The Photography of Matt Towler Interview by Jamie Joy Gatto I first encountered Matt Towler's work when my publisher, Circlet Press, sent me a sample they intended to use for my book cover for Sex Noir. I immediately knew the image was the perfect complement to my dark and moody-- and frankly sexual collection of fiction. I finally found Matt Towler's work online, and requested he share his photography for a gallery at Mind Caviar. I hope you find his work as intriguing as I do. Here is a sampling of some of his images and his sketches. When describing his art Matt says, "Although I don't want to be confined to it, I tend to lean towards visuals of a darker, Gothic aesthetic.  Sometimes I want to produce more disturbing imagery, but seeing as how these are people close to me I don't want to do awful things to their likenesses.  To be honest, to me the whole dark culture genre is starting to show cliches of its own, and I think I lean more towards images of beauty, however askew from the mainstream's idea of it."

"Until my discovery of Adobe PhotoShop, my art was primarily in "normal" media, although I had dabbled in photography before.  I don't consider myself a true photographer yet, as the pictures I take are just one step in the creation of the final artwork.  I delight in happy accidents, things or moments that weren't apparent at the time of the photo shoot.

To date all my models have either been friends or girlfriends - someone once jokingly referred to my Web site as my "ex-girlfriend gallery."  For a while there it did seem like a relationship would end not long after I took their pictures, which made working on them more of an emotional experience to say the least, but thankfully the model in most of the pictures on display here broke that curse.

I would like to do more pictures in the style of that black & white series, but am not used to asking or approaching strangers to model for me just yet.  I'll make sure this changes, somehow.

My 35mm camera is no longer predictable, has no light meter, and was ancient when I got it for art school years ago.  I'm using a borrowed camera currently until I can get another one of my own.  I never use a flash, even indoors.

I scan the pictures into an equally ancient computer - a Power Computing Mac clone running OS 8.6 and PhotoShop 5.0.2. It couldn't possible handle OS X or PhotoShop 7, so I need upgrades in that area as well.  But I make do with what I have, obviously, which sometimes is a source of pride, when I don't get computer envy.

I would produce so much more if I weren't saddled with a day job.  Or if I didn't have to sleep."

Email Matt Towler regarding his work. 

All Images Copyright © Matt Towler 2003. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy or post.

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