Artist Lecture: Ben Fink

Ben Fink: Photographer

Food + Wine Magazine, Bon Appetit, Saveur, New York Magazine, etc
Moved from Maryland to Memphis (work and school)
Went to MCA for painting and graphic design
Went to UofM for graphic design (because he wanted jobs)
left school to assist a photographer
planned to go back, but that didn't happen
- shot at ad agencies
- shot for designers
- shot for FedEx
- shot for Memphis Magazine
- writer and photographer team up after a while

From the team-up with a writer came a magazine job that took them everywhere
Some titles:
"The Belly of Soul" Gus's Fried Chicken
"Mama Lou's Thanksgiving"
"Tet is Everybody's Birthday" in Vietnam
"Soul of the Low Lands"
"Sweet Memory" in Genova, Italy
Savannah story where he met the characters from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
"The Glory of Red Cooking" with Grace Young
"Shanghai Surprise"
"Paradise Revisited"
After a while the writer/photographer duo created their own stories

Books:
apparently uses only natural lighting for his commercial work
"Intercourses"
sex and food: aphrodisiac cookbook
sold over 3,000 copies
Some funny quotes from him about the photographs and the models:
"This woman...she is naked. And that was hard, to...hide it."
"She was popular, we called her the strawberry and pine-nut girl. Our art director liked her so much he married her."
(later about the same woman): "Those are real...the art director said so."
"The Modern Cafe"
"Sur La Table"
"Sfoglia"
"Bobby Flay"
"Deen Brothers"
funny quote: "They know nothing about food. Don't tell anybody. I mean, PB+J...fried chicken?"
"Rose Levy Bennebaum"
funny sum-up of her personality: cakes, fucking, sucking, and the Rolling Stones
"Gale Gand"
"Lee Brothers"
quote: "I actually worked in my pajamas for this job"
"P.Allen Smith"
"Steven Raichlen BBQ"
"Teresa Giudance" of the Real Housewives of New Jersey

Personal Work:
(the reason these are so choppy is because they are my notes on the photos themselves as I view them throughout the presentation, short descriptions or opinions in a word or phrase)
-uses symbols within his personal work to represent other things
"Landscapes"
dreamed created landscapes
conflict within them
absence of people
death/decay/loneliness
manipulated light (ten shots for one piece)
childhood but with a dangerous element to it
dormant trees
heaviness to them, darkness
metaphorical meanings
Hudson River paintings are influencial
broken/abandoned/cold
"Holga Images"
cinematic
film noir
drawings and dreams
-Paris Opera House / ghostly
"Belarus"
relationship with people
childhood
symbolic
little boy and virgin mary
surgery
cut open chest with scissors holding the flesh in place
silence throughout the entire auditorium
stillness
completely exposed for all to see
danger
sickly colors
silence
passed away as an ends / church / house / family
"Peru"
facing death
spaces between
the spaces and people left behind
blood flowing through tubes crisscrossing like wires
"Sudan"
the negative space prevails
tells more than what is busy
white hooded woman photograph is stunning
"A call to prayer" is the song that he wanted to have playing throughout the presentation

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My overall impression of Ben Fink's work

As a photographer he is a very influential person that I would love to follow into the commercial world. The fact that he came from such humble beginnings and made his way all the up to some of the most prominent publications doing something that he loves is very inspiring. He was funny and charismatic and his photographs were gorgeous. Shallow depth of field and perfect attention to atmosphere and color and personality. Everything was so much what I want to do with my own work, only by way of portraits. I am inspired by his lecture that not only can I make it to where I would like to be, but that I need to broaden my own perspective and shoot whatever I can. His portrait work was very characteristic of the attention that he gives to food. His food photography gives the dish a personality all it's own - which would be easily adaptable to my own work if I just gave my own style the attention and technique that it warranted.
His personal work was such a contrast from his commercial work, and I enjoyed the polar opposite that the two worlds have. One is light and bright and fun, and the other explores the darker aspects of the un-fabricated world of documentary or the completely fictional world of nightmares. Knowing that someone successful in the commercial world of photography can also be allowed the leeway to do as much personal exploration in their personal work is a sigh of relief. If I do end up photographing smiling models all day long there is nothing that says I can't come back to my studio, break something, and then let out all of my frustrations through my camera if I want to.
One of the best lectures I have been to from MCA if not my all time favorite simply because of the subject matter and complete relevance to my own life. Me gusta mucho.