© Michael Zuhorski from the series 'Natural Occurrence and Construction'
Tell us about your approach to photography. How it all started? What are your memories of your first shots?
Michael Zuhorski (MZ): Thanks for having me. My interest in photography started when I was given a small point-and-shoot camera at about twelve years old. I took photography seriously virtually right from the beginning. Bike rides became habitual for me in every season so that I could go out and shoot. It was so easy for me to delve into taking photos; it was a suitable medium for me to express my relationship with my environment. I think it still functions for me in much the same way.
How did your research evolve with respect to those early days?
MZ: Before I was working on my BFA I spent a lot of time online looking at photographs on photo sharing sites. Currently I frequent a few online contemporary photography publications. Although I find more inspiration in sitting down and thoroughly reading photobooks than in scanning for things online. But in the truest sense if I want inspiration I will take a walk.
What do you think about photography in the era of digital and social networking?
MZ: Due to how increasingly ubiquitous photography is in social media, its role as a form of vernacular communication becomes ever more amplified. A photograph contains many critical implications, especially when considered as a form of language. When this language is analyzed en masse, previously unnoticed patterns of communication often emerge. I find this endlessly fascinating in the context of its increasing saturation within contemporary culture.
About your work now, how would you describe your personal research in general?
MZ: I value times of quiet where I can simply be involved with my surroundings. In these moments my thoughts resonate more clearly; and the ideas that end up composing my work are often gathered and realized.
Do you have any preferences in terms of cameras and format?
MZ: I don’t have any strong convictions or preferences, but shooting digitally is for the most part more comfortable for me considering that I developed as a photographer using a digital camera.
© Michael Zuhorski from the series 'Natural Occurrence and Construction'
Tell us about your latest project, ‘Natural Occurrence and Construction’.
MZ: ‘Natural Occurrence and Construction’ is the culmination of ideas and concerns that I have been thinking about for a while. The work was made in the Northern Great Lakes and James Bay regions of the United States and Canada. Making the work ended up being a way for me to contemplate my relationship with the natural environment. I did this through photographing humanity’s presence in the least developed areas of the region where I am from. Most of the subjects of these photographs are seemingly innocuous structures, often in protected natural areas. I chose to photograph these things so as to not declare the depicted relationships between humanity and the land in an overtly positive or negative tone. Therefore, preserving the contemplative air of the work.
© Michael Zuhorski from the series 'Natural Occurrence and Construction'
Is there any contemporary artist or photographer, even if young and emerging, who influenced you in some way?
MZ: Richard Misrach, Roni Horn, Jem Southam and Alec Soth are some that immediately come to mind. The varying ways in which all of their work addresses a sense of space or place have all influenced me differently. Paul Gaffney’s recent work We Make the Path by Walking has affected me a lot as well.
© Michael Zuhorski from the series 'Natural Occurrence and Construction'
Three books of photography that you recommend?
1. Stephen Shore’s ‘Uncommon Places’
2. Bryan Schutmaat’s ‘Grays The Mountian Sends’
3. Alec Soth’s ‘Broken Manual’.
Is there any show you’ve seen recently that you find inspiring?
MZ: An excellent show I saw untitled ‘Sitter’ at the Columbus College of Art and Design opened earlier this year. The conventions of portraiture was the over arching theme. There was also a show that just ended at the University of Michigan Museum of Art called ‘He’ about male identity in Western society.
© Michael Zuhorski from the series 'Natural Occurrence and Construction'
Projects that you are working on now and plans for the future?
MZ: Currently I am working on a series called ‘Limbs’. It has been a way for me to express a sort of poetic relationship between urban areas, particularly the suburbs, and the trees existing in them.
How do you see the future of photography in general evolving?
MZ: Photography has always been a medium used for its ease of use for the communication of all sorts of ideas. I think in its technological progression, photography is coming closer to being a medium in which ideas can be brought to fruition continually less material restrictions on their expression.
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Michael Zuhorski
United States
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