Home Is Where the Art Is: palmea, cryingboy, and friends, aka, Pamela Bannos and her dog Buddy, and Dan Estabrook and his cat Bunny.
Pamela Bannos and Dan Estabrook are fine-art photographers as well as being Fotologgers. They’ve been friends and colleagues for more than a decade and have occasionally exhibited work in the same shows. So we thought it would be fun and instructive to get them to chat about the vagaries of the art process, and the ways in which their online experiences are affecting their professional work. And we also just wanted to show lots of pictures of Buddy and Bunny. Enjoy.
palmea: Hi Dan. Okay. I’ve always thought of my Fotolog pictures and “palmea” as my alter-ego. Fotolog fascinated me as I lurked about for a year before joining. I think I remember cryingboy, but didn’t know it was you for quite some time. Jenni Holder first told me about the site in May 2003, in reference to her sister Laura’s subway photographs. It was a pretty different place then. It appeared to be a really vital tight-knit international community. In May 2004, I did a presentation for the “American Urban Photography Symposium” and featured lauratitian and mashuga. Less than two weeks later, I gave in and opened an account. I’ve been posting goofy pictures of my dog Buddy and random snapshots
ever since. Up until very recently I have been careful to stay anonymous, not wanting to confuse these pictures with my “serious” work.
How is it that you landed on Fotolog?
cryingboy: I, too, got started by the Holders, whom I’ve known for ages! It seems a long time ago now that I started my cryingboy account, when Fotolog was in its infancy.
Despite my love of all things 19th-century, I can be quite a tech-head in my daily life and I was instantly drawn to the simple joys of posting random pictures online—almost like a daily blog, but less frighteningly personal (or so I thought at the time.) That tight-knit community feel was there right away, and I loved being a quiet part of it. I remember realizing a few years earlier that, because my Artwork is made in a studio with large-format cameras (and often by myself alone), I had stopped having a social relationship with photography.
I mean, I didn’t have a camera I’d carry around, so I stopped having pictures of friends and birthday parties and things—all the vernacular photography that I love, in fact, but which I had just stopped practicing. Getting a digital camera really changed that for me, in part because there was no way I was using it for my “serious” Artwork. I was free to just shoot anything, suddenly, and chuck it online if I wanted. I think my whole relationship to Photography has changed, in a way. I think I actually enjoy it more.
palmea: So, it seems that we both think of our Fotolog photos as entirely separate from our other photographic works. Unlike you, though, I’ve always been making snapshots for myself—of my dogs, of things around me—just for fun. I was thrilled to finally have an audience for the goofiness.
Regarding your relationship to photography, I can see how Fotolog would make things more enjoyable for you. Working with 19th-century processes is painstaking to say the least. One thing we both have in common is that our offline works have been very object-quality important. You and I first showed our work together in Chicago in September 1996—ten years ago at the Catherine Edelman Gallery in an exhibition titled “The Camera Obscured.” That was so long ago that there is no Web-based archive of the exhibition. And even if there was, my point is that the work doesn’t exactly translate digitally.
Pamela: The Experiment, 1996. found photograph, toned silver prints, watercolor, thread, frame. Dan: Tintype with Rust, 1997. tintype with oil paint.
For me, since I’ve been using found imagery in my work since the mid 1980s, the Internet became one giant flea market. I was a maniac on eBay from 1997-99, then quit when the rest of the world discovered it. Online groups like photo.net and others created communities of similarly interested artists/photographers. I recall coming across a discussion once where you had posted your frustrations in working with an obscure process using flower petals to make prints. I don’t recall if anyone was able to help you, but I remember marveling at the merging of the centuries at that time.
cryingboy: I remember that discussion group well! There are so many knowledgeable people out there, even though at the time there wasn’t much info on the processes I was interested in. (That was about Anthotype—an old process using plant extracts and dyes, basically to “fade out” a photographic print.) Still, this is what the Internet does best: it connects the most disparate people into virtual communities like that one. Eventually, I got great advice from a guy on that list on details of the 1840’s Calotype paper negative process, which I’ve been using in my studio work for years now. And I was able to share my small knowledge of antique processes with others there, too.
Little Devils, no.8, 2002. pencil on calotype negative.
You bring up perhaps the most important point regarding the difference between digital photography and our other artwork: the object. I suppose I don’t take my F’logging “seriously” in the same way because it’s virtual, when, in the studio, I get so obsessed with the physical and actual. Even a paper photograph is an object, with a weight and shape and presence. Like you, I think a lot about these objects as containers for memory, or to catch our projected ideas about the past. But a digital photograph means something entirely different to me.
Breath (lying), 2004. pencil on waxed calotype negative, and salt print.
Do you think we just need these different spaces to express our many ideas about photography, or are we just crazy? I mean, I need that difference, not only for the social reasons I mentioned before. Maybe this is an expression of burgeoning multiple personalities—while I’m arcane and private in the studio, I can be more open and public on Fotolog! There’s an odd reversal of public and private at work, where I am like a hermit in the studio but somehow more relaxed on a public forum like Fotolog. Online, I post pictures of my life, my home, my relationships, my cats.
I’ve become close friends with people I met here, and we know an awful lot about each others’ lives. In the studio I make very private work, in a way, and I am in fact terrible at being a part of the actual community of art photographers. Maybe I’m just another recluse with a friendly online personality.
Still, I’m waiting for my digital experience to affect my studio practice. It’s bound to happen somehow. Do you see a future connection or crossover between what you do as an Artist and what you do as a F’logger?
palmea: Well, I’m somewhat of a recluse, myself. The Internet has only encouraged that for me. I can be in the comfort of my home and still have a social thing going on. I didn’t know anyone on Fotolog when I signed on. And I didn’t tell anyone in Chicago what I was doing (even today only a few people here know about those pictures.) And the reactions on this post, from when I was in New York two summers ago, totally took me by surprise:
I didn’t expect to actually connect with people. My next trip to New York I spent the day with pro_keds and along, going to galleries in Brooklyn. That evening I had dinner with them, as well as lauratitian, clarsen, and ribena. That was really something for me.
Regarding my personal art practice, I have always tried to work the line between truth and fiction, juxtaposing found imagery with my own images, or re-interpretations of them. My work is kind of all over the place regarding processes and subject matter, but my concerns are consistent. I’ve done a collaboration with an astronomer, exploring the trust we put into scientific imagery. It was a traditional exhibition that also lives on through that Web site.
(veil nebula-b), 2000
I did a Web-based project built around a 19th-century glass negative of a street corner in Manhattan. For that project I went deeper and deeper into the space of that 19th-century image, analyzing and cataloging every element in the photograph. I can now tell you everything on record that ever happened on the corner of 8th Avenue and 14th Street going back to the Revolutionary War.
And my current work begins with found snapshots that I then scan and manipulate the focus of, to reveal an alternative version of the scene:
Untitled, 2006
I’m really interested in snapshots right now. I think the advent of digital photography is doing away with the “mistakes” that I find so interesting. I like the accidents that people kept because photography was so much more precious when memories became objects. Today’s digital cameras allow people to immediately dump pictures they don’t think are perfect. And they mostly don’t print them anyway. I’m wondering about how people will feel when their images disappear because of server glitches or media storage failure.
I never print the pictures I put on Fotolog. I think of them differently—
like a TV show or something. Initially, Fotolog astounded me because I couldn’t compare it to anything. It is not just a way of sharing pictures—it makes photographs the initiator of a conversation. One would never experience that dialogue standing in front of a photograph in a gallery.
cryingboy: Ha, yes, it really can seem like a TV show sometimes, and I think you’ve pointed out the difference, maybe for both of us, between our Artist and Online personalities. We’re both used to making art objects meant for quiet contemplation, to some degree. What’s more, they’re often concerned with the history of the photograph, with all its mistakes and loss of meaning…. Any dialogue I’m trying to create through my gallery work is a much more private affair, for sure.
But I really like what you say about the “initiator of a conversation,” Pam. For all that digital snapshots have changed the way I see and use photography (and it keeps changing!), the picture itself is almost the smallest part of Fotolog for me, compared to the discussions and comments it creates. It’s a casual forum on digital technology, a less-
precious way to think about aesthetics. Best of all, it’s been a catalyst for new friendships.
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30 Responses to “F/F Interview: Palmea and Cryingboy”
carlos @ 2007-02-13 04:37:20 PM says:
chida psss iia me voii okis chao
jdiggle @ 2007-02-13 04:40:27 PM says:
this has me thinking, just as fotologging usually gets me thinking
thanks guys!
PK @ 2007-02-13 05:59:47 PM says:
Bravo
dragon bool gtlsd @ 2007-02-13 06:28:08 PM says:
beautifful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:):):):):);)))))))))))))))))))))))))))
joao thiago @ 2007-02-13 06:55:50 PM says:
eai doidao como ta ai?
cate @ 2007-02-13 07:42:11 PM says:
what an excellent interview! i’m a fan of both and it’s awesome to know a little bit more about buddy’s mom and bunny’s dad.
alguien @ 2007-02-13 08:31:18 PM says:
a estan hidas e
souhail @ 2007-02-14 06:19:58 AM says:
el que ne esta contra nosotross esta nuestro vabor
nicole @ 2007-02-14 02:50:14 PM says:
estan bkn tus fotos me encantaron espero ver masy conocertepo
nicole @ 2007-02-14 02:51:28 PM says:
te amo y muxo
helenbar @ 2007-02-14 03:41:48 PM says:
wonderful works and interview.
:-)
AXEL @ 2007-02-14 08:10:02 PM says:
hola hola
buewno queria comentar que el fotolog fotolog.terra.com.ar
esta poniendo 100 comentarios por foto y 10 fotos por dia 100 favoritoss y demas ¡GRATIS!
porq que no fotolog.com no puede acer lo mismo
besoss
esto es solo una opinio
linda fot
dangerpaws @ 2007-02-14 08:45:38 PM says:
That’s so great. Palmea is so respectable for maintaining her privacy, but it’s wonderful to have a little insight into her *other* work. These two nailed the whole tricky balance between that and posting. Yay!
jose cruz @ 2007-02-14 09:57:23 PM says:
k onda juliana juliana se iama tu cuñada vdd y creo k edder jadciel se iama el hijo d 2mba bueno feliz dia d valentin
pd.bye
gg @ 2007-02-15 09:29:47 AM says:
what a terrific interview. i adore their friendly online personalities so much (not to mention their respective little buddy/bunny’s) and it’s wonderful to get inside their heads a bit, and to see what they create out there in the world.
tomas esequiel ugazio @ 2007-02-15 10:39:29 AM says:
que acen he los quiero quiero ser tu novio
tomas esequiel ugazio @ 2007-02-15 10:40:29 AM says:
hola mi amor
placeinsun @ 2007-02-15 10:51:45 AM says:
a pleasure to learn more about what inspires two artists i respect and the varied ways we choose to interact and show pieces of our personal and artistic lives thru f’log.
Vanusa fretta @ 2007-02-15 11:43:35 AM says:
Olá Júlio: tudo bom Estou te escrevendo /Para dizer que o,Seu Fotolog Está o Maximo.Beijokas Vanusa De Cocal Do Sul:
beebs @ 2007-02-15 03:08:53 PM says:
what a fascinating discussion. nicely done, guys.
cristian @ 2007-02-15 07:56:37 PM says:
excelentes fotos.
a si conocen personas que quieran generar ingresos dales mi mail
chao.
javier @ 2007-02-15 08:30:33 PM says:
holas
anto @ 2007-02-15 08:37:58 PM says:
hola nene como stas no es mucho lo ke te conosco pero bue te dejo besos
Laura @ 2007-02-15 08:40:31 PM says:
Two of my Fave F/Fs; This is a terrifically interesting exchange.
Anto @ 2007-02-15 09:31:07 PM says:
che, como hacen para leer
todo esto que esta en english¿?
cookieb @ 2007-02-16 01:49:12 AM says:
i’ve been hooked on the palmea (and buddy) show since day one. and cryingboys work is fascinating. great insight into the experience that fotolog started us all on.
maria paula @ 2007-02-16 11:02:27 AM says:
oiiii maria_paulaps@hotmail.com
vc mais beijo ……..
…………………………………….
ahhhhh.
Anselmo @ 2007-02-16 12:04:00 PM says:
hola amiga bueno te doy gracias por darme la confianza de firmar tu espacio,y por agregarme a tu msn .gracias amiga
//*korY*// @ 2007-02-16 03:16:48 PM says:
ola wpa m bn mu xulo esta molongo me cae sm bn y eso y esk no se k ponerte xdxdx weno wapa bsks k algnas fotos y tl estan m bn
neene @ 2007-02-17 11:22:25 PM says:
fabulous
inspiring
&
insightful
