interview with an artist

Jock Sturges, photographer of beauty and form, is one of this generations most celebrated photographers. Despite being respected by his peers and loved by his subjects, Jock has endured more than his fair share of public criticism. He is a prolific photographer with more than a dozen published works including three limited edition portfolios and nine books, his most recent being a colossal color book titled Life Time published in 2008 by Steidl. You need only view the images that Jock creates to understand the admiration and respect that he holds for the friends that he photographs.

Why do you make photos, what is your purpose?

I make photos first and foremost because I want to own them. If someone else had somehow magically made the same pictures I would still want to own them. My work is not about photography itself per se – rather an overwhelming affection for aspects of identity, beauty and line that I want to see repeated in objects I can admire in permanence.

Where does your subject in art come from and how do you work?

The origin of what I do is simple. The second youngest of five brothers (no sisters) I was sent away to boy’s boarding schools and summer camps starting at age 8 and then at 18 went from there to four years in the US Navy which was pretty much a men’s club at that point in history. Out of the military at 23, I found myself in a small liberal, coed college and thus in the presence of women in a meaningful way for the first time in my life. Glory be. My work of the opposite sex began then and has never stopped. 23 years of deprivation forged an unflagging fascination that endures to this day.

What is the contrast between the intent of your work and the perception of your work?

That is an impossible question to answer because perception varies in every individual, and, more broadly, in every culture. There can only ever be differing perceptions of just what any given body of work or individual art object is. The range of possibilities is near infinite. What one person or group finds unlovely, another might consider transcendent, another shocking, another dull. It is finally not my responsibility nor of any great interest to me to address the external perception of my work at all. But I do not seek to please nobody. Not at all. I want first of all to please the people in my pictures and then, close behind, myself. If my work pleases the people it depicts and meets my own standards then I am done asking questions of it.

With your work being forcedly dragged into the political arena, what effect has that had on the way that you work?

It did initially have some effect because what happened to me in 1990 was not short of terrifying. If the feds had managed to convict me, I would have spent a minimum of ten years in prison which read to me like a death sentence.

How do you see? What is it about a scene or subject that speaks to you and causes you to make the photograph?

I will come at this answer from four slightly different directions.

- Taste.
- The color blue.
- Genius.

How do you decide between using color or black and white?

The color/black-and-white dichotomy is interesting because there was a point in time when I wouldn’t have considered doing color. This had to do with the form color pictures could take. Until a very few years ago even the best color prints represented what I considered unacceptably imperfect reproductions of what had been before the camera. But now, with today’s technology, I am able to make color prints that completely satisfy what I want visually in a color photograph. Modern digital printing with Epson printers and their magnificent ink sets have revolutionized the medium for me. Now I love working in color!

How important is it to remain true to yourself and your individual vision as an artist?

As far as I am concerned I don’t have any choice; it’s the only thing that I know how to do. It’s not important, it’s not even essential; it’s all I can do.

How does, or should, the word “passion” relate to an artist?

I was bemused in graduate school when I heard people standing around talking about what they should do in art. I was perplexed that they didn’t know. I never had the least doubts as to what I wanted to do, I always knew. I was lucky — always passionate.