My photographer Misha Huntting, and her BFF Lauren Hoodenpyle who is an FX artist and I are gearing up for my photoshoot that will produce profile, website and book jacket pic that are having some people raise their eyebrows, while others are losing sleep over the fact that I refuse to conform to what mainstream society deems acceptable...And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Our guest today is none other than the amazingly beautiful & extremely talented Miss Misha Huntting. Let's get to know her and see what she's got to say...
When did your start career as a photographer?I started photography school when I was 18 and have been shooting ever since.Do you believe in the expression “A picture is worth 1,000 words” and if so why? Sure, depends on the picture and I can’t think of a lot of photographers that have a thousand words for anything at all honestly. Visual expression is very different than verbal expression but a thousand words can be said about an image and it can be interpreted many ways. I feel this expression is best reserved for really good documentary photography and maybe not so much for duckface facebook downward angle bathroom shots….which I believe is 6 words…if you count duckface and facebook as one word.
Do you think that a person must possess talent to capture emotion and expression in a picture?I think a person can get lucky, I think a person with talent sometimes can’t express it because they haven’t paid attention to the technicalities of their craft. I think a person can become too self involved or too self conscious to pick up something that is happening around them. I think there are as many answers to this question as there are people. I’ve seen pictures that a 4 year old took that were insightful and observant and I’ve seen pictures that a trained person took that are total crap. Sometimes its luck sometimes it’s more. However I would urge anyone who is considering selling their work to learn their craft extremely well and put some real work and critique into it before you skip to that point.
What is your work schedule like when you're behind the lens? Well it’s a lot of hurry up and wait. First thing I need is coffee and since I’ve had Jimmy as my assistant I don’t do quite as much running around like a chicken with my head cut off first thing which is great, then I try to get my social face on even though I might be meeting a good handful of people I don’t know at all, shake hands and say hello explain what we’ll be doing with confidence in my voice. Then I fuss with the lights endlessly sometimes moving one no more than an inch 4 or 5 different times. After which I begin to shoot and crawl around from various vantage points. Then I get happy and excited if everyone feels it went well then I go home and immediately start editing the photos.
In your opinion, what makes photography an art? It’s still a creative tool. All mediums are creative tools in my eyes for the essence of creativity. However it is that a person wants to get across their creativity is an art in my opinion.
What is it about the horror genre that interests you?Well firstly it would be conditioning. I watched a lot of scary movies as a child and read a lot of scary books and enjoyed the thrill and the rush of being frightened, a lot in the same way as people enjoy roller coasters. My mother introduced me to some ghost stories and we went on cemetery outings and then I just went on from there on my own. Second, It’s the way I deal with my own fears. Some people don’t like to confront them I’ve always been as equally fascinated with things that scare me as frightened. Thirdly, a large portion of my interest in the horror genre is very simple. It’s a matter of taste. I enjoy the visual esthetics and the possibility for creative exploration in the grotesque. It’s reality, and it’s beautiful to me and no one could convince me otherwise.
OMFG, that’s exactly how I feel! From now on when people ask me that question I’ll be quoting you!
Do you remember the first photo you took that made you go WOW!?I remember the first subject matter I photographed that gave me that wild rush after most photo shoots these days. I was in a photography class and I was 14, so I got to really start thinking like a photographer for the first time. There was this multi million dollar home in my town that was having an open house. I walked in and thought I was in heaven. It was like the Beetlejuice house only better. There was a spiral staircase with a giant mural on the ceiling between the stairs of a bumblebee and a giant painting of a young dead looking girl holding a baby with a look on her face like she wanted to kill it. It was amazing. I was thinking to myself that these were going to be the best pictures of all time! Alas, some technical know how prevented them from being that but it was a lot of fun.
Can you tell us you’re funniest, scariest, most bizarre, or most touching story from one of your photo shoots?A lot of stuff leaps to mind, mostly abandoned building adventures. Those are my favorites, but I’m going to go with this one. I decided to take some band photos in a very sketchy motel on Aurora, frequented by hookers mostly (incase someone’s not from here). I thought it would be gritty, dirty and add something interesting. I tried to book a room over the phone many times but every time I called one they hung up on me. So we just started driving up and down Aurora asking for a room. The first 3 we went to said no because there was so many of us. I saw a few all brown lobbies with a really pungent smell of 70’s and cigarettes and in one of them, was a dead mini Christmas tree from 6 months earlier and really wanted to stay there but botched it by giving away that there were so many of us for one room.
We finally got to one that let us stay there with a man dressed straight out of the beat it video standing outside in a leather coat with an elastic waistband. The only way they would let us stay there is if we pretended it was just the singer and I. First of all we went into the wrong room to discover a man with boils all over his face, a hooker on the bed and 2 people shooting up in front of the t.v…..woops. So once we finally got our room we had to sneak everyone else in one at a time when the manager wasn’t looking, which unfortunately wasn’t very often. The room was alright I suppose, there was some 4x6 frames with tacky northwest art on the wall, a fold out couch and cable!! Which I don’t even have at home! But things were slightly off, like the various punched holes in the walls and that half the curtain rod was super glued to the wall and the other half was just dangling on the other end. It was definitely what I was looking for, we had a lot of laughs at the situations expense and when we finished shooting I wanted to get out of there asap. So we snuck everyone back into the van and the singer and I played it off like we were just having a quickie in there while the toothless manager in overalls proceeded to berate the singer for the duration of his suggested love making. With classic lines such as “Boy, if I had a girl like that I’d be in there allll night, I’d be foggin up the windows” Etc. It was bizarre circumstances for our working relationship but I still couldn’t stop laughing. That’s about it.
Holy crap that’s got to be the wickest story I have ever heard, no wonder you guys couldn’t stop laughing.
What has been the most surprising or most predictable reaction to your photographs?When I got out of school I went to a few interviews and after that when someone feels uncomfortable with what I do, they always use the word “Edgy” “your work is so edgy” Gets pretty old. Although there has been a few who don’t even attempt to hide their distain and simply say “that’s scary” well spotted dumb shit.
LOL, I know right, it’s kinda the whole point.
Are you working on any projects that you would like to share with us?Of course! I am working on a tarot deck currently that is going to be a gritty, underbelly of Americana. The themes are grotesque and ironic and a lot less metaphysical than most decks. I hope to be done with it by October, in time for Halloween.
Thank you so much for your time today =D
Thank you back =D
Advance purchases of a few of Misha's Tarot Cards such as the two below are available at:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/MishaBellone
To view other photo's in Misha's portfolio please visit:
http://www.myspace.com/mishafoto
Ordering infomation for the clutch bag, or one like it, in the last photo will be made availabe during the interview with Lauren Hoodenpyle. Thanks for checking in, check back for the DVD pick of the week.
No comments:
Post a Comment