Stars And Suffering Through The Same Lens He’s just stinkin’ creative. I met him about five years ago through a bunch of other young, creative people in Nashville. Writers, musicians, players, painters, and the like, who all buzz and hum around each other, inspire each other in our creative work, and celebrate each other’s successes. It’s a cool community of ‘mutual admiration’ that wouldn’t be complete without at least one serious photographer. That’s where Jeremy Cowart comes in. His creative work was early noticed in the success of a web design company he started called Pixelgrazer, primarily designing websites and CD covers. That was a natural step for this down-to-earth guy with a degree in design. Now he’s quickly becoming an in-demand photographer all over the country, and we’re all secretly a tad jealous, while genuinely celebrating the people Jeremy gets to work with these days. It’s fun to hear Jeremy humbly answer our frequent interrogation, “Who did you shoot THIS week?” You can tell he’s excited when he answers, but you also sense he’s not gloating, just grateful. The sound in his voice betrays his awareness that his gift of a good eye, and his skills as a photographer exist for a greater purpose. Whether he’s capturing a celebrity for a cover shot, or an unknown person who somehow represents an entire suffering continent, you can feel in the shot that Jeremy is aware of the importance of the soul behind the eyes. You’ll see what I mean when you check out his work and eavesdrop in on our conversation: Chris: What was your first inclination toward photography? Jeremy: First inkling towards photography? My parents bought me my first camera my senior year in high school, and I loved shooting. I loved the act of taking a picture. But I was so intimidated by film and all the technical stuff. I always doubted myself, and I thought, “Well that’s fun, but I can’t do that, it’s just too technical.” I put it off on the back burner, well, not just the back burner, just something I would never do. I just thought it was too hard for me. Then in college I took one photography class. And it was the same thing—loved taking pictures, but the darkroom scared me. It was cool, but it didn’t seem right for me. So I went into my design career. And once digital cameras started coming out, [photographer] Jimmy Abegg was a friend of mine. We had just met, and he told me about this digital camera that he had just got, a Canon G1, and so I got one of those. And I think digital photography really made me fall in love with photography in general. So I just started shooting, and it was so easy [with a digital camera] because I could dump those photos into Photoshop, this [computer software] program I already knew and was comfortable with. I started shooting all the time, and shooting textures for my CD packaging. Pictures of concrete and grass and all that stuff, just to throw into my design stuff. One thing led to another and I started shooting friends, musicians, anybody that needed photos. It kept growing. So finally Pixelgrazer started offering photography as an additional service to design and web design. C: So your education was in design, and photography was only one aspect of that, and you’ve kind of charged into photography more? J: Yeah, and I think design is now what leads my…I mean, I shoot from a designer’s perspective. When art directors look at my book, they instantly know I’m a designer because of the way I like to frame things. It can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing. Sometimes people focus on that [design perspective] more than capturing the subject’s mood, which I’ve actually struggled with a lot. Photographers who have studied design have a trained eye. C: That shows in your work. It shows that you have an eye, not just for your subject, but also for what’s happening around your subject. There’s a feeling I get in your stuff, that it’s not just a picture of someone. It’s way more than that, because you’re really showing them in a context. And your eye for design, I guess, contributes a lot to pulling that off. Was that creative eye always part of you? J: Yeah, I wouldn’t say it was this natural-born talent, that I was some kind of natural or anything, but I have always been just fascinated and in love with art, of any kind. I first discovered my passion for art in seventh grade in a typical art class. This teacher had us draw a New York City street corner, and so I drew that, and from then on, man, it was just drawing! My whole bedroom was just wallpapered with drawings…drawings of Michael Jordan, drawings of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, drawings of G.I. Joes. That’s all I would do in my spare time, just draw. I went through junior high and high school wanting to be a painter all my life, and I think my parents got worried about me making a living. So Mom was like, “Have you ever heard of graphic design?” And same thing as photography, I was scared to death of computers, so I was like, “No way.” But then I took my first Photoshop class, and fell in love. C: Well, that’s something that has come up in so many conversations recently. Historically, when we look back on this period of time, there are so many things that changed technologically that have completely changed art. One previous example is that when the camera was first invented Impressionism started, because painters had to figure out something cameras couldn’t do. Up to that point they were painting very realistic, photo-like stuff, and they feared cameras would replace them. J: Interesting. C: And so with technology, the internet, the digital age, all that stuff, so much in art has changed. Music, journalism, and photography too. It seems the digital age, and the digital camera, set YOU up to do what you do. I can imagine the darkroom, and chemicals, and after having taken the picture, so much other work to be done before you actually have a photo in your hand. That would scare me off! But the digital technology has completely changed the scene for how the art of photography has progressed. J: Sometimes I feel like [technology] helps a lot, but sometimes I think it hurts. I respect the film guys, because in those days they couldn’t see what they were getting. With digital you can ‘cheat.’ You can take a horrible shot and see it right away and adjust. Whereas the film people had to get all their settings right, and then shoot, and hope it comes out right. So now, I respect the old-school way of doing things because it’s so much more of a challenge. At the same time there are some really cool things about digital too. C: Are there any…if you were to ask me this question I wouldn’t know how to answer it, because I only know Ansel Adams and Jeremy Cowart…but are there any photographers that stick out in your mind that have been important in your development, or have been inspirational to you? J: I wouldn’t say in my development, because I’ve never really kept up with it, which I both take pride in and I regret. I think it’s good to have inspirations as you learn a craft, and people to…not mimic, I don’t think you should steal ideas…but you need people to motivate you and inspire you. But now that I’m here…’here’…I don’t know what that means…but now that I’m doing this for a living, there are guys who are ahead of me who I’d like to be on that level. Not necessarily WHAT they are doing, but just be as good as them. I feel like I have a long way to go. There’s this new fashion photographer named Gray Scott who is unbelievable…I just discovered him in the past couple of weeks. And I don’t want to do fashion, but the way he shoots, and his ideas, and the thinking behind his shots is just unbelievable. There’s a guy named Anthony Mandler who I really respect. He’s an L.A. entertainment shooter. There’s a guy in Nashville named Mark Tucker, who does amazing work. So those are three guys who come to mind. C: You do a lot of portrait stuff for people. There are so many different areas you could go into, but is that what you mainly want to do? You’ve shot models, you’ve shot artists and bands… J: I feel like I’m kind of just discovering that right now. I think I’m the type of guy who wants to try EVERYTHING, so I can know what I want to do. I did a year of weddings, and I know I don’t want to do weddings anymore. Right now I’m doing the music, entertainment thing. I’m enjoying it, but I don’t know if it will be forever. I did the journalistic thing when I went to Africa and shot. I fell in love with that. I’m going back in three weeks for 10 days to do another shoot. So, I don’t really know what kind of photography in the end I’ll do. I’m interested in editorial, I’m interested in advertising, which is really conceptual, and that interests me. I hope to be a very versatile photographer where I can do the entertainment stuff, but I can also take trips and do this journalistic stuff, which to me is the most meaningful and most rewarding. I think I’m so A.D.D. that I need to be in different fields of photography at least for a while to kind of find out what I want to do in the long run. C: I would imagine there are differences in shooting a model and shooting a musician. Can you explain some of those differences and that dynamic between you as the photographer and those very different subjects? J: There’s a HUGE difference. There’s such a different chemistry. When you work with a model, they know what to do in front of a camera. It’s cool, because you are both doing your own jobs, and it’s a collaboration. You don’t even have to tell them anything…you give them a little general direction, but they just do their thing. They change it after every shot. They know their angles, they know which way the camera hits them the best. So it’s a complete, true team effort. Whereas, working with a musician is different. Probably 99% of them are SO insecure. So many things they’re worried about. They don’t know what to do in front of the camera. C: I’ll vouch for that! J: Even if they’ve done photo shoots they’re still uncomfortable. It’s just a weird process. You have to coach them a lot and tell them what to do. It becomes a bigger effort on my part because I have to do my job AND theirs. I have to be thinking for them. With the model I just think about MY thing. C: Ha! I’m the worst at photo shoots. J: It’s hard. I hate being in front of the camera so I understand where musicians are coming from. It is hard because you have the label and management and all these people telling you, “We need this, we need that, we need this!” To pull this out of the artist can sometimes be really tricky. C: I remember having shoots with Abegg, and I’m not really comfortable in front of the camera at all. I have a hard time smiling, and somewhere he discovered that if he just cussed at me, I’d start laughing. Then he’d have these really natural shots…for like twelve seconds he’d rip a bunch of shots off while I was laughing…and the BEST shots were right after he cussed at me! J: Usually the best shots with musicians--you’re exactly right--come in those in-between moments when they’re not trying to look good. C: Not trying to look like a band… J: Yeah, in fact, probably 50% of the work I show in my portfolio are those in-between moments. There’s a shot of Andy Davis, doing this--holding his hat and looking down. In between poses he was just adjusting his hat, and that was the shot. C: Well, since you brought up your portfolio, drop some names. You’ve shot some really great people. J: Ha! That always feels weird. C: I know, but I’m giving you complete freedom to drop names, because CHRISRICE.COM readers want to know. J: Ok. Sting, Rob Thomas, Duncan Sheik is my personal favorite, Indigo Girls…Imogen Heap, too. She's also at the top of my favorites list...I always go blank with that question… C: That’s all right. J: I have yet to shoot Chris Rice… C: Well, we’ll work on that…that could be your best shot ever! J: Man, I don’t know… C: You’ve done a lot of independent guys too? J: Matt Wertz, Dave Barnes. That’s such a funny question…it’s like when people ask you what you’ve been listening to lately. Uh… C: Like, “What’s in your CD player right now?” Uh… J: I guess you can see on my website…it’s hard to think of them all…Sting and Rob Thomas are the ones people always… C: They’re the most recognizable. Do you have a dream person…well, besides me (Ha!)…who you’d like to shoot one day? J: I think my dream people are more of the type of people I’m shooting—more of the indie…Patty Griffin would be way up there. Coldplay, they’re not so indie, but they’re way up there. I think every photographer in the world wants to shoot Bono. C: Hang in there. I think it will happen. J: Patty Griffin’s a great example. It’s the really cool indie people I want to work with. C: People whose music you like? J: Yeah, I really love working with people whose music…David Mead I just shot…he’s one of my favorites… C: Gosh, he’s great. J: Duncan Sheik and Imogen Heap are at the top of the list, with Coldplay and Patty Griffin. Somehow the shoot with Duncan Sheik ended up happening, so I was thrilled. C: How do those come about? How do they find out about you? Do you have an agency or something like that? J: Yeah, I have an agent who gets my work. She’s been doing it for twenty years, so she knows every label, every management company. Sometimes I’ll send her a list of people I want to work with. I’ve already told her I want to work with Coldplay and Patty Griffin, and she’s already talked to their people. With Duncan [Sheik], he came into town to play a show, and I just introduced myself afterwards, and very shamelessly said, “Hey I want to work with you. I’m a photographer.” I e-mailed him my website, and weeks went by, and I didn’t hear back from him. So I e-mailed him one more time, and he responded back, “Yeah, love your work, we should do something sometime.” So it ended up working out. C: That was brave. From an artist standpoint, it’s so weird to be approached like that, because there are so many people who want to be a part of what you’re doing. Some are legit and some aren’t. Few people realize how often artists are approached by strangers with ‘great ideas.’ J: Exactly…and that’s why I rarely do that, because I know artists get that all the time. That’s why I love having an agent, who can go directly to their ‘people,’ without me having to go directly to [the artist]. But sometimes, I just want so badly to do something, and pride aside, I just go say something! And sometimes it works. C: It paid off with Duncan! Well, here’s maybe a dumb question for all of us amateur photographers. First of all, here’s how amateur I am: A few years ago I went backpacking in Scotland with Randy and Ricky [Jackson, The Daylights] for a couple of weeks. I had bought a new camera and was really excited about it, and while we were there, I shot 8 or 9 rolls of film. I came back and had them all developed, and in at least a third of my shots (no joke!) my finger showed up, all out of focus and blocking part of a castle, or some very picturesque part of a landscape. Anyway, besides keeping your finger away from the front of the lens, what’s one simple thing you can tell us amateur photographers to improve our shots? J: That’s a good question. Hmmm….the answers I’m coming up with seem dumb too. C: Ha! They can’t be that dumb! You actually know what you’re doing! So, give us something. J: Well, when you take pictures of friends or family, just make sure they’re centered in the frame. I see so many people get their pictures back and someone’s head is chopped off. That’s a basic thing, but just make sure they’re in the center of the frame so that doesn’t happen. Sometimes people misuse flashes, and aren’t sure when to use it or when to turn it off. Last week I was taking a picture at a wedding, and the people in the picture insisted we didn’t need the flash since we were outside. With the people in the foreground and the sunset in the background, it was a beautiful picture. But we had to use the flash to see their faces against such a bright sunset background. Basic knowledge about when to use certain camera functions is a good thing. I don’t feel like those are very good answers to your question though. C: No, they’re great! A lot of us really need the most basic help! One thing I’d like to tell people is to actually know where the button is before they take the shot. J: That’s a good one. C: Ha! There will be lines of people waiting after a show, and someone finally gets up to the table trying to take a picture, so I’ll lean up to pose with them, and we’ll be standing there smiling for like 40 seconds when the person with the camera finally says, “Wait, what do I push?” I’m thinking, “You’ve been in line for 30 minutes, knowing you’re gonna take a picture when you get up here! Use that time to figure out where the button is!” J: Ha! That’s a good call. C: Photography is such a cool art. You have so many things you’re playing with: shadows, light, subjects, surroundings, textures…you have all those things going on, and it’s not so simple as we amateurs think. It’s not just point and shoot. Plus there’s so much done after the shot is taken. All those factors. J: You have to get all those in there, and then the BIGGEST one is getting that right mood from your subject. You have to make sure they’re not blinking, and that the angle is right. Angles are so hard on people. Like [Matt] Wertz. I shot him yesterday, and he has this one magic, magic angle where he looks amazing! And others where he looks like a goof. [Ouch…sorry Wertz! He doesn’t mean it. So we can’t ALL be models Jeremy! C’mon Wertz, let’s just brush off the haters…] J: It’s strange how it works. C: I know the feeling! J: That’s how it works for everybody, though. Unless it’s a model…where models you can shoot from any angle and they look great. But most people have horrible and great angles… [See Matt, we’re not alone. I think Cowart loves us after all! I hope that makes you feel better now.] C: That’s the depressing thing as the subject in photo shoots. After 8 hours of shooting, you get hundreds and hundreds of pictures back, and only find 3 that you like of yourself! J: One of the things I remember from my photography class, a teacher once said, “If you get just one good shot from a role of film, you’ve done a great job.” And that’s even stretching it. You go through a shoot of 800 or 900 images and you only have a handful or maybe 10 amazing shots. That’s pretty right on. It’s hard to get a great image. C: You said the word a couple of times, and I notice it in your work, the word “mood.” All the elements, physically, are present to take the shot, and they can all be perfect, but there’s an intangible aspect that has to be in a shot for it to be a great shot, mood. Is that accidental? Are you going for it, trying to create that mood, or capture one that’s already there? J: It just depends. I’m using Wertz [as an example] since I shot him yesterday, so it’s fresh on my mind, but we went into the shoot wanting to capture Wertz, who’s easy-going and fun…most bands and their music are serious and dark, and no one wants to smile, but Wertz is a fun guy, so we wanted to capture that light-hearted side. But today, the first shot I sent to his management, their first words were, “He looks mean.” You have to really focus on capturing their music in their expression and in their body language. A lot of times you get it by trying…telling them to stand this way, or look this way…and they get it. But sometimes you have other people in the shoot interacting with them and you just shoot, and you’ll accidentally get it in between trying. C: That’s another part of the magic of what you do as the photographer…as you’re looking through all those shots you spot the ones that caught the mood. J: You always know. It’s amazing to me that even looking at thumbnails…you’re just looking through them and BAM! There it is. C: I see a lot of mood in your work when I look at it. I notice the intangibles in your work over the five or so years that I’ve known you. I REALLY noticed it in your new book, "Hope In The Dark." I flipped through it quickly at your house (because I want to really spend more time looking through it very slowly and purposefully when I get it). But I noticed even in my quick look that it was such an emotional thing. You have an amazing ability and responsibility as a photographer to bring a viewpoint to people in an image that they didn’t see in real life like you did. I’ve been to Africa, and I’ve seen the faces, and remember the smells, and how the air felt. That quick look at the images in your book took me back there. You take people somewhere with a shot that they may have never been to before. Maybe it’s a physical place, maybe a mood. You reach into people’s souls. That’s what art does, all the different kinds of art. So you can do very important stuff with your work, and I think that’s probably why the journalistic thing is important to you. Tell me about generally the importance of the journalistic work and then specifically what you did for your book. J: Going over there to Africa, and doing stuff like that…I think in life we all want to feel like what we’re doing means something. We want to mean something to this world, both spiritually and just as humans. We think, “What’s the importance of my little cubicle job. What am I doing?” I feel like going over [to Africa] is so much bigger than entertainment, or all this music stuff I’m doing. It’s just so much more important. This problem is huge. AIDS in Africa--this is the biggest problem we face today. There are millions and millions of people dying, and it’s just getting worse every year. And seeing it with your own eyes is unbelievable. Everybody has a desire to help, but I think, “How can I really do something? I’m just this little guy in Nashville, Tennessee. What can I do?” So many times we just shut down and think we can’t do anything. But I realized I have a camera, and I can capture this. I can help people hear or see what’s going on over there. I can capture this range of emotion. The people are really amazing…they’re happy…but they’re under these horrible circumstances. So for me, there are several things going on: There’s the selfish part of me being able to shoot, and have fun, and go over there with friends; then there’s the whole thing of feeling like I’m called to do this; and then there’s making art. Everything about it is a no-brainer for me. How could this NOT be something I need and have to do in my life. Every angle of it just amazes me. To be able to use a gift to help people and to educate people here, it’s just a no-brainer. I can’t wait to get back over there and do it again. C: So you put together a really cool book of images from your recent trip over there. Tell us more about how that came about. J: Well, it was a four-week trip, two weeks with African Leadership, and two weeks with Blood:Water Mission. At first I was just going to go over with you and Barrett and Wertz and Barnes. Then Blood:Water found out I was going and asked me to stay another two weeks with them and shoot. Then Relevant [publisher] found out about it and asked me to do a book, so one thing led to another. We weren’t sure what the book was going to be, or how the book was going to function, but I just went over there and would shoot everything that spoke to me, everything from cool shots of textures to really meaningful images. We’d sit down and interview people, just like this, we’d spend an hour with them and talk to them and then take their portraits afterwards. So there’s a range of portraits, to landscapes, to textures, to environment. I shot a barbershop. Just random. Just trying to capture a first-time experience. C: Who wrote the captions in the book? Who did the writing? J: Jena Lee, a girl who runs Blood:Water Mission, an amazing person, she’s really passionate about writing. Her father, who is an author, has written two New York Times bestsellers. Well, Jena wrote the book. She wrote captions based on what she was seeing in the photos. She was really able to write from first-hand experience because she was there. She was in on the interviews. So it was a powerful collaboration. If you just look at the photos, it becomes more of a “look at these great photos that Jeremy took” kind of book. But when you READ the book, it instantly is not about me--thank the Lord. It touches you and makes you think, and makes you question yourself, and question what’s going on over there. It almost acts like this devotion type thing. It’s a really powerful form of collaboration and communication. I just love it because it takes the emphasis off of me or Jena, and it becomes more about them [the Africans] with this combination of these words behind the photos. C: Well, what I’ve seen of it already is really powerful and meaningful. I appreciate that you are using what you have to not only do great work, but to do meaningful work that makes the rest of us aware of the things you see through your lens. It’s great stuff. From the celebrity shots to the very real images from the other side of the world. It’s very moving. And I guess that’s the point of art, and in particular, photography. ************ You can see Jeremy’s amazing work at: jeremycowart.com OR myspace.com/jeremycowart Please buy Jeremy's new book of images from Africa, "Hope In The Dark." It’s truly beautiful and meaningful! It's available from amazon.com, or barnesandnoble.com, or anywhere you buy books...published by Relevant Books.