L' oeil ailleurs

INTRODUCING ANDREW EARGLE
I was born and raised in Asheville, NC. It’s a smallish town with mountains. I enjoyed growing up there, no complaints. I moved to a real small town about 2 hours away a couple of years ago called Boone NC. It’s where I now go to school. It’s at the top of the mountains so its real beautiful but is tainted by the fact that it’s a college town. There’s not much to do here besides going outside and hiking. Other than that drinking and getting high is the only other option, but I guess that’s the case in most places. I use to hate living here, and still kind of do, but I have learned to deal with it. I’m 21 years old. I started taking pictures when I was 15 years old in high school. One of my really close friends growing up, David Buckner, got me started taking photos. It was my freshman year in high school when he came back from Hong Kong were he lived off and on growing up. He came into town with an old manual camera of some kind that he got at a pawnshop for cheap and had been shooting on for a highs school class back in China. I had always been interested as a kid in the idea of being a “photographer” with old film cameras. The idea just seemed cool to me at the age of 15. So I went home and went into my attic to look and see if my parents had an old camera I could use, which they did, and made David teach me. It was an old beat up Pentax. We shot through out high school together all the time. I guess what kept me going was David, we would always go off each other’s stuff and get really stoked about each other’s roles, even if they were no good. We would convince ourselves they were good. I shot way different back then. I didn’t really know what I was doing or what I was going for at that age, I just did it. I think that’s something I’ve been striving to get back to. At this point I feel like I take photos to better understand myself. To see how my voice develops. Sometimes I worry that I’m not saying enough with my work, that it doesn’t have a strong message, but when I start thinking too hard about it I start trying to do things that aren’t natural and it ends up being shitty. Then I realize that the reason I take pictures and the reason I have done it this long is because I love making things. So I go by the code “take pictures first and ask questions later,” I think Alexander Martinez said that and I feel the exact same way. This way I can reflect back on things and think about why I took certain shots, what made me interested in what I took and how it correlates with other photos I’ve taken. From there I start to see a pattern and something substantial. I would say my life has definitely changed since I started taking pictures. It has affected my interests and the way I spend some of my time. When I got to college it definitely affected me. I got a lot more serious and started asking myself a lot more questions and exploring directions I wanted to go. If I never asked those questions and got kind of obsessed I would probably just be collecting records like I use to do, and still kind of do, and be in bands. Music was my main interest in high school and for some reason when I got to college I stopped playing. Music is just as important to me if not more. But right now I just want to work on self-publishing some zines and collaborate with other artists. Some projects are in the works right now actually with a couple of photographers. Keep your eyes peeled. I want a Contax G2. It would also be nice to have one of those Yashica T4s everyone has and take it around with me. But I’m happy with the cameras I got now. The photo above was taken this summer in San Francisco at Oscar Mendoza’s house. I was there all summer interning for Ray Potes at Hamburger Eyes, which was an amazing experience. While I was there I met Jasmine Lee right before she left, which was cool. Near the end of my stay in SF I lived on Oscar Mendoza’s couch. Oscar is an amazing photographer and a really rad dude. But the picture was taken from a night when me and Oscar were just just chilling and drinking in his living room fooling around on our computers and at a certain point I was skyping with Jared Boger who was in NC and Oscar was skyping with Jasmine who was in Chicago. Jasmine and Jared are friends as well so I thought it would be fun to let Jared and asmine chat with each other for a second. And that’s when I took this photo. We have never hung out all together before but we all have relationships with one another so that was the first and only time to date that we have all four hung out. I thought it was interesting how everyone was brought together in that way. It was really cool. I like so many photographers old and new that’s its hard to pick one out. So many influence me. I guess I would have to say Jared Boger. He’s a good friend of mine and has definitely pushed me ever since I met him. I would say having him around in this small town really influences how I work. I want to name off a lot more but I’m working on putting my website back up and when I do I will have a links page with all the other photographer that impact me that I love as well.

I was born and raised in Asheville, NC. It’s a smallish town with mountains. I enjoyed growing up there, no complaints. I moved to a real small town about 2 hours away a couple of years ago called Boone NC. It’s where I now go to school. It’s at the top of the mountains so its real beautiful but is tainted by the fact that it’s a college town. There’s not much to do here besides going outside and hiking. Other than that drinking and getting high is the only other option, but I guess that’s the case in most places. I use to hate living here, and still kind of do, but I have learned to deal with it. I’m 21 years old. I started taking pictures when I was 15 years old in high school. One of my really close friends growing up, David Buckner, got me started taking photos. It was my freshman year in high school when he came back from Hong Kong were he lived off and on growing up. He came into town with an old manual camera of some kind that he got at a pawnshop for cheap and had been shooting on for a highs school class back in China. I had always been interested as a kid in the idea of being a “photographer” with old film cameras. The idea just seemed cool to me at the age of 15. So I went home and went into my attic to look and see if my parents had an old camera I could use, which they did, and made David teach me. It was an old beat up Pentax. We shot through out high school together all the time. I guess what kept me going was David, we would always go off each other’s stuff and get really stoked about each other’s roles, even if they were no good. We would convince ourselves they were good. I shot way different back then. I didn’t really know what I was doing or what I was going for at that age, I just did it. I think that’s something I’ve been striving to get back to. At this point I feel like I take photos to better understand myself. To see how my voice develops. Sometimes I worry that I’m not saying enough with my work, that it doesn’t have a strong message, but when I start thinking too hard about it I start trying to do things that aren’t natural and it ends up being shitty. Then I realize that the reason I take pictures and the reason I have done it this long is because I love making things. So I go by the code “take pictures first and ask questions later,” I think Alexander Martinez said that and I feel the exact same way. This way I can reflect back on things and think about why I took certain shots, what made me interested in what I took and how it correlates with other photos I’ve taken. From there I start to see a pattern and something substantial. I would say my life has definitely changed since I started taking pictures. It has affected my interests and the way I spend some of my time. When I got to college it definitely affected me. I got a lot more serious and started asking myself a lot more questions and exploring directions I wanted to go. If I never asked those questions and got kind of obsessed I would probably just be collecting records like I use to do, and still kind of do, and be in bands. Music was my main interest in high school and for some reason when I got to college I stopped playing. Music is just as important to me if not more. But right now I just want to work on self-publishing some zines and collaborate with other artists. Some projects are in the works right now actually with a couple of photographers. Keep your eyes peeled. I want a Contax G2. It would also be nice to have one of those Yashica T4s everyone has and take it around with me. But I’m happy with the cameras I got now. The photo above was taken this summer in San Francisco at Oscar Mendoza’s house. I was there all summer interning for Ray Potes at Hamburger Eyes, which was an amazing experience. While I was there I met Jasmine Lee right before she left, which was cool. Near the end of my stay in SF I lived on Oscar Mendoza’s couch. Oscar is an amazing photographer and a really rad dude. But the picture was taken from a night when me and Oscar were just just chilling and drinking in his living room fooling around on our computers and at a certain point I was skyping with Jared Boger who was in NC and Oscar was skyping with Jasmine who was in Chicago. Jasmine and Jared are friends as well so I thought it would be fun to let Jared and asmine chat with each other for a second. And that’s when I took this photo. We have never hung out all together before but we all have relationships with one another so that was the first and only time to date that we have all four hung out. I thought it was interesting how everyone was brought together in that way. It was really cool. I like so many photographers old and new that’s its hard to pick one out. So many influence me. I guess I would have to say Jared Boger. He’s a good friend of mine and has definitely pushed me ever since I met him. I would say having him around in this small town really influences how I work. I want to name off a lot more but I’m working on putting my website back up and when I do I will have a links page with all the other photographer that impact me that I love as well.

12:31 pm • 17 September 2010 • 19 notes