Josh Kern: Love Me. (Or Don’t. Both is Fine.)
☆ interview by Abby Strangward ☆
a conversation with Josh Kern
about his 2nd photo book, Love Me
(and a little on distraction, creation, self-destruction, processes +more)
We previously interviewed you for our first print issue, right around the time of your first photo book. Reading your words back, do you see much change in yourself, internally, since?
Well - lately I’ve been thinking so much about if what I am doing is really me. If I am being honest to myself and stuff like that. Like - how do I create the things that I really want to create without any distraction? Because there’s always distraction. I think it’s impossible to free yourself from wanting to create stuff that the people you care about will like and give you admiration for. Everyone wants to be loved, but at the same time it is only valuable if you are loved for who you truly are. So with that in mind, it’s completely stupid to create stuff to be admired. You need to create stuff that you truly love and care about, and in the ideal scenario there will be people who feel the same way about it. But that can’t be the starting point to create. Appreciation for your work should only be something extra.
I’ve also started to gain a lot more interest in the process of an artist. Somehow, most of the photography/art scene has started to bore me. A lot of the stuff out there looks so perfect and beautiful and just not relatable. I think most artists focus way too much on being perfect in what they do and therefore hide the aspects of their work that bother them. But thats exactly the things that are interesting and that people can connect to - at least in my case.
“Now, I’m much more interested in capturing interactions between people and their emotions and intimacy, rather than documenting how my friends fuck each other up.”
I also think that a lot of artists lose the actual joy of creating because they focus way too much on their outcome. But the outcome was never the reason we started creating in the first place. We started because we like to make things.
Can you see this shift in your thought process being reflected back in your photographic work, externally?
I’m not sure if my photography has changed in the last year. Probably not. But my surroundings and my inner state has changed, and therefore the things that I photograph has too. In the past, I would worry about what I would photograph if my friends started to ‘grow up’ and didn’t do so much crazy, self-destructive stuff. But now, I’m much more interested in capturing interactions between people and their emotions and intimacy, rather than documenting how my friends fuck each other up.
You mentioned being interested in the process of an artist - what’s your own creative process like, in piecing together a book of your photos?
There is always the first part, where I edit the printed photos down to a number that fits in a book and then find an order for them. I always do this with the help of friends or in class because I could never do it on my own. I’m just too emotionally attached to certain images, which often has nothing to do with how good or interesting they are.
After that, I glue the pages together for a dummy to see how it looks in book form. I also show the dummy to as many people as possible and collect feedback.
And then I start again, printing out all the old images plus some new ones I’ve shot in the mean time, and starting the editing process again with the feedback from the last dummy. I do this routine often, over and over again. Sometimes maybe twenty times. And somehow, I never get to a point where I’m just happy with how it is. Eventually, it’s just finished because there’s a printing deadline. But that’s completely okay because I’m totally in love with the whole process and it gives me almost as much joy as taking the photos themselves.
“I do this routine often, over and over again. Sometimes maybe twenty times. And somehow, I never get to a point where I’m just happy with how it is.”
Between your journalling and your photography (both heavily documented across your social media and in your print work), which do you think is the most honest & vulnerable?
I think the writing is definitely more vulnerable. It is much more direct than a photo. I mean, of course it’s more intimate to see a person crying rather than reading that she has cried - but I’m more interested in communicating an overall feeling rather than a specific event. It’s much easier to create this kind of thing with words rather than with a picture, but it’s also not as beautiful as a picture (at least in my opinion). If I could express exactly what I wanted with photos, I wouldn’t even write about it.
Why create a photo book? Why continue to invest time, money and energy into print? And why should people buy it?
I’ve been in love with books since I was a little kid. I never thought about why. I guess books are simply human and relatable. It’s a physical object, something that ages and becomes marked and cracked and has its own smell. I mean, why do people still listen to vinyl? Physical objects always have their own character, something you can create an emotional bond with. As an author, you can create hidden or transparent pages, use rough or smooth paper… etc. There’s something about print that can never be achieved with a pdf or iPad or phone.
But I have no idea why people should buy it - especially my stuff - and I’m definitely not gonna tell anyone to do so. All I can do is try my best to express my love for it and be as honest as possible in what I’m trying to say. You either get it or you don’t. Both is fine. I have a kind of hatred for anything that is connected to advertisement and promotion and stuff like that. I mean, if you like it, you’re probably gonna buy it. Why should I tell you, if you can see it by yourself?
☆ To finish, we gave Josh ten one-word prompts, and asked him to match a photo from his new book to each of the words. His responses are below, and you can pre-order your own copy on Kickstarter here. I highly recommend you do - his first book remains one of my favourite possessions in the world. Love you always, Josh. ☆
