Darence Robinson is in his senior year and will be graduating with a concentration in photography. Not only is he a photographer, but he is usually the model of his works. He has a passion for fashion and is very interested in exploring the themes of identity and sexuality. While he knew he loved film photography before entering art school, he didn't know how many doors would open when he discovered digital photography.
Shannon O’Connell: Did you know that you always wanted to do photography and pursue a photography major?
Darence Robinson: Actually, coming to Mason Gross, yes I did know, but growing up I wanted to do so many different things.
One thing I knew didn’t want to do was a simple desk job, so I felt art was the best way. The way I fell into photography was just by looking at this scene in nature and I was just so angry with myself for not having a camera. Ever since then I’ve studied the field, the people and the work within in it. I just fell in love with it. Of all the arts, photography is my favorite. Coming to Mason Gross was a little bittersweet because while it was exciting that there was photography, I actually wanted to pursue fashion photography, which isn’t offered.
Shannon: Well it looks like you still manage to incorporate your interest of fashion into your photography. Is this intentional?
Darence: I definitely try to incorporate it into my photographs.
Shannon: What else inspires your photography? Are there specific artists who have had an impact on you?
Darence: Because my work focuses a lot with identity and self-portraits with a spin of fashion to it, I am highly influenced by Yasumasa Morimura, an Asian self-portrait artist, David LaChapelle, a high fashion photographer, and as another high fashion photographer, Karl Giant. Together those three artists help me to not only see how I plan to construct my work, but also help me design myself a whole new way; not only myself, but also my aesthetics as to how I’d like my work to look.
Shannon: Most of your work is digital. Is there a reason behind this?
Darence: When I first started doing photography, I don’t know how other photographers feel and I don’t want to speak for them, but I loved film because of the clarity. After experiencing digital photography and seeing all of the possibilities with it, film is now the back window. Digital all the way! I’m so in love with it and because I focus a lot with myself as the subject, digital allows me to make the many mistakes that come with the technical work. With that being said, I work a lot with Photoshop, photo editing, cropping, saturation, color, and contrast, so that my final project will have gone through a lot of editing before its complete.
Shannon: Do you have any unedited pieces of work?
Darence: There are very few pieces that I have actually printed that have gone through little or no editing. I guess the same could be said for most artists, but the with all the time I spend on each one, its fun and rewarding, but it can also be frustrating.
Shannon: You deal a lot with sexuality and identity. What made you decide to explore this?
Darence: I think how it came about was when I first started photography. I refused to photograph people and the reason why was because people always get staged when they get in front of a camera. Once I started shooting people for the first time I fell in love because I realized I could make them look and do whatever I wanted as the photographer. As time went on and I became more experienced, I realized that the best subject I could have is myself. Growing up as a homosexual, African American male, I don’t know how other people feel, but my identity and my sexuality is on my mind constantly whether its walking in the streets in a neighborhood where I don’t feel safe or if I’m in a place where people are making me uncomfortable because of how I look or who I am. So I feel like my work is the best way to express those emotions and those feelings I have inside where I can make my sexuality and my identity my best assets.
Shannon: Is your family supportive about your sexuality?
Darence: My home life consists of my mom, my dad, and my brother and because my work deals with a lot of me dressing up, it’s much easier to do it in closed doors in the safety of my own home. At first it was a little awkward, but now they’re entirely used to me dressing up and walking around the house in five-inch platform heels, or a complete dress, or even underwear and a do-rag. My family is completely supportive. When they see the final project they are blown away. They don’t expect it to come to life physically in such a size or even conceptually as the idea that I have portrayed because they only see me dressing up. Typically they don’t know what I am doing or the path that I am going into so when they see it and are told the concept behind it, they are quite impressed. I don’t know how they feel in their head. It’s probably bitter sweet. They probably are thinking, “Oh, why is he doing this, but at least he’s getting something good out of it”, but they are completely supportive. I am so fortunate to have their support.
Shannon: Do you think that your early love of film and first discovery of photographing people inspired you to create characters for some of your series of works?
Darence: It’s a possibility because some people in the past that have seen my work have told me that my work reminds them of Cindy Sherman at times. So I would say it is definitely a possibility, yes.
Shannon: You have a series based on characters that you have created. Do these characters have names?
Darence: Yes, they do! My main characters are Darlene, Dina and Crystal.
Shannon: How did you create your characters?
Darence: I feel like they have been inside me for a long time and I just didn’t know how to breathe them out. As a homosexual man, I have experienced dressing up while growing up. With them [the characters], they almost came so naturally. Basically, these characters are bits and pieces of myself that I don’t want to claim to be myself. Of course those [Dina, Darlene, and Crystal] are my favorite. I thought I would have trouble getting them together and bringing them to life, but after I started I realized the chemistry between them, all coming from one person, they all meshed together so well.
Shannon: When you created these characters and when you are portraying them, do you feel like you are the characters completely?
Darence: Completely! I do feel like I am the character. It’s to the point where sometimes if I will look back to the camera to see what I have taken and I might think to myself “I’m starting to look like the other character or I’m starting to look like myself” I will actually take a minute to enact the character’s personality. For example, Dina, being the more sexual creature, I would take the time to do a runway walk down the hallway, I would take the time to talk how I believe she would talk, flip my hair the way she would, and then get back in front of the camera to embody that personality once more. After doing so, the pictures come out so much better. There are times where I have to take a break, take a breather, and realize who I am portraying so that I make sure they are brought to life in the best way possibly.
Shannon: Do you consider the subjects of your series based around stereotypes to be characters?
Darence: Its funny. I actually don’t. I only consider them people within frames. I don’t think to give them names; I don’t think to give them anything. That is just my mindset. I don’t want to breathe life into ugliness, into stereotypes, into ignorance. While I try to be more mature than that, we all make first impressions on people and dabble in the realm of stereotypes and making stereotypes. So even though I consider myself more mature than that, I have fallen prey to labeling stereotypes and so I felt it was necessary to make the work, but to give them names or create characters; I almost refuse to. While I think the work is
beautiful all together, I think they also represent something so ugly.
Shannon: Your first series, “The Seven Deadly Sins”, is so different from your other ones. Do you think your other ideas spawned off from this first one?
Darence: I would like to say yes because it is my only work left that I have in film and it was one of the few works that I was angry about because I couldn’t be in front of the camera since it was film and well, I also needed seven people. With this work, it was the first time I tried to give the fashion aesthetic. This piece sits in my heart very dearly because fashion is my passion, but I feel like this is one of my few works that has the look of a work that has a fashion influence. I would like to say that this is the mama piece and all the pieces afterwards, I realize, I’m going to make to my liking. I’m going to be in front of the camera if I so choose to. That being said, that is why this was my last film piece because with digital its so easy to be your own subject.
Shannon: What about being in front of the camera calls to you so loudly?
Darence: Its funny you ask that because a big reason as to why I got into photography was because I felt I could not pursue my true passion in life, which is modeling. As a photographer you choose who your model is and you are your own critic. With me being in front of the camera I should have no insecurities because I’m also behind the camera. I get to combine my two passions into one, being a model and a photographer. As the model I can easily get the look, the emotion, the feeling that I want because I know what I am looking for.
Shannon: Being not only the artist but the model as well, is it difficult for you to share your work to others since is bares who you are entirely?
Darence: Yes, sometimes I feel like when people say bad things or don’t appreciate it the way I do, it almost hits home because not only am I the aesthetics of the piece, I am the creator of it entirely. So it does hit some. Sometimes it is a little disappointing, but at the end of the day, since I am 100% the focus of the pieces, I try to keep the mindset that as long as I like it, I’ve succeeded. The only problem is, I also make my work for other people to enjoy, so its like I have succeeded and failed at the same time. So when people do critique my work I do get very nervous.
Shannon: Do you feel like that nervousness ever shows in your photos or do you get past that?
Darence: I think I try to get past that. I would hope so. That is why I try to make my work appear very less staged and instead very natural, especially in my piece with the characters, Dina, Darlene, and Crystal in the sleep over piece. I think is one of my favorite pieces in which I made the scene less staged and more in a natural setting. Of course, when I am the only one in a frame, I sometimes cannot help but seem a little staged.
Shannon: In your newest piece you portray your brother. What made you turn to that idea?
Darence: This piece is, in a way, mourning my brother [as if he had passed away], but at the time, I was sort of mourning a piece of myself. At the point in time I was making this piece I was going through a transition and I was almost disappointed in my femininity and how dominant it is over my personality and over my being. As a man, society and myself expects a man to be more masculine. This was my way to break out of my shell and try to break past my limits to see if it could actually be done. In this piece I was doing things that I don’t do in front of the camera, behind the camera, or in life. I portrayed my only masculine character.
Shannon: What went into this piece when creating a masculine subject? Was there anything you had to do?
Darence: I actually smoked for the first time in this piece. I had the most trouble lighting, puffing, and doing everything with that cigarette, even dipping the ash. Behind the camera there were a lot of things that I was uncomfortable with, but I knew I had to try to get past that because in the end it will show. It took a long time to make it, but when I had completed it I was happy to see that not only could I be someone else, I could make myself be who I wanted to be literally in front of the camera and behind it.
Shannon: Where do you think you are going to go from here?
Darence: I’m hoping to do more pieces like the Dina, Darlene, and Crystal piece, where there is one person in one scene enacting different characters. I want to do that less with myself and more with other people. I want more interaction with people. There is closeness in my art, and by that I mean physically and emotionally, but I want to go beyond that. I want them to really touch. I want them to embrace one another. I almost want my characters to almost be sexual with one another. Since I focus on sexuality and identity, I want this to go beyond expectations and limitations. So from here I definitely hope to push boundaries in society and to push boundaries in photography itself, as far as what can be done in front of the camera and using editing to make it possible.
Shannon: Do you have any ideas for your thesis?
Darence: For my thesis I hope to focus mostly on my aesthetics because my past pieces of work have sometimes been more dark and dreary and now while I still want a dreary, well no, more like I would like a dramatic concept, but I want bright aesthetics. Thesis being the big shebang, I hope to put my experience in self portraiture and to bring forth my passion of fashion as well as my interest in sexuality and identify all together where its not only myself but other people portraying difficult concepts in society.
A piece that I didn't like as much was Marc Handelman's "Stimmungslandchaft (Moon Landscape) 52". The black and white is such a harsh contrast that it is a little bit tough to look at. The contrast wouldn't be so painful if the shapes were soft, but the shapes are rough and sharp. I get a physical reaction when I look at it, one that makes me want to kind of turn away and not look head on, which would be fine if it was perfect. If it was just black and white, it would be fine, but it looks like there are two different blacks. The second black looks accidental and doesn't convince me.
