The Paper Crane

Inter­view with Chicago pho­tog­ra­pher Keith B. Evans

By Dee Clements Orig­i­nally pub­lished in Lumpen Mag­a­zine 2009

Keith Evans is a a Chicago Archi­tect and pho­tog­ra­pher. After a recent lay off from his job, Evan’s has put all of his time and energy into his pho­tog­ra­phy. Keith con­ducted an inter­view with me over email about his approach to cap­tur­ing the beauty and des­o­la­tion of build­ings and the urban envi­ron­ment.

DC

How do you decide what to photograph?

KE

I usu­ally have a few ideas before I set out, but mostly I wan­der around look­ing for inter­est­ing spaces, tex­tures or lay­ers of urban con­text. I like pho­tograph­ing against a clear blue Chicago sky, or search for details & tex­tures on a rainy day. I’m look­ing at build­ing facades with sub­tle odd­i­ties. Some­thing may be slightly out of place or over­looked. Maybe a moment where urban den­sity takes over & adjust­ments have been made; dif­fer­ent ele­ments are forced to occupy the same space. I think that there is a beauty in the way that changes are fab­ri­cated to accom­mo­date un-ideal sit­u­a­tions. It’s the nature of con­tin­u­ous urban change that I’m inter­ested in & ulti­mately seek out.

DC

The color in much of your work is very sat­u­rated; I see a lot of clean sim­plic­ity in the struc­tures you choose to cap­ture which can take a dilap­i­dated urban build­ing and make it look very beau­ti­ful. A great exam­ple of this is in the pho­to­graph Fer­ris Furs; the iso­la­tion of the build­ing and the lines are really strik­ing. Can you talk a lit­tle bit about this struc­ture? I see the shape of this build­ing often in your work.

KE

The recur­ring shape is the gable: a com­mon roof in the work­ing class Chicago neigh­bor­hoods. There’s some­thing about that shape that gives an uncanny emo­tion of shelter/security/warmth. It’s the basic shape of a “home”. In my archi­tec­tural edu­ca­tion & prac­tice the gable has been excluded as too tra­di­tional or unnec­es­sary in mod­ern design. I believe the impulse that the gable gives to the viewer is impor­tant to the feel­ing of secu­rity that a dwelling should provide.

The gables that appear in my pho­tographs tend to be clear of dec­o­ra­tion or other super­fi­cial addi­tives & the con­cen­tra­tion is on how the shape of the build­ing makes you feel. I like to get the shape of the build­ing against a clear & rich blue sky. The blue is so rich at times it sil­hou­ettes the sub­ject to enrich the emo­tional qual­ity of the building’s form.

DC

Do you find your­self drawn more often to pho­to­graph color or form?

KE

I’m inter­ested in both. I believe that col­ors enhance the for­mal qual­ity of the sub­ject mat­ter. Rich & sat­u­rated col­ors can effect the per­cep­tion of forms just as a more sub­tle mono­chro­matic range of color can reveal a del­i­cate texture.

DC

Can you describe your back­ground in archi­tec­ture and what role it plays in your pho­tog­ra­phy? Do they influ­ence each other or do you find your­self drawn to one more over the other?

KE

I have been trained to see the rela­tion­ships between a build­ing & its envi­ron­ment, be it the adja­cent build­ings, the land­scape, or the sky. I tend to pho­to­graph envi­ron­ments that have many lay­ers of con­text: from years of wear due to expo­sure, to lay­ers of repair & addi­tions in a ver­nac­u­lar lan­guage. These envi­ron­ments have changed due to neces­sity with avail­able mate­ri­als in an ordi­nary approach, which yields some inter­est­ing rela­tion­ships with lay­ers of craft by gen­er­a­tions of hands. My approach to this doc­u­men­ta­tion is influ­enced by the com­mu­ni­ca­tion of archi­tec­tural draw­ing. There is a pre­ci­sion in the way I align the sub­ject in the frame as if it were an archi­tec­tural ele­va­tion draw­ing, reveal­ing every­thing of the building’s face, align­ing every detail, true to pro­por­tion.

I have always thought of pho­tog­ra­phy as a per­sonal med­i­ta­tion. I would wan­der to unfa­mil­iar loca­tions to find new oppor­tu­ni­ties to pho­to­graph, just to see what I could find. I see my pho­tog­ra­phy as a col­lec­tion of tex­tures & spaces; build­ing facades that would inter­est me. It is a kind of research of the every­day rela­tion­ships in an urban envi­ron­ment. My inter­ests in archi­tec­ture & pho­tog­ra­phy def­i­nitely influ­ence each other. While I’m some­times required to be pro­fes­sional with archi­tec­ture, I can always be play­ful with pho­tog­ra­phy.

DC

How has the cur­rent eco­nomic reces­sion affected your daily life and your work as a pho­tog­ra­pher? Has it pro­vided you more or less time to shoot?

KE

I was laid off from my archi­tec­ture job due to the reces­sion & it may be a while before the pro­fes­sion can get back on its feet. I have been using my extra time pho­tograph­ing & pro­cess­ing a back­log of film I never got to from when I was work­ing. I have also been using this time as a chance to pre­pare work for a solo show of my recent work – my first pre­sen­ta­tion in Chicago. In this uncon­ven­tional period I have the oppor­tu­nity to look at my pho­tog­ra­phy in more of an acute way, con­cen­trat­ing on more spe­cific ideas & thoughts through writ­ing about a few images at a time. This has helped me exer­cise my ideas to see what is work­ing with dif­fer­ent processes rather than stock­pil­ing images.

DC

You have a pho­to­graph called Red Build­ing Board up, of an aban­doned brick build­ing that’s been boarded up. Behind it is a tall tree that’s lost all its leaves. The photo is taken directly in front of the build­ing and the tree branches behind it look like wiry hair grow­ing out of the building’s roof. I enjoy the play­ful aspect of such a grim image. Do you tend to look for the ani­mated under­tones in build­ings and inan­i­mate objects or do they just seem to appear?

KE

I love it when build­ings have ani­mated under­tones. I see per­son­al­i­ties all the time in build­ing facades. I think that that goes back to child­hood. I remem­ber see­ing build­ings smile & wave. In the case of the image you ref­er­enced, I thought at first that this boarded up build­ing had poten­tial to be beau­ti­ful again if restored. I found that the tree behind the build­ing would make the build­ing look alive; hope­ful.

DC

Other images like Twin Houses and Bent Truck veer toward a trick of the eye because of the angle or posi­tion or sim­ply just the way the struc­tures are built. It looks as though one thing is hap­pen­ing when really some­thing else is. Are these rare moments, find­ing a shot like this? Do you ever use Pho­to­shop or did the image exist in real life?

KE

These occa­sions are not that rare, but they are all a result of com­pos­ing the frame for the pho­to­graph. Pho­to­shop is only used for fine-tuning the image & maybe a lit­tle per­spec­tive con­trol (since I can’t do that with my cam­era). A lot of the com­po­si­tion is done for me already with the inter­est­ing sub­ject mat­ter. I am really just try­ing to find the best way to reveal my dis­cov­ery. I’m very selec­tive in my com­po­si­tion, tak­ing care to allow every­thing to fall in the right place.

DC

Are you a film pho­tog­ra­pher or a dig­i­tal man?

KE

I shoot mostly medium for­mat film. I have found trans­parency film to be eco­nom­i­cal and have con­sis­tent results with my cam­era. This is really more about the enjoy­ment of the square aspect ratio & man­ual oper­a­tion of my cam­era. I like rely more on ambi­ent light & instinct rather than elec­tron­ics. I have been very loyal to my process.

More of Keith Evans’ photg­ra­phy can be found on his web­site

Dee Clements is a an artist and cura­tor liv­ing and work­ing in Chicago.