Today we’d like to introduce you to Evan Perkins.
Hi Evan, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My initial interest in photography stemmed from a high school black and white film photography class that my sister convinced me to take at the last moments of enrollment. I ended up falling in love with the medium and continued my education at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where I received my BFA in Photography.
While at MassArt, along with the years I was in Boston post-graduation, I spent my time working in various fields of photography, but primarily, I stayed in the fine art world, working for galleries and as a studio assistant for local artists and photographers.
I have since expanded to working in the commercial photography space, first as a lab technician at photo labs making prints, alongside developing and scanning film. Since then, I have been working in my current position as a Digital Capture Technician with AG Digital Capture Solutions on commercial photography sets, where I plan to stay and expand my business and experience. This job allows me to hone my technical skills which translate to my own artistic practice.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
As is the nature of most careers, there have been ups and downs that are inherently built into navigating professional spaces. Although, working in the arts has been a constant practice in learning how to pivot in an unreliable and ever-changing field.
Glossing over the more commonplace obstacles, one that artists must always navigate is the balance between making a living and continuing their own artistic practice. It’s always been a priority of mine to consistently be making new work, so I’ve tried to organize my life in a way that supports that practice. In the field I’m in now, I have enough free time to explore the ideas that I’m looking to address in my own work while still being able to support myself through photography.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
What most draws me to photography is the inherent paradox that exists within the medium. Photography has often been referred to as a medium of objectivity, referencing photojournalistic images that have become ingrained in our popular collection of imagery. In reality, photography is just as subjective as any other medium. I enjoy photographs that contradict themselves, whether that be within the same image or how a collection of images can act in a disservice to one another. That’s what I look for in my own photographs, creating pictures that continually ask questions rather than provide answers.
In recent projects, I’ve explored the ways in which imagery from science fiction movies have influenced our culture’s expectations of space and the extraterrestrial, how Americans are drawn to Evangelical Christianity’s conformity as a way to hold on to the comforts of certainty, and most recently, I’ve been photographing the subcultures of alternative religions and religious practices, investigating how people look for truth in non-traditional sources as trust in larger religious institutions has wavered. All of these projects are ways in which I’m investigating American culture, playing with the iconography we’ve accumulated over decades, and creating a sense of mystery and paranoia in my own images.
Within my current work, I’m always looking to photograph individuals, groups, and places that are being used as new ways of creating intimacy, searching for truth and meaning, and exploring alternative ways of healing. Please feel free to reach out if you know anyone in these fields. I’m interested in photographing psychics, healers, hypnotherapists, tarot readers, health enthusiasts, yogis, religious leaders, etc.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Something that I don’t talk about often but certainly plays a role in influencing my own work is my interest in improv and stand-up comedy. While I don’t practice either of these myself, I’m drawn to the ways in which comedians dissect ideas through thought-out explorations, oftentimes in service of subverting cultural norms and traditions.
I’m also inspired by the flexibility and awareness in which improvisers are able to react to a scene or set of circumstances. It’s a heightening of the senses that I attempt to emulate when I’m out photographing.
Contact Info:
- Website: evanperkins.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perklax/
