NOWNOW – Where are you and what are you doing?

MIKE MARCELLE – I’m in Brooklyn, New York, processing digital files and listening to Brian Eno.

NN – How did you start taking photos?

MM – My father did a lot of photography when I was young, so he was always giving me cameras and encouraging me to shoot. It didn’t really become serious until I took a photo class in my senior year of high school, and then sort of randomly decided to major in photography in college. Thankfully I picked a school with a great program, Bard College, where I just got totally immersed in it. Stephen Shore, who is probably my biggest influence, was one of my very first professors there, and he taught me all about importance composition and framing, etc. He basically completely changed the way I saw photography.

What is the most important aspect of (your) photography to you?

It’s ability to elevate images from the world into something totally foreign and mysterious. A lot of my work is very influenced by film, especially science-fiction and horror, and I think I’m always trying to make photos that are charged with that same kind of tangible otherness that is found in those genres.

NN – Who is your favourite photographer?

MM – I can’t say I have one particular, but usually my friends are my favorite artists; Cody Trepte, Brad Troemel, Johnny Misheff, Tim Davis, Paul Sepuya, John Pilson, Bryan Schneider, and Catherine Feeney are all amazing photographers who I am very influenced by.

I am also totally crazy over non-photographers Kenneth Anger, Banks Violette, Stanley Kubrick, and the Maysles Brothers

NN – Do you see photography as a part of a bigger creative urge/scene/force?

MM – I think it depends on the individual photographer’s artistic vision and how it relates to what’s going on in the rest of the world. But I also think that most art movements are all just a bunch of friends working off of each other, regardless of the medium.

I think in my case, I don’t usually look too much into what’s going on in the contemporary photography world, and look more to film, conceptual art, and painting, which then influences my own work. So it then becomes this messy network of connections from all mediums.

NN – What could you look at for the rest of your life?

MM – “Invocation of My Demon Brother” by Kenneth Anger

Links:
www.michaelmarcelle.com
Michael Marcelle – NowNow Gallery