Artists Exposed | Corwin Prescott
I've always been a *HUGE* fan of Corwin and have followed his work on the site from the first day. If there is one thing that Corwin Prescott is great at, it's making anything (literally ANYTHING) look moody, ambient, and bold. (Must add that the beautiful women he photographs can make anyone envious). It was such a huge honor to interview this guy and really dive into what makes him tick. For more of his work, check out his personal site here.
Where are you from/how did you grow up?
I'm from New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, a small town of which you haven't heard. Mostly I feel like I grew up in a couple different scenes that have had a pretty big impact on my work. I was really involved with the boyscouts, drumline, and punk/metal scene when I was in highschool, so I take a lot of that with me now.
I think the combination of all of those has really helped me make compositional sense of chaotic and sometimes dark tableaus. You know when you are in drumline, it is kind of like the musical equivalent of being in the military. Everything is extremely structured, planned and perfectly timed. And going from that to punk shows in my friends basement where you are an inch away from a band playing as loud and fast as they can, slamming into sweaty bodies, and bouncing off walls caked with condensation, it has an impact on you. It helps you see that even in a place like that there is some sort of structure, so I kind of try to apply that to my work, and make a sort of controlled chaos.
The boyscouts is a lot easier though, I mean I wasn't a great boyscout. I got in a lot of trouble for disappearing into the woods, a couple of times. I liked camping and being outdoors, but I didn't like this new idea that exists in boyscouts where in order to advance you basically have to do the same thing you already do in school. Take tests, do home work and so on. I was already good at school why do it twice, but yeah boyscouts is easy: I like going outside and so that is where I do a lot of my shoots, or just get ideas for a lot my shoots.
When did you start to feel that photography was the direction you wanted to head in?
I never really thought until my senior year of high school that photography was something that I could do in college or for a living. The only reason I took my first photo class was so that I could have a class with my two best friends, and they were a lot better than me with a camera. I'm not one of those people whose parents gave them their first camera at 5 or 6 and fell in love and have been shooting all of my life. We all played instruments in my family, but pretty much none of use used camera's. My dad always jokes that if he had a camera and somebody else picked it up to take a picture that'd be the only one that came out.
So I didn't have any plans on going into photography, I was going to be an English major. I had taken every English class there was to take in high school, and passed all of the AP courses as well. Then, I decided to take photo 2 as an elective and the first day the teacher said something to the effect of "I know not all of you are planning on going into this for college like, Corey (side note: I went by Corey until college) is, but you still have to work in this class." It just kind of stuck with me, so when I started applying to colleges I wanted to double major in English and Photo, which is actually pretty hard to do, and after a long search I didn't find any schools that I could afford that would let me double major, so I took a two year technical degree photo program that worked out great.
What angle are you trying to achieve with your photos?
What I want to do with my photos, particularly my personal work is take subjects or themes that walk a line between art triteness, and shoot it in a way that is totally different than people have seen it before. I mean most of my favorite subjects be it eroticism, outdoor nudes, or landscapes are all done to hell. Eroticism is pornographic, but to me so are bad outdoor nudes or landscapes. They are boring and its offensive that they continue to pass as what people consider art.
I like creating images with multiple moods, a lot of what I do could be considered erotic, funny, or depressing depending on how you view it, or your own mood. I like to explore darkness with a sort of Tarantino or Kubrick manner, a sort of humorous/beautiful/tragic concoction.
How did you learn about Zivity and what was your first impression of the site?
I learned about Zivity from a model friend named Tracey who sent me an invite in the very early days of the site. I liked the idea, but I'm a photographer, so I forgot to sign up and submit for at least a couple more months.
I really liked the idea behind the site a lot. I've always wanted a place to showcase my art to a wider range of fans, and make a little money from it, but losing the copyright to my photos has and always will be a no go. I love that they let me keep my copyright. That alone is the biggest plus for me.
How has your photography changed since you’ve been on the site?
Well I don't think has really changed that much. I have gotten better at what I do, but that comes with time. As long as you keep shooting and keep editing inevitably you will get better and more consistent. I think most probably the biggest way it has changed is that I shoot stuff other than my personal work. Sometimes I'm out of idea's for myself, so I just shoot something fun for Zivity. Its nice not to deal with the pressure of constantly creating images to fit the few themes I have going on for myself every shoot.
How did you meet all of the gorgeous models you work with?!
I mean initially, I met everyone I worked with through Modelmayhem, and networking. Not incredibly exciting, but now I'm less active on there, so I sometimes meet them through friends, or through Zivity. I know social networking how exciting, but its the only way I have found to meet people and get them in front of my camera.
What is Uncropped magazine? How did it start? Where are you trying to go with it?
Uncropped Magazine is one of the many ideas I've had on my many 12 or more hour drives. You get a lot of time to think on the road when everyone else in the car has fallen asleep, and its just you darkness, and 8 hours at 75mph through South Dakota.
So Uncropped, is my brain child, but its not really my magazine. Vaunt does pretty much everything. All the graphic design, the emailing, business, and layout that is all Vaunt. I pretty much just come up with cool ideas for a few of the articles we have in each issue, shoot content for it, and help her decide which photography, and artists we want to involve. Where we go is pretty much her call as I'm not really in the drivers seat, I'm more like the child in the back seat that sees a sign in Kansas and says "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we saw the little house on the prairie?"
You seem to travel around a lot- how did you make the move? (Financially, mentally, artistically)
Traveling is kind of our way of life. We get a lot done when we are at home, but I feel like I get the most done when I'm on the road. There have been models making a living as traveling artists for a while, and as my name in the photography world grew, I had lots of people hitting me up for shoots all over the country. I figured I want to travel, see the country, and I have friends all over the place I can make this work, so I took to the road.
Making it work takes a couple trips. I think I'd already driven coast to coast at least 6 times before I really got a feel for how to book these trips. I always had places to stay in cities, but I did spend a lot of time sleeping in my car at grocery stores, post offices and highway turn offs to save money. You don't make a lot of money being a traveling photographer unless you are better than planning than I was then. The plus side was that I managed to break even, and saw more of the country than most people will in their lifetime.
Now our trips are like a well oiled machine. The car gets packed perfectly, we have a tent, sleeping bags rated for negative forty degrees Fahrenheit, and generally we don't constantly get canceled on, which is awesome.
For your art while traveling you just have to find a way to work it into the system. Go to the city do your work, and then spend sometime in a national park, camping, shooting and hiking.
Where do you live now and who do you live with?
So right now I live in Philadelphia in what we refer to as the Compound. In my apartment I live with Vaunt and Porcelain, but we have had a pretty large number of Zivity people live with us. Alysha Nett, Rachel Dashae, Stephy C, and Laura T have all called this apartment home at one time or another. Then in the building we've also had or currently have PXE, Jackie, Velocity, Rilo Monroe, Redrum Collaboration, and Adrian Louise.
So there are a lot of us.
What lessons have you learned through your career in photography that keep you going?
I think the more you learn about photography as a career the harder it is to keep going, but you either do it or you don't. A lot of people don't make it for any number of reasons. It can be disheartening to see shitty work frequently rewarded financially with jobs from big magazines, grants, or gallery shows because of a last name, or a connection you could never hope to have.
I dunno a lot of people I graduated from school with aren't doing photography anymore, some are, but its the minority. The only thing that will keep you going is yourself, and support from, family, friends and fans. You start with the first two, then you gotta build the third.
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