Interview with Shawn.O.Sullivan from B&W Magazine

Instead of photographing existent realities I decided to photograph my own imaginary realities. 

1.Would you say the figures in your pictures are more personal or archetypal?

From the very beginning of my involvement with conceptual photography all my visions where focused around presence of human figure.
Every image I created since then has a distinctive human presence.
This images are reflections of my personal life with all it's continuity of changes.
This figures are personal. This images are personal. They represent my life and my views.

2. Do you have a background in theater? (your images remind me of Beckett)

No, I don't. I graduated from technical college as an aviation engineer back in the Soviet Union, but never worked as such.
I was in my early twenties and pretty ignorant about the art. About this time I made my first photograph.
After a short and not satisfying involvement with documentary and portrait photography I put my camera aside.
I concentrated on studies of the world cultures. Also, I was constantly searching for a personal way to express myself. One day It came to me simple and clear..
Instead of photographing existent realities I decided to photograph my own imaginary realities. I began to photograph concepts.
Yes, the process is similar to staging a play in the theater. It starts from the idea (script) and then finding the location (set), models (actors), making decisions
on lighting and costumes, working with model and shooting tests (rehearsals) and the day of real shooting (opening night). Lots of similarities not only with the
theater but cinematography, poetry, painting, sculpture and music. They all begin with the concept, script, idea, sketch, tune...

3. What makes you use photography rather than paint?

You might say that I do paint, but with my camera.
Most of my photographs begin on paper as a sketches.
Than after days of tests and studies I am ready to work on "canvas".
In my opinion photography has one undeniable advantage to painting - it's truthfulness.
We subconsciously believe in what is photographed have to exist.
Very important tool when viewer believes in what he sees.

4. If these are not digital, then how? (if it is a trade secret, then just generalize)

The trade secret is how to get ideas. Everything else is a logical technical process.
Ears ago, when I was working on my first body of work "Shadows of Dream" clouds were essential part of the image.
I would spend hours on location waiting for the right clouds to come, very often with no luck.. It's when I realized that I can't just depend on pure luck. There
should be way to superimpose desirable clouds above staged and photographed foreground. I just improvised. Using one enlarger, pin registered easel and
regular construction board as a masking material attached to the blades of an easel. It was simple and it worked. It opened the new horizons for my ideas.
Nowadays, I am assembling as many of different images as I need on single piece of photographic paper using the same technique.
Polished and quite improved it still has it's limitations and can't compete with easiness of digital manipulations.
But I prefer glowing quality of original print and the laborious process to achieve it. I also start to think, that introduction
of digital photography erasing the "aspect of truth" from a straight photographic image. The same aspect which made me
choose photography as my tool. But I am still trying to make my images as real as possible. Just in case...

5. Are the crowd pictures leading somewhere?

Are you asking me to interpret my images?
I don't interpret my images. My goal is to reveal feelings and thoughts in my viewers.
I want them to have there own interpretations. I am always interested to hear how different people interpret my images. Sometimes they reveal the hidden
aspects unknown to me. And all there interpretations are valid.
Is there a way out of here?
Sure. One way.

There is nothing light about my art images. I dive deep for inspiration.

6. If you indeed find solace in nature, do you not wish to photograph it?

I believe I have photographed it already.
I constantly learn from uncorrupted simplicity of nature and I hope this simplicity has it's presents in my images.

7. There is some whimsy and lighheartedness in your commercial work, yet not in your personal. Why is this?

I take may commercial commitments very seriously. My commercial work reflects a stile of my artwork of this particular time. But there the similarity ends. I don't mix commercial ideas with art ideas. They have completely different purposes.
Commercial ideas are light and are to sell the product. I try to make them classy, mysterious and most of all eye-catching.
There is nothing light about my art images. I dive deep for inspiration.

8. Who are your influences, if any, in photography? painting? music?

The biggest influence on my work is my work. I learn from the every image I made.
Do I love the other artist art. Not really. Do I like the other artists art. Of coarse.
I spend lots of time in movie theaters, often driving 150 miles to see a particular movie or performance.
My favorite directors are Andrey Tarkovsky and Lars von Trier.
I like performance art, especially Butoh.
And music.  play it thought the day.
I used to listen to classical music for years. Not so much anymore.
When I print my work, I stay in my darkroom for a weeks.
Music becomes essential to keep sanity and maintain concentration in darkness day after day.
Then, it is another kind of music when I work on my ideas.
But it's always a background. I rarely listen to music anymore.
And talking about influences. I converse via email with hundreds of viewers from my website at bsimple.com
I hear from lot's of young people influenced by my approach. It makes me feel good.

9. If you are indeed learning from these "dreams" what are you learning?

I don't learn from "dreams". I learn from reality.
What I learn from it is to trust my intuition.

10. Is there any love in your dreams, or hope?

I am an optimist and I have a hope for human kind in my hard. I see this hope in my images.
Love is always there together with hate, grief and happiness.