Billy Kenrick

I have been following Billy’s unique and constantly-emerging portfolio for some time and chose this first interview opportunity to hear his own thoughts about his work and to call the community’s attention to his atypical photographs. Billy presents an eclectic collection of photographs while exhibiting a cohesive and coherent vision, one that explores both the material and the intangible side of photographs. -Fred

Typically, the PN featured member is identified by a theme describing the member’s body of work. Since I find your work esoteric and defying classification, I asked you to come up with something and you settled on “Subjective Documentary.” Can you explain how that relates to your photos/portfolio?

BILLY: The use of any such definition is always problematic. My impulse here, since we are obliged to reach an agreement, is to go with something suitably broad or vague! But it does touch on a couple of interesting points:

A photograph is always a document of sorts- however ‘subjective’, incomplete, or misleading. That it might be said to be something particularly expressive is another thing again.

I started off trying to make ‘good’ pictures, & I had the idea that the end product was to be something finished, self-evident, complete-in-itself. I had a hard-wired notion of what a photograph ought to look like. Often enough, the closer I came in my attempts to emulate this, the more lack-lustre the whole thing seemed. Once I began to work in a more concentrated way, I realised that my own experiments were valid, & it felt more meaningful to incorporate an element of the autobiographical.

The act of photographing has become more & more habitual, yet it is elusive enough to keep me interested. It is not just about ending up with a finished product. Rather, it is a matter of being open to what comes & being clued into my own reactions to things. & This involves working with an understanding of the medium’s limitations, an awareness of the fragility of the effort, as well as an interest in the mishaps. The work is subjective insofar as it is informed by such an idiosyncratic approach – both in terms of how or what I choose to photograph as well as how I end up presenting it.

Picking up on two things you’ve said: First, you have several self-portraits sprinkled throughout your portfolio. Do you find those autobiographical in a different way from the rest of your work? Can you talk about significant autobiographical aspects that are addressed in your photos? Second, recognizing the limitations of the medium seems like a very genuine way to approach what you’re doing. Can you talk specifically about those limitations and how you address them in your photographs?

BILLY: One can only go so far pointing the camera at the outside world before it becomes clear that it is the result of an inner impulse of sorts. This is something that’s often accentuated in the photography I find most interesting.

No, I don’t consider self-portraits to be necessarily more autobiographical. I photograph what’s there, what I notice- & that includes myself. The way a photograph is taken, for example, might do more to communicate a state of mind than something as obvious as a straight self-portrait. A self-portrait can also be a way to undermine the illusion of the omnipotent photographer- it ensures that I, too, am implicated in the act of taking pictures.

Perhaps the term ‘autobiographical’ is too loaded. There is not really a pre-conceived agenda – I try to follow my instincts & I am drawn to some images over others. I cannot explain why. The more honestly I respond to my own instincts, I find, the more likely it is that the viewer might experience a similar resonance. So the overall experience is something more basic than what’s purely personal. There’s a mixture of empathy & self-recognition, perhaps.

The limitations of the photographic medium are very apparent. It is bound by technical principles & wouldn’t function otherwise. I am particularly interested in the plasticity of film photography. Learning through endless trial & error taught me to appreciate the random element at play, & to allow for it.

Can you elaborate on two concepts that are significant in your photographs: empathy and plasticity? When you say “empathy,” to what extent is that empathy with your subjects and to what extent is it, if at all, with the potential viewer of your photos? Are there one or two character traits that you feel come through with some consistency in your work? Can you explain “plasticity” as you use it a little bit more?

BILLY: I suggest the term ‘empathy’ to describe something general – a kind of shared feeling or common sensibility. The work is an offshoot of my own experience – a response to what I notice, to what I feel drawn to or curious about. I edit my work scrupulously & often, & try to present something that reflects this kind of curiosity in a way that is honest & recognisable. As a knock-on effect, viewers might be able share in something of this experience.

When it comes to working with people & portrait work, I tend to photograph almost exclusively close friends. I need to feel relaxed & open & for the subject to feel likewise before I would take such a shot. It demands a certain intimacy that cannot be readily had with people I don’t know very well.

I also photograph environments & like to spend some time getting to know a place while I figure out how to shoot it. It’s usually a way of orientating myself within a situation, of mapping my experience. The term ‘plasticity’ I use simply to describe the aspect of the work that entails working with physical materials. I like a picture to be a thing I can touch rather than just see on a screen. I like how film photography looks, & I am interested in working with the negative. I also like to tamper with the standard methods of preparing & presenting such materials. It is naive, I feel, to work with the idea that I can make something that’s complete or ‘successful’. It is always just an attempt, & always incomplete. Running through all of the work is an awareness of this difficulty – the impossibility of truly expressing anything. As such, it is a question of lack, of degrees of failure.

How do you work? Do you plan photographs? How do you move from conception through snapping the shutter through post processing to presentation? What role does TECHNIQUE play in your photographic vision?

BILLY: I always carry a camera with me, & I take pictures almost every day – not very many, but often. I use different cameras – according to convenience & my mood. I like to be able to respond to things quickly & spontaneously – so I often use a point & shoot. Sometimes I feel like working more methodically & will use a manual 35mm SLR, or a middle-format camera. I generally do not plan too much, & will wander with my camera & follow my nose. But occasionally I will seek out certain situations that interest me. I do have certain preferences when it comes to cameras, but I am not too hung up on the technicalities. One spends the first six months agonizing over f-stops & figuring out the basics. After that it’s a matter of getting on with the business of shooting. Working a camera is really not that difficult, the challenge is to create something that’s genuinely interesting.

As I accumulate work, I edit & arrange the pictures according to the atmosphere or themes that emerge. This is a crucial aspect of the process, & requires a lot of care. Depending on where I’m at, this might be completely unplanned. On other occasions, I am more conscious of such emerging patterns & this in turn can influence the way I work. I develop my own negatives & scan them & generally do little or no post-processing. At the moment I am spending more time in the darkroom & am building up a collection of prints. I am interested in the photo-book & would ideally be working towards this. The Internet has established new lines of communication, & the digital era has transformed how we see & how we work. It’s an exciting time for photography, & it’s also a very challenging one.

I chose you for featured member because I respond so strongly to your personal and individualistic vision, knowing and appreciating the fact that your work is likely not as “popular” as other types of photographs. Can you talk about what you think viewers might take away from seeing and hearing about your work? Do you present your work in other venues besides PN, on-line or printed? What do you see as some of the presentation challenges (advantages and disadvantages) to online viewing of your photographs? Are there considerations you make in showing your work specifically on PN?

BILLY: There is never any way to determine how people respond – everyone has such a unique take on things. It is also often unreliable. & Sometimes feedback can be incisive & enlightening. It is mainly through the process of working that I find out new things – I don’t know where I’m at until I see the most recent thing I’ve done. Then I go from there. I don’t know what anything is going to look like beforehand. I do it because I feel I need to.

I’ve been taking pictures now for around two years. It’s very early. I’ve done it mostly without a great deal of reflection – it’s been impulsive, natural. I work alone & haven’t studied. But maybe it’s good to reflect on it now a little. Maybe some of what I say can provide some kind of context for the work. Sometimes the work has more of an impact when things aren’t spelled out. There are gaps there, & they belong. Much of the work, to me, is filled with doubt & curiosity- it’s incomplete.

I have only very recently managed to have ready access to a darkroom. I’ve always wanted to be able to print my own work. I am not a professional & have no funding – so there are always material & financial setbacks. It takes time. The net is a great place to showcase work & I like to work with the layout of the Photo.net website. It helps me to edit & to arrange my ideas. It is very user-friendly – but it also creates a distance. There is no real meeting involved. I prefer to look at books, to visit exhibitions, & to meet the photographers involved.

Right now I am learning more about the printing side of things. This is important to me. It’s about making something that’s tangible. I have exhibited, but for the moment am more interested in the work. I am interested in showcasing the work in other arenas – not just the virtual. Ultimately, it has to go beyond this, I feel – but the web is a great democratic vehicle. The challenge for photographers now, however, is to find ways to penetrate the barrage of imagery that’s been generated during these last years of the digital revolution.

It’s kind of a shock that you’ve been taking pictures for only two years. You seem to photograph with such ease and assurance, as if much more seasoned than that. What first got you interested in taking/making photographs? Can you talk a little about the course of the last two years. Has what initially interested you carried through to the present? Have you learned things since you started that were, perhaps, unexpected, and have you changed significantly in those two years both personally and photographically?

BILLY: I’ve spent the last two years working in a casual but sustained way. It satisfies a creative impulse. I was originally more interested in music & writing – I took to photography rather late, & it seemed to fit. I like the directness of it, & its versatility. I am not an ‘all-round’ photographer – there are a lot of dimensions to it that I feel no affinity with. Rather, I am determined to use it for my own ends – much as I would try to do with any other creative medium. I started dabbling in photography having left Ireland to go travelling around three years ago. It was quite an unconscious thing in the beginning – it was simply something I enjoyed doing, & it led me along. I was living in France for a while & then ended up in Berlin. I had no money & didn’t yet know any German – so I became a wandering observer. I had a broken Olympus OM that my dad had given me. I also used a digital SLR, & this helped me to try things out in the beginning. It was a kind of exhilarating, solitary time for me.

I think discovering the medium on my own terms has helped a lot. When I needed information, I read, & I constantly looked at photo books. I made very many mistakes, & kept trying things out. I would go down to the local labs & talk to the guys there, & look around for second-hand equipment. I educated myself by trying things out, & by getting clued into the work of other photographers I admired. Another factor, I think, was that I felt ready – I was in real need of a creative outlet, & photography really helped me to harness that need.

Taking pictures has come to matter to me more & more. The biggest difficulty is finding the time & space necessary to keep things going. It would be nice to be funded to work in this way – but since I have no support I have to create ways of working around this. It’s up to me to determine how things progress from here.

You seem to embrace the idea that it’s difficult to put things about your own photographs into words. Many of us struggle with the tension between expressing ourselves and documenting things visually and then trying to answer questions about it or describe our process or thoughts. You’ve given us many varied impressions of who you are and how you work without really “interpreting” or limiting your own photographs by doing so, and I appreciate that. Can you say something about how your thinking relates to what you’re doing? Has this interview process been difficult and does it feel like it may, in some ways, undermine your work and, on the other hand, has it opened some doors for you?

BILLY: It does feel somewhat counter-intuitive to me to write about the pictures, yes. That might also relate simply to the fact that I am not in the habit of it & so it feels odd. It relates also, of course, to the fact that we are speaking about images. While words are not entirely superfluous here, they are certainly a poor substitute. The bottom line though, I think, is that I don’t really know what to say.

I don’t see commentary as inherently damaging – I like to read what, if anything, my favourite photographers have to say. If it facilitates the capacity of the images to communicate, then it’s worthwhile. Depending on the context, it can help a lot to know more information about the work. But when lengthy explanations are expected, then it becomes a little pointless.

I do have certain ways of thinking about things, & this inevitably flows into the work. There is a bewildering quality to the best kind of photography – that is expansive rather than explanatory. It appeals to the part of us that knows but cannot explain. So it’s more of an intuitive thing than a thought process. That’s part of the joy of it, too; it’s a kind of relief. In any case, I am not in a position to generalise about what really works or not – my own outlook is represented by the work, which is personal & surely won’t, in any case, appeal to a great many. I, too, often get fed up looking at my own work. The truth is, I feel there is also something terribly lifeless about a photo – there’s an attempt over & over to instil a touch of vitality, but it’s ultimately kind of futile. Once that’s understood, though, there is room for temporary enlightenment.

The work so far has not had much exposure – so it is surprising & interesting to be asked such questions. I appreciate the feedback I have received so far & it can sometimes be a good gauge for judging my own progress. Bringing the work to an audience is an essential step of the process.

Some Examples of Billy’s Work

Billy K.	‘Bliain Nua’ means ‘New Year’ in Irish. This is new year’s night, walking home slowly in the snow after pints in Grogans. Sara & I were visiting Dublin & missed the last bus- it was late & the roads were empty, & we made the most of it. This was Neopan 1600- a film I really like the look of.
Billy K.	From a series of montages that I made in 2008. I did a number of these in quick succession & haven’t made any since. but it’s a process I am interested in & will most likely try it again sometime. this one is made of up of images of bits & pieces of architecture- there’s a tenement, a piece of barbed-wire from Sachsenhausen, an ancient column & some museum statues. the process of making such montages is very liberating, since it is carried out in a rather freestyle manner & without a great deal of conscious deliberation. the results are often quite unusual, but interesting, somehow. more here: http://photo.net/photodb/presentation?presentation_id=506398
Billy K.	A more impenetrable work, perhaps. this is taken from a sequence of images meant to make up a journal of sorts. i made this having returned from some years of traveling & it was an attempt to come to terms with the disorientation one experiences upon arriving ‘home’ after a long absence. I spent some days typing thoughts, ideas, impressions spontaneously onto pages. then i spread them on the desk & took a few rolls of multiple-exposure shots. i like how the final results came out, & it conveys more about my state of mind at the time than any of the words could.

Billy K.	I like this simple picture, for some reason. maybe it’s the atmosphere. i know the real story behind it, but it suggests any number of feelings. maybe it’s a blues song by Bessie Smith.
Billy K.	Driving across the Dingle peninsula at night. I took a lot of road pictures during this trip- with a point & shoot held in one hand & the wheel in the other. this one looks better as a print. i like the off-kilter feel- moving at speed through the darkness, with only the headlights dancing on the unlit roads.

Links

• Billy’s member page
• Billy’s gallery page – NOTE: Billy has nude images in his gallery -

• 
  Sony Alpha A37 preview
• 
  Sony NEX-F3 Preview
• 
  Lensbaby Edge 80 Optic Review
• 
  Concert and Live Music Photography: Clubs, Bars, and Small Venues
• 
  Olympus Tough TG-1 iHS Preview
• 
  Canon 5D MkIII First Impressions Review
• 
  Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 EX DG OS HSM Lens Review
• 
  Olympus OM-D E-M5 First Impressions Review
• 
  Datacolor Spyder4Elite Review

Add a comment

Notify me of comments