Hamilton!

I’ve been trying to snag an interview with photographer James Hamilton for at least a dozen years. It’s finally here, featured at The Photographic Journal. 

I first discovered his pictures when we both shot for the Village Voice in the early nineties, but his work has so much more breadth than just that period. I show three of his photographs here, but there are so many great ones that I’ve not duplicated any from TPJ piece.

Here is a brief excerpt from our discussion…

Is there a way you define your style, or your philosophical approach to shooting? Because it’s subtle, but it’s there.

I hope that there’s some sort of penetration, that I’m penetrating.

What’s this gesture you’re doing?

Trying to get in there, you know…

(whispering) He’s turning his wrist like a screwdriver.

(chuckles) I’m really trying to get something out of them, and at the same time, impose my sense of humor, my sarcasm sometimes, my attitude. I’m trying to impose my point of view, the best pictures look like mine, somehow, and sometimes it’s indefinable. But there is an edge to a lot of them that I think is my edge, I think I own that.

top image: James Brown, 1979

second image: Joan Rivers, 1971

third image: Boogie Boarder with Bubble, 1994

bottom image: my portrait of James Hamilton, 2017