New York City Photographer Jeff Fried started getting into photography at age 20. But it was one color printing class years later that stirred his momentum, pushing him to transform his love of taking pictures into a full-fledged profession.
When focused in on his art, Jeff spends much of his time documenting friends and family in the spaces around him. But his shots of seemingly typical imagery are anything but mundane. Jeff manages to take everyday occurrences,
like sitting in a dimly lit room, outside the realm of banality - conveying the emotion hidden in ordinary, real life moments.
As a spectator, it's easy to get lost in trying to decipher the thoughts of his subjects.
In Jeff's commercial work, he shows sensitivity to the needs of his clients, but the sort of raw, poetic qualities seen in his personal photos are still very much apparent.
I spoke to Jeff recently about his work. Here is what he had to say:
What made you decide to pursue photography professionally?
I’ve always felt extremely fortunate to have found something that I am good at and love to do. I started taking pictures when I was twenty and printing color film when I was twenty-two. I was shooting and printing pretty much non-stop so pursuing photography as a profession just seemed logical. After studying Art Photography at Syracuse University I moved to NYC, sold my car, bought a nice digital SLR, and started making efforts to put my name out as a New York City-based commercial photographer.
Tell us a little about some of your recent projects.
I've been gradually expanding upon a series of environmental portraits of young men over the past four years. I call the series "Disillusion." I started the project just before I entered my last year at Syracuse. I was seeing a lot of my male friends enter into a sort of personal funk (and in the midst of one myself). Each of us had our own reasons. Whether it was girls, family, jobs, school or whatever, for all us it was manifesting itself in a very noticeable way. We would talk on the phone or in person and the conversations would always revolve around these pretty depressed concepts. We’d often talk about how it’s a fairly common stereotype that young males, really guys in general, aren’t in touch with their emotions. That wasn’t the case with my friends and myself so I set out to embrace these feelings and try to capture them on film. I wanted to portray young men in a way they aren’t usually portrayed. I'm not sure if I'm done with that project. I say that because sometimes I still see and feel the funk.
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What I love about your photographs is how real and contemplative they are. Is that something you aim for? What do you look to capture in your photos?
Well thank you kindly. When I’m shooting for myself I often like to stage the scene. I typically have an agenda in mind.
Thanks Jeff for taking the time to talk!
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