Interview with Robert E. Jackson, Photo Collector

A Fluid and Expressive Medium: Interview with Robert E. Jackson
by Michelle Hauser of the Design Observer

In recent years, a new breed of photographer has emerged: the camera-less photographer. This new generation — many of whom self-identify as collectors — has reinvented the process once again: theirs is a practice which might be best characterized as hunting, appropriating and editing to obtain a certain kind of image. Such idiosyncratic makers/collectors have evolved as a sub-genre within the ranks of the amateur, whose collective output has spawned a revolution in the creation of a kind of new, tactile imagery. Without fanfare and well beyond the purview of what most people believe constitutes an artist, this new pioneering practice creates from an already existing body of work.

Excerpt:

MH: Do you ever feel like you are collaborating with whoever took the snapshot, or is it yours now entirely?

REJ: These snapshots now exist in my collection without the weight of any of the narrative import that accompanied the taking of the photo. I am interested in the formal aesthetic qualities of the photo and have no interest in trying to place when and where it was taken. Or what the photo meant to express or record. What is important now is what it means to me and how it might fit within a larger typological framework.

Full interview here
12 image slide show here