Steph interviews Thomas M. Fabian II

Thomas Fabian is a friend and fellow recent graduate at NESOP. Since our first term together, I’ve appreciated sharing classes and critiques with him, and have always been eager to see what he photographs next. Often his constant shooting and production of work has pushed me to shoot more myself, and I’m pretty confident that he’s never going to stop. Definitely check out his work and his Blurb book, which is for sale.

Will you talk a bit about how you decided to start the project on the MSPCA (Massachusetts Society for the Protection of Animals), and the overall story it tells?

I chose the project because there is a special place in my heart for animals and more so for the people willing to dedicate their lives to lend a helping hand to them when they’re in need. I also did it because of the unrelenting negativity in the media and my need to document people trying to right the wrongs of others. From these two reasons I set forth to portray the day to day activities the staff at the MSPCA performed routinely in order to provide a quality life for these animals who had been neglected, abandoned, or surrendered.

I know you made the project into a book on Blurb.com. Did you submit it to the Photography Book Now contest? What was it like laying out a book for the first time?

I turned the MSPCA project into a book for two reasons. The first was to enter it in the contest, which I did. The second was to see my work in book form and to explore that as a final output of my work. Laying out a book is a difficult process, or it was for me at least. The choices of caption/no caption, two page spreads, and having multiple images on one page were hard decisions to make because up until now my final output for my work had always been prints, and there the only decision to make was what kind of paper to use. In the end I chose a simple one image per page layout without captions in order to focus the attention on the images and the story they told without influencing people with my words. My only regret was that I didn’t include more images/pages and will take that lesson with me if and when I make another book.

What, if anything, would you change about the world of documentary photography today?

If I could change anything it would be that photographers take the risk to explore the opposing viewpoint to what they’re trying to portray. It seems to me that so many photographers are quick to assume a stance on something and completely ignore the merits of the opposing viewpoint. I’ve learned that in every situation no ONE side is 100% right or 100% wrong and to ignore something one does not agree with is irresponsible and to ignore the truth. In the end I feel that documentary photographers should pursue the truth and if that means exploring aspects that one may not agree with then it MUST be done, otherwise it’s just fiction and a set of pretty pictures to look at.

What are you working on right now and how are you staying afloat now that school is over?

Currently I’m working on a few new projects. One is documenting the student experience at the New England School of Optometry for use by the school in various forms (pamphlets, website). Another that is currently in the early stages of getting of the ground is documenting the Make-a-Wish foundation of Massachusetts, focusing on both what it takes to grant a wish as well as the experiences of those being granted those wishes.
Aside from those two local projects, I am also in the process of being embedded with a group of field artillery soldiers in Baghdad and documenting their lives.
I’ve also been photographing events and short documentaries for corporate reports. In short, I’ve been taking every chance I get to pick up my camera and go shoot.

What do you think your biggest challenge is as an emerging photographer?

Contrary to what I’ve been told countless times by countless people that I’m entering a saturated market, I’ve found that all it takes is some creativity to where I search for work. That being said, the biggest challenge I have faced is finding the confidence to talk about the value my work has to offer. In normal everyday sales, one need only sell the benefits of their product(s), however being a photographer that product is myself, and selling yourself takes some serious courage. These days banks like to see where their investment dollars are going and as a photographer I can supply businesses with that visually, the hard part is being able to sell that.

You shoot street photography and I like it! I know that it’s difficult and time-consuming to create a great body of street photography these days. What do you think the relevance of this subject is today and what options/opportunities do you see for it surviving now that many of the masters have passed on?

Street photography is indeed difficult to produce bodies of work from. To be able to capture just one image requires immense amounts of time observing the interactions of moments all around us, and the unpredictable nature this adds leads, often times, to entire days where all that is captured is just almost shots. While many people will argue that street photography is no longer relevant and simply a cliche I believe that it is evolving. In todays sedentary lifestyle-society, street photography represents the visual documentation of how people spend their time when they leave their house/apartment. Todays generation of street photographers are documenting people tying to get from one place to the next in the efforts to return home to sit down with their computers and televisions.
I find street photography to be extremely important to document the lifestyles of each generation and as such becomes an important part of our history. Another aspect is simply the beauty of of capturing that perfect moment and allowing it to be dignified by being witnessed for more than the mere instant it existed.

Photos © Thomas M. Fabian II