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Seymour Templar
Seymour Templar
Seymour Templar’s work has been published in numerous online publications, but this New York-based photographer is genuinely humble about his photographic beginnings, referring to himself as an "accidental photographer." He says that much of what he knows about photography he learned from other photographers on Flickr.
“Digital photography also has been a good teacher, allowing me to try things out without second thoughts before being emboldened enough to try medium format and emulsions (film)," said Templar.
I recently spoke with him about his recent project called Social Light. Below are highlights from our conversation.
Seymour Templar
Seymour Templar
Q: Where did the idea for Social Light originate?
A: The series came about quite naturally, after noticing that I started to have a few photos with this curious, unusual light on people's face, at night. I have always liked moving between being a participant and an observer. After noticing the emerging trend, I started paying a bit more attention to it, but it's only after a dozen or so images that the sociological meaning of that specific activity became apparent to everyone.
Q: How long have you been shooting this series, and how did you create these images?
A: (I) think it has only been a month or two, even if I probably have shot something accidentally that would fit in the series. I used to shoot mostly during the day, on breaks from my daytime job, but recently I have been busy and had only nights to shoot for my own pleasure. I have this wonderful camera that allows me to make images in a very unobstructive way, in low, low light, and automatically searched for subjects in interesting lights. I was instinctively attracted to that intimate light provided by these smartphones.
Q: You mentioned being unobstructive. Has anyone ever told you not to photograph them?
A: It's been extremely rare, maybe once in a thousand times. I usually do not disrupt any ongoing interaction, but often seek visual acknowledgement the person photographed is aware (though after the fact) that I took a photo. Most time they are very interested in the reasons I would take their photo, and curious about the result, and even then ask me to take a straight portrait, but I have never been asked to delete an image. Sometimes the bar or club I am in asks me to not take photographs, and that's fine.
I have been asked that question hundreds of time. I think the photographer's demeanor is crucial: I am respectful, engaging and therefore free to do as I wish. I am lucky this way. I am grateful people let me do my thing without fear. It took a lot of courage when I started photographing people, because I am fairly shy, but the camera, the project provides a buffer, a connection.
Seymour Templar
Q: What are you ultimately trying to capture with your Social Light series?
A: I was first attracted by the "dramatic" lighting provided by the smartphones: the down-side-up glow is both reminiscent of a certain light found in old paintings, like in some Toulouse Lautrec or Monet or even in the Italian Chiaroscurists, as well as the way it isolates and emphasizes a face. There is nothing I could do to not be attracted to these correlations. The sociological aspect, the social commentary came as a result, as it became clear that it was more than just pretty lights. The fairly new activity of constantly checking our phones, I mean ascertaining our dual existence, both in real life and in the virtual world of social networks, switching from the people present in flesh and blood and the uninterrupted conversation with "friends" we have across time zones and borders, is an interesting phenomenon. I was first stunned by the faculty we have to isolate ourselves for a few seconds in the middle of a loud, crowded bar, and immediately become oblivious of our surrounding, letting candidly the virtual world reflect on our faces. The social masks fall for a fleeting moment, and our pleasure, our worries or sorrows, show for anyone to see. That is the moment I am trying to capture. I see people's soul.
Seymour Templar
Q: I understand you went to school to be a painter. Tell us about your background and what you do currently?
A: I studied Fine Arts in Brussels, Belgium, and all my life I have kept a practice in painting. When I moved to New York in 1992, I was literally shocked by the commercialism in the art milieu, and instead started making furniture in my studio, abandoning the idea of making a living with painting. I then became a design director for a home furnishing company, which I left early this year, when photography became so important in my life.
Q: Is there anything else you'd like to add that I haven't asked?
A: I was talking about it to someone in Tel Aviv during a recent interview, and she said something interesting. I am not sure I understood correctly but she compared these phone lights to the kind of light found in churches, and that we treat our phones like little personal gods. We pray to them, we tell them our secrets, our hopes. I love that comparison: our own personal little gods.
To see more of Seymour's work, please visit his website.
If you are an emerging photographer with interesting photo projects, I'd like to hear from you. Please send me a link and a brief description to your work at Twitter @jameschengmsnbc
Leave a Comment:
Ever seen it when these ass_holes flip their phones on in a movie theater and distract everybody else?
A bunch of rude, self-absorbed jerks.
nope but I really like these photos!
Hmmm, I wonder which one of you has the conservative tendencies and which one tends to be a bit more progressive . . . LOL . . . sorry but I couldn't resist . . .
I can clearly tell which of the above 3 posters has a tendency to hi-jack threads. I can't see anything Right or Left in the first two posts...and I got tri-focals.
I haven't been in a movie theater in 12 years - I deal with enough attentions hoes here as it is.
Is that God's light shinning on their faces?
I think if you were to check my posting history, your hi-jack posit is clearly not the case . . . nonsense if you will . . . and to see my post as I intended . . . it's your mind that you need to open, not your eyes . . . with or without the tri-focals . . . it's the same contrast of perspectives where one individual sees the photos and is angered and posts expletives . . . yet another individual sees the exact same photos and sees the beauty of the captured moments . . .
Looking into a "smart" phone if there is such a thing STEALS your soul. This is THEE reason me and my family do not have them ; ]
In much the same way as we native Americans and Irish believe photographs steal a persons soul [cuz they do] so to do smart phones and the magic light they provide. Hence the soul less tea bagging republican extremist party and there sudden rise and fall. ; ] Evil has taken a grip in this nation and greater part the world.
Do not look into the light. It may blind you to reality.... ; ]
Cheers
Judging from these first posts Americans have mostly lost the sense of the Aesthete. You know, the ability to just enjoy a thing just for it's self, the ability to appreciate the beauty of simplicity.
To mowdy5gs, I'm cherokee from the Carolinas and Irish descent, and I don't find a single thing about your post that I agree with. It's garbage to me and all the folks I know.
I don't have a cell phone, Don't even miss not haveing one.The more i see people like this with them, The more i thank GOD i don't have one!!!!!!
'people like this'? They're just using a cell phone...what's your beef?
people like this? They're just using a cell phone.. Wat's your beef?
Did you even bother to look at those people? My god, one woman was trying to use one even while she was eating! Face facts. the title of this post is right! These things have be come some peoples god! They cant even go pottie without them!!!!
Well my beef is wanting to watch a movie and seeing a couple of dozen glows in the dark theater because certain dick_heads can't stand to be away from their smartphones for an hour and a half.
Jeez, did that really need to be spelled out for you?
Miss. nbo. You are a "HOOT".. Because you can't distinguish fact from fiction or farce from reality.. ; ]
Cheers
Having been an active photographer for over 40 years, I always find it interesting what perspectives new talent will see.
Well done.
I disagree. This so-called artist went out and took pictures of people using their cell phones. Then he tricked people into believing it was some deep art form.
Prediction: 1000 people will now respond about how 'nobody can say what art is'. That's not my point; my point is that regardless of any artistic ability, if you can convince people that you're an artist, you can throw anything together, and sheep will drool over it (see Jackson Pollock). I think that is more interesting than the pictures.
Personal gods? These are just pictures of people on cell phones, nothing more.
@ Rob -
The point
----
You
Then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, ...
In art, if you build it, they will come. Work is almost complete on my artsy-fartsy project. It's a photo series of error messages i get when trying to connect my computer to wifi hotspots.
Giving away drones to the enemy.How smart can this be?
Drone phones? Is that the new Droid? Looks like Newvine is possessed again.
2Sunset" Pretty smart if your taking satellite pictures and hearing private conversations through them, in secret chambers, and hidden places!!!
A whole nation walking around with their heads of their As-ses. What a statement on our culture.
I remember as a kid "we" were into comic books. There were about eight of us on the block between 8-14 and we would each buy different comics to swap around. I remember ou mothers getting on us cause we we'rent actively playing doing nothing with "that garbage" instead of reading books.
samething today just another way of not noticing where you "REALLY" are.
You can say that again. And it's not just kids doing it either.
Beth Boyle: Whats wrong with them living their own life, and doing things important to themselves? are you trying to control those people? must be a Tea publican!!!
Roland- That may be true to some extent but there are differences. When we read comic books, once you were done- you were finished. May be you spent an hour or so doing it, possibly reread it again but you did not spend every second of every day looking at it and playing with it. You and your fiends may have sataround and discussed it for a while but comic books were only a small art of your life- Not all your life. Plus it help spur imagination and thought.Cell phone do mo of that and you never really annoyed anyone but reading one.
What???????????????
Kelldon,
Way to generalize every child into one category. Smartphones have thousands of apps available that can spur the imagination. When you were a kid, people said the same thing about TV (and still do), yet TV can be very educational. It's ridiculous to condemn cell phones as some harmful invention; technology will always be advancing, and people will always complain that it's somehow ruining the country.
You're basically saying "Technology has made communication easier for these whippersnappers...that's bad...it was better when I was a kid because...well just because."
I'm guessing you had to walk six miles to school, uphill both ways.
I've been to Europe, Central and South America. They all do the same thing as we do with our phones!!!
That happens to be one of the dumbest things I've read here. Are you one of those self-absorbed morons I was talking about? One of the ones so wrapped up around his phone that you are oblivious to things around you.?
The tone of the posts has already been predetermined by the title "little Gods".
Oneblackbear: You got the first Q right now get two more right and you could win a big box of cracker jacks!!!
If this were the 1950s these folks would be reading dime novels or comic books. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
This is seriously cool and I totally agree with the imagery of the title; we do essentially worship the Internet, relying upon it to grant us insight and help us to endure the stresses of our daily lives.
Also I think they meant "unobtrusive" rather than "unobstructive". Though it kind of works either way.
The idea behind the images is artistic, but the idea of people glaring into a god like phone is somewhat stupid.
I think he should do a photo shoot of the expressions on peoples faces when they look like there talking to themselves in the middle of a crowded avenue.
Now that looks really stupid and with out the light or device in hand.
You could call it retards of the Bluetooth age.
You would be amazed at some of the facial distortions and movements of someone having a full blown argument with there co-worker or worse there ex boyfriend or vise versa.
You know how many times I have walked up to a person and said what did you say to me?
Then they look at you like your nuts just because they were really talking on a hands free cell device.
I also would agree with the comment made about those few that like to display this god light in and throughout an entire movie at the theater.
These people I would refer to as the light from hell.
Anyways I am ranting again sorry................take a picture of me smacking someone in the head at the movies, now that would be a real interesting photo I am sure.
If this guy thinks these things are god like I hate to break the news to him, but there really from hell.
Good luck.
Some people are inconsiderate, but how does that translate to a new convenient technology being considered 'from hell'?
You sound pretty intolerant of anybody who looks at you the wrong way, because you're obviously a tough guy ('take a picture of me smacking someone in the head at the movies, now that would be a real interesting photo I am sure.').
I would offer this though; if you walk up to people and say "what did you say to me?" all the time, you're the one who looks like a retard (also when you post about how stupid people are , and then you can't spell children's words like "their" or "vice" or "you're" or "they're").
The object of this article is to show a new form of photographic art; why is it that people cannot just relax and accept the beauty of simplicity. Maybe if we take a step back, take a deep breath and learn to appreciate We can get on the road to relieving the Angst that has become the civilization of today.
Because it's not a new form of art...it's someone taking ordinary pictures, adding light effects, and claiming it's somehow unique and introspective (I see you took the bait). I could take pictures of my carpet and try to tell you that my carpet holds some deep meaning, but that wouldn't make it so.
Sorry Rob, I see art in nature and can appreciate others for the same sight; apparently you just see what the masters tell you is art. Basically you seem to lack imagination and perspective.
Agreed. He is taking pictures of average people in an average life in the modern world. Simplicity can be just as grand and beautiful as a mural in a European cathedral, or even more so in some cases. Anything can be art, just because you don't like it, or didn't think of it first, does not mean that it is not art.
I gotta go with Rob on one point, who's to say what "art" is anyway!? Experts in the field often disagree about it. To an outsider (like myself) paying thousands of $$ for a urinal hung on a wall, appears to be idiotic, until somebody tells you its "ART" (then, it all makes sense). "Sport" has me equally stumped. If you see a kid hitting a ball with a stick, trying to knock the ball into a hole in the ground, its obviously a kid goofing off. But, let a grown man do the same thing, suddenly its a "SPORT", and we'll pay the guy millions $$ a year.
I hated carrying a cell phone for years, but don't mind it so much now -- since I realized that I don't have to write down phone numbers anymore..
Do I detect a tone of jealousy in all of these posts? [I could have done the same thing; only if I would have taken these pictures ? darn it He beat me to it If only I would have thought of it! would be more appreciative!!!
The Democrats do seam to appreciate it more, they know value when they vote for it!!!
Dale,
How do you know which posters are Democrats? Idiot.
Also, learn to spell second grade words, it's "seem".
And no, I'm not jealous; the photos are just nothing special. To put the 'artist' on a pedestal is just laughable. My commentary is that it's funny how someone can take a picture of anything ordinary, and convince people that they're an artist, and the shallow-minded people will say "well, you can't define art".
He's got a great marketing agent apparently.
No - No you don't.....
But let's face it a lot of people here have good points.
First, people are right that the photos are rather cool and just a bit eerie the way the light from the phone lights up the face of the user. The photographer did a good job with them.
Second, people are very attached to their smart phones. Often to the point of being rude or even dangerous and often, again, without any consideration what-so-ever to anyone around them. Smartphones certainly have become a lot of people's God as much as they seem to bow to them.
There are few things I find as irritating as having a conversation interrupted while someone has to answer their cell phone or yes someone's cell phone ringing during a movie or in a meeting, or heaven forbid some car who's driver can't stay in their own lane because they are looking at their phone's screen more then the road ahead of them.
But smartphones are still a great thing and I don't want to see them go away even if I don't use one myself. I just want people to think a bit more of what's going on around them before they use them.
On and as for your last point, I'm not a Democrat.
Interesting concept. I enjoy nighttime available light photography, though I don't recall ever shooting one where the subject was lit by cell phone light. I did shoot one a couple weeks ago where the subject was lit by his own camera (the red light on the trees is from a nearby fire that had a road flare thrown in during a Boy Scout ceremony earlier that evening) ...
www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2333088087566&l=dde4eecd19
--mark d.
LOL, looking at my photo while keeping in mind the title of this article "Accidental photographer: Making pictures of our own personal little gods'", I realize how much it looks like my subject is trying to look into God's countenance. That WAS accidental, not that he or I would mind the allusion.
--mark d.
It's the court system that baffles me. People should know by now what another OJ joke this will be!!
all I see is a bunch of dull self-absorbed people. I don't like the photos either.
I think the photos are a joke when considered as 'art', but your comment is puzzling.
How can you claim that they're dull self-absorbed people by the fact that they're holding a cell-phone? For all you know, they could be waiting for someone to arrive, and asking where the other person is, or they could be receiving bad news, or really good news, or checking their financial aid status so they can attend college.
Translation: "I'm stuck in my ways, so all people who use cell phones are bad."
I like each photo and collectively they make a significant statement. I shoot babies and small children...only with the consent of a parent or gaurdian...and most people will allow this. People ask me, "What is this for?" and usually except my answer, "Just for me. I think your baby is beautiful and would like a photograph."
Most of these comments seem rather mindless. If you have nothing to say--stop talking!
Actually, they make no significant statement. The only statement is "I'm using a cell phone, like 99% of the rest of the country." Just saying the photos are significant does not make it so.
Also, if you ask to photograph random babies and small children simply because you would like a photograph "just for me", that's definitely abnormal, and would concern most good parents. I imagine people WOULD except (take exception to) your answer; I doubt that they would ACCEPT (allow) it though. I imagine you've had the police called a few times.
I use my phone very sparingly.My daughter on the other hand has the damed thing stuck to her head every waking moment.It's maddening.If you took her phone away,I think her heart would stop.
Small g
Is it any wonder that people are stressed out? All the instant communication of things they can do NOTHING about is not a requirement for a happy life. It is no wonder people have no social skills. They do not have to interact with people, only a little LED screen.
Pretty soon "1984" will be here and the thought police will be full force.
I don't even own a cell phone and I am still alive. Imagine that!
What an idiotic statement.
Why do people say that people who use cell phones don't interact with other humans face to face as well? Thought police? Cell phones don't control people's thoughts...you're a nutjob. What basis do you have to say that nobody in the country has any social skills? And what do you mean, things they can do NOTHING about? Do you have any idea how a cell phone works?
Translation: "I don't use a cell phone, so they're evil."
Do you own a microwave oven yet? It makes heating food more convenient, so it must be contributing to the collapse of society too.
We should debate the pros and cons of cell phone technology and its effects on our society someplace else. Our comments should be about the article. The Photographer clearly states that the lighting effect that smart phones provide on the subjects faces was observed to be similar to that lighting found in many churches ( usually from candle lit altars, I have observed this myself) and I might add that facial illumination has also been utilized as a mechanism for suggesting holiness, godliness, or deification in paintings for centuries. These photographs are very beautiful in the context of photographic art and candid portraiture. Would the reaction be different if the subjects were all holding candles that illuminated their faces but in the same poses and posturing? This photographer is merely capturing moments in peoples lives when they are being illuminated.
It is interesting to watch people with phones. In a restaurant, a young couple on a date...each gazing soulfully into their phone; in the grocery, folks shopping with the phone glued to their face; in traffic, cars swerving about as the "driver" texts inane crap; in the theater, little lights interruping the ambience; on the street, people walking into traffic or other peoplewith the phone stuck to their head. Interpersonal relationships now apparently depend on channeling the relationship through an electronic device. Sad..
I was on a date once and the girl took out her phone and was responding to stuff about something she was planning. She had the good manners to apologize for it and said it was very important, so I didn't hold it against her. I was just getting ready to walk out. These damn anti-social kids get stuck behind their phones and computers all day, it's really a miracle of diet that they aren't all developing rickets from vitamin D deficiency.
Oh, and before I get trolled for dating kids, I'm 22, she was 25.
Cool work.
That Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II sure takes clean pictures at high ISO. The subject is definitely
provoking.
These are significant photographs because it shows prevalent human behavior, mostly derogatory I might add. Your dreams are not going to come true staring into a cell phone...