AK: Please introduce yourself: What is your name, where are you from, what do you do?
JL: My name is John Lehr. I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. I'm a photographer, and an Associate Professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.
AK: What is your relationship with photography and how did you get into it?
JL: I discovered photography in high school, at a pivotal moment in my life. Seeing Robert Frank's Trolley picture changed everything for me. I think of photography as a medium in the truest sense; it is the thing that sits between me and the world and it's particular problems and possibilities are what helps me make certain kinds of discoveries.
AK: What do you think triggers you to photograph in a certain moment? Is it planned or solely driven by intuition?
JL: I'm not sure I believe in intuition, but I also wouldn't describe my reactions in a particular moment as being fully planned either. A large part of my practice as an artist happens when I'm not photographing. It has to do with research, engaging with the work of other artists, thinkers, and writers, and being receptive to what is happening both out in the world and in my personal life. This is what primes me to be receptive, and what prompts me to ask questions.
AK: Which city would you like to visit the most, and why?
JL: Anywhere but here! I'm longing to travel as soon as covid travel restrictions are lifted.
AK: What is your personal relationship to cities and how do you perceive them as places in general?
JL: I see cities as physical manifestations of human aspirations and anxieties, places where the individual struggles to be seen and to be respected in a dense population. In America that struggle is always taking place within the confines of capitalism, a system that reaches into nearly every aspect of our lives.
AK: Regarding your project «The Island Position»: What was your intention, and how did you come up with the idea?
JL: The idea came from working, and from being receptive to what I was reading and what I was experiencing out in the world.The title for the series, «The Island Position», is an advertising term that describes the premium placement of an advertisement surrounded solely by editorial content.
The photographs in the series describe commercial facades from across the US that advertise not only what is for sale, but perhaps more importantly the idiosyncratic decisions of the people who own them. I think of these facades as being covered in accidental signatures that often reveal the desires and anxieties of people who are participating in a system that will never deliver on it’s promises. What may be slightly less noticeable is the fact that perspective doesn’t quite work the way it should in these pictures.
There are several things I’m doing both in the camera, on the computer, and through the printing to destabilize the rationality one expects in both the subject and in the method of depiction. All of this leads to a kind of frenetic isolation where the subject and the spectator, or viewer, confront one another individually. On a basic level this is simply a way of enabling a different kind of attention. One has to consider a single place, and the myriad of decisions that led to it’s creation.
On another level this hyper-singular kind of picture places the viewer back into a cycle of discovery, observation, desire, and judgement that is central to the model of capitalism I am depicting. Viewing the picture completes this cycle, activates those material decisions, and implicates our own bodies and minds as part of that model.
AK: What is that «one thing» you have never managed to photograph and is now gone for good?
JL: The Baltimore of my youth.
AK: If you could travel back/forth in time, what advice would you give your younger/older self?
JL: I'm a teacher so I think about this a lot. I think it's important to build your own community. Nobody gets to where they want to be as an artist all by themselves. You need people to talk to, to share ideas with, people you can rely on for honest criticism. The sooner you start building that comunity, the better.
AK: What do you prefer saying: «to take a photograph» or to «make a photograph», and why?
JL: Make. Using the word take assumes there was a photograph already in existence.
AK: If it wasn’t for photography, what would you be interested in doing instead?
JL: Maybe I'd be a sleight of hand magician, or a line cook.
AK: What are you currently working on, and—if there is—what is your next project or journey?
JL: For the past several months I've been working on a series I am calling «Drawns». The work has evolved out of a daily, looser form of picture making that is in response to the social and political climate in America.
AK: Thank you, John!
If you have a project that you would like to present on this platform, please feel free to share it using the submission form.
Photography: John Lehr (2021)
Location: New York City, New York, USA
Links: Website, Instagram, MACK Books
AK: Please introduce yourself: What is your name, where are you from, what do you do?
JL: My name is John Lehr. I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. I'm a photographer, and an Associate Professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.
AK: What is your relationship with photography and how did you get into it?
JL: I discovered photography in high school, at a pivotal moment in my life. Seeing Robert Frank's Trolley picture changed everything for me. I think of photography as a medium in the truest sense; it is the thing that sits between me and the world and it's particular problems and possibilities are what helps me make certain kinds of discoveries.
AK: What do you think triggers you to photograph in a certain moment? Is it planned or solely driven by intuition?
JL: I'm not sure I believe in intuition, but I also wouldn't describe my reactions in a particular moment as being fully planned either. A large part of my practice as an artist happens when I'm not photographing. It has to do with research, engaging with the work of other artists, thinkers, and writers, and being receptive to what is happening both out in the world and in my personal life. This is what primes me to be receptive, and what prompts me to ask questions.
AK: Which city would you like to visit the most, and why?
JL: Anywhere but here! I'm longing to travel as soon as covid travel restrictions are lifted.
AK: What is your personal relationship to cities and how do you perceive them as places in general?
JL: I see cities as physical manifestations of human aspirations and anxieties, places where the individual struggles to be seen and to be respected in a dense population. In America that struggle is always taking place within the confines of capitalism, a system that reaches into nearly every aspect of our lives.
AK: Regarding your project «The Island Position»: What was your intention, and how did you come up with the idea?
JL: The idea came from working, and from being receptive to what I was reading and what I was experiencing out in the world.The title for the series, «The Island Position», is an advertising term that describes the premium placement of an advertisement surrounded solely by editorial content.
The photographs in the series describe commercial facades from across the US that advertise not only what is for sale, but perhaps more importantly the idiosyncratic decisions of the people who own them. I think of these facades as being covered in accidental signatures that often reveal the desires and anxieties of people who are participating in a system that will never deliver on it’s promises. What may be slightly less noticeable is the fact that perspective doesn’t quite work the way it should in these pictures.
There are several things I’m doing both in the camera, on the computer, and through the printing to destabilize the rationality one expects in both the subject and in the method of depiction. All of this leads to a kind of frenetic isolation where the subject and the spectator, or viewer, confront one another individually. On a basic level this is simply a way of enabling a different kind of attention. One has to consider a single place, and the myriad of decisions that led to it’s creation.
On another level this hyper-singular kind of picture places the viewer back into a cycle of discovery, observation, desire, and judgement that is central to the model of capitalism I am depicting. Viewing the picture completes this cycle, activates those material decisions, and implicates our own bodies and minds as part of that model.
AK: What is that «one thing» you have never managed to photograph and is now gone for good?
JL: The Baltimore of my youth.
AK: If you could travel back/forth in time, what advice would you give your younger/older self?
JL: I'm a teacher so I think about this a lot. I think it's important to build your own community. Nobody gets to where they want to be as an artist all by themselves. You need people to talk to, to share ideas with, people you can rely on for honest criticism. The sooner you start building that comunity, the better.
AK: What do you prefer saying: «to take a photograph» or to «make a photograph», and why?
JL: Make. Using the word take assumes there was a photograph already in existence.
AK: If it wasn’t for photography, what would you be interested in doing instead?
JL: Maybe I'd be a sleight of hand magician, or a line cook.
AK: What are you currently working on, and—if there is—what is your next project or journey?
JL: For the past several months I've been working on a series I am calling «Drawns». The work has evolved out of a daily, looser form of picture making that is in response to the social and political climate in America.
AK: Thank you, John!
If you have a project that you would like to present on this platform, please feel free to share it using the submission form.
Photography: John Lehr (2021)
Location: New York City, New York, USA
Links: Website, Instagram, MACK Books
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allcitiesarebeautiful.com is a community-driven, cross-disciplinary platform for contemporary documentary photography and literature.
News • Artists • Publishers • Submissions • Newsletter • Press • About • Imprint • RSS
