (as well as directors, musicians, and everyone involved in creativity) that continue to evolve their work instead of settling into a consistent way of working either technically or conceptually.

What qualities and characteristics does a good photographer need?

Patience, perseverance, discipline. Many will also need the ability to navigate different types of people to get their help making images or in getting access.

What does a photo need to be a great photo in your eyes? Especially keeping in mind the flood of images we are exposed to every day.

Well, keeping that in mind, I’d say greatness comes from unique and personal visions that consider and respond to the collective visual investigative process going on today. It comes from adding to, instead of repeating, the current conversations of photography.

Where do you draw inspiration from for your photographic projects?

Seeing great work by other photographers inspires me to work sometimes, but for me it’s the making of images that leads to the making of more images. Inspiration comes from the previous images.

What kind of camera and equipment do you use?

A Mamiya 7II which I use mostly with 65 and 80mm lenses, sometimes with a 150mm. I have a 43mm but rarely use it. At this point, Kodak Portra 160 and 400 are the only films I can usually get, although I used to shoot a lot of Fuji as well. I work with a Nikon d700 with a Nikkor 24-70mm lens and a Nikkor 50/1.4 for digital projects or commercial work. I use an Induro tripod.

What’s your favorite website about photography?

LPV Magazine or Ahorn Magazine. I like The Spark of Accident as well, but it’s very infrequently updated.

What book about photography would you recommend?

I don’t read that many books about photography. I generally read more online articles and conversations. Lili Corbus Bezner’s “Photography and Politics in America” is one I would recommend.

Which advice would you give someone who wants to become a (professional) photographer?

Be level headed about the realities. You won’t become famous. It’s not easier than drawing or painting or sculpture. It’s an increasingly difficult field to make a living in. You’ll spend a lot of time in front of computer screens and some photographing. If you can make money doing something else and feel content photographing every once in a while, do that. Photography has to be something you need to do, otherwise the trade offs aren’t worth it.

That being said: if you accept the realities and need to be doing this, opportunities will come for you if you work hard enough. And the pay off for what you give up to be a photographer is a job that can be incredibly satisfying and meaningful.

City lights photographed by Tom Griggs
© Tom Griggs

A girl sitting on a char captured by Tom Griggs
© Tom Griggs

Shadowas and light in an image from Tom Griggs
© Tom Griggs

More about Tom Griggs

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Tom Griggs runs and curates the site fototazo.

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