I think that I hide it well, but I was once an art student. I was trained as a photographer and printer and spent many years of my young life obsessed with visual images – my first year of college was funded in part by an art scholarship.
When I eventually realized that I would never be Ralph Eugene Meatyard I abandoned my pretensions and wandered away to study fiscal policy.
The only lingering remnant of those years is a compulsive desire to control how I am represented.
I do not enjoy being photographed by other people; most who try just get a shot of me holding my hands up in front of my face. Whenever possible I take my own publicity photographs – I shot the one for Taxidermy sitting on the edge of the tub in a house I sold a few years ago. But although I find it amusing, my UK publisher asked for something different.
Rifling through the archives I only came up with an image James took to promote Breeder. While it is technically very good and I look ok (though far too sweet) the photo is now five years old. A quick survey of friends revealed divided opinions. James had the decisive vote – he said that I should get new photographs, and offered to fly to the UK to shoot. But it was short notice and I was about to fly off to Italy and then the states.
In Seattle I explained the problem to all of my photographer friends, hoping that someone would offer a solution – because I’m too superstitious to ask for such things. I had no luck with this scheme until one late night at the Bus Stop when Zack (you might remember him from the Hunt for Bad Boys and Lumberjacks) overheard my tale of woe. He paused playing a video game for a moment and casually offered to help.
On my last full day in the states I took the train from Portland to Seattle, feeling raw and distraught and unkempt, to meet Zack in an old apartment building on First Hill. I dragged along the only two fancy outfits I had available but got caught in a rain storm along the way.
He opened the door wearing pajamas, hungover and hands shaking. At various points in the shoot he blew out a bulb, blinded himself with a flash, and managed to get a big wad of tape stuck to his head.
The whole experience was hilarious and I hoped we would at least get something better than what I could manage pointing my own camera at my head.
We retreated to the Bus Stop where I told Ade stories and Zack made the first edits. When I looked over his shoulder I was startled to find that he had somehow managed take the best photographs of me so far this century – or perhaps ever.
