Tom Hines: Eye of a Tiger

Tom Hines was born and raised in Brandon, Mississippi. He is a graduate of Cooper Union and currently lives in New York City.

Dazed Digital: So…what's on this weeks schedule for a person like Tom Hines?
Tom Hines: I wish I could say I was up to something mythical like hanging out of a helicopter with my camera. At a recent event, I watched a successful young photographer go onto the dance floor with his camera. Dancing around, he shot pictures through his legs, behind his back, over his head, it was spectacular. I was so jealous! For me, every week is about studying, planning upcoming shoots, and a tremendous amount of postproduction on previous shoots.

DD: Tell me a bit about your latest projects.
TH: In the past couple of months I've worked with two emerging designers on hybrid promotional projects, in other words, projects that go beyond the typical austerity of look books and aim at a somewhat viral life in the new media realm. The first designer was Samantha Pleet. For her collection, I shot a series of photos and also made a film of her looks which she showed as a video installation in lieu of a runway show during fashion week. This seems to be the reusable strategy of the day. The second label was Safe by Rebecca Turbow. For Safe I shot a series of high-concept, location pictures of the collection. Both projects were interesting in terms of what's possible for young designers building brands without huge branding budgets. We wanted to make imagery that was a little mysterious, a little enigmatic, and then let people have fun trying to figure it out and interact with it. Aside from that, I've been collaborating with Michelle Lueking on photographic art projects, as usual.

DD: What's the main difference between fashion and art?
TH: This is one of my favourite meditations. Insofar as imagery is concerned, there is very little difference to me, but the little difference I notice is valuable. In fashion photo, I could shoot a hundred pictures of feet and nobody would think it appropriate to analyse the pictures by way of the theories of Jacques Lacan. Nobody does critical theory on a fashion photo. This is probably because the fashion cosmos is so much bigger than the art world. To me, working in fashion feels like I'm getting a free pass. And I want to feel free.
Some people will tell you that in our time Fashion is the more symbolic art form. The argument is that it's hard to connect with deep human signals when you've been in school for a decade learning fine-art critique, because critique favours one part of the brain over others. I don't subscribe to the idea that art has become more about showing equations, problems and concise solutions, but I can see a temporary point there. My faith in art is very strong. Art modes seem to shift much more slowly than fashion modes, but I'm around for the long haul.

DD: What is fashion?
TH: It must be the best thing in the world. I don't want to bother defining it, not too much. In the broad sense, I want it to be like the workings of the mind, different modules working, shifting, competing and harmonizing. I want to be able to jump around in motive, to leap from mode to mode. I want to do dreams, colors, myths, textures, philosophies, stories, critiques, high ideas, low ideas, however I want, the best way it feels best, or the best way I deduce it is best. Yeah, I know I'm being abstract, but if I tell you I like Albert Elbaz, is that fashion? Fashion is abstract.

DD: Quantity or Quality within creativity?
TH: When I was a kid my grandmother was always getting on to me, saying, "Tom, you're being a whale hunter. Pace yourself. Catch a fish a day and grow appropriately. You'll be stronger when you spot the big one, and you might actually have a chance." I never knew what she was talking about. Until very recently; I could spend six months on a painting, years on a work of fiction, and be internally dead upon completion of the project, to the point where I couldn't possibly get behind it. In this practical regard, quantity has an edge over quality, within reason. I think maybe my grandmother was right; you got to grow in an abundance of goodness to have chances at greatness. It only comes from doing, because the brain is a collection that isn't particularly brilliant in any one of its modes. You've got to dance the brain, let all of its separate parts have a go.

DD: These days...when everyone has cameras on their cell phones... I wonder...what really makes a photo interesting, what makes a photographer?
TH: Aside from mystical traits, talents and other x-factors, one thing stands out: contextual ambition. I think about Jackson Pollock slinging paint around like a beast but having the wherewithal to declare his work Art in the proper context. There is a quote, probably false--I can't find it online--often attributed to Pollock as a way of describing his hubris. It goes something like, "there are only three artists: Picasso, Matisse and Pollock." The ego needs to be hyperbolic like that sometimes. That's probably what makes a photographer. I mean, I built the obligatory darkroom when I was kid, worked in it so long my skin literally fell off from chemical exposure, I learned about photography during this time. I wasn't a photographer, nor was I anything else. I was just curious and incautious. I went through all the motions. I've since come a long way. I've experimented with every medium I've wanted to experience, and I'm comfortable declaring myself a photographer in relation to other endeavours. It was the declaration that was missing before. And, yeah…maybe hubris, too. As to what makes a photo interesting, I can offer a metaphor. All my peers are creative professionals with nuanced perspectives. A group of us were hanging out the other night, talking about what's good. I found a metaphor that might describe our rarefied circle, a food metaphor. In food, sweetness represents caloric abundance. Everyone must like sweets, it's a biological imperative. In science experiments, rats are given sweetened water which they'll consume until their tongues are swollen. There is no imperative to consume bitterness. Bitterness represents poison to an animal. When I eat bitter greens and enjoy it, that's my intellect at work. Believe me; I don't need my intellect to enjoy sweetness, my body lights up in pleasure. I like to think of some photographs as being sweet chocolate bars and some as being bitter greens. Chocolate bar photos are extremely interesting, but one's intellect could be resistant to them. I know all too well, many of my peers will only declare respect for bitter greens photos. Still, both kinds are interesting, just in different ways.

DD: How come you got interested in combining music and photo?
TH: I'm just interested in culture, in performance, things like that. I learn a lot about my discipline by looking at other disciplines. I'm always in high gear and really intense when it comes to photo, but when I eat the food of a great chef, I can be relaxed, I can notice things differently. When I'm around musicians, I learn things about my own craft by listening. It's about allowing you to be carried by others. That's what is in it for me.

DD: Which song do you wish you'd written?
TH: I like songs written with non-finite verbs, particularly infinitives. I do not have a handle on what this means, I'm just aware of it, having worked in marketing. To me, this language makes a song feel epic. Sometimes I want to go on a journey with a song. Usher's "Love in This Club" has been on my radar lately. "I Wanna Be Sedated" by the Ramones and "Where the Streets Have No Name" by U2 are also examples. I'm not saying these three are my favorite songs, just examples of language I find transporting. Anyway, I'd be honored to have penned any hit.

DD: What are your inspiration sources?
TH: It must be everything, from art history to a puddle of water in nature.

DD: How important is the truth really?
TH: Politically, truth is really important. Sometimes people look at my photos and say, wow, that's a great capture. Michelle Lueking and I recently made a series of art photos called "We Fuck Nudes" where we shot all of a model's body parts separately, in detail. Then Michelle assembled the parts, seamlessly, into the poses of classic art nudes. She gave the photos that immaculate, silvery contrast you see in handsome museum prints. When people see these pictures they most often say, nice capture. They don't notice how messed up the body parts are. We never intended to dupe anyone, that's not what we do, I just think you make truth sometimes, no matter how extravagant the prank.

DD: What’s your most used idiom phrase?
TH: I like them all. Idioms force us to relax because they're figurative. You can't use deductive reasoning to decode the phrase, "let the cat out of the bag."

DD: Finally…give us a hint of any upcoming projects?
TH: I'm excited about all of them, but, London's own Jeff Kinkle is in town as a visiting scholar at Columbia University. I've talked with him about shooting some sort of scholarly portrait at the University library. The scholarly portrait is uncharted territory for me. I'm nervous!