The Collector: Jim Golden, Portland, Oregan, USA

The Collection: Images of collections

The story behind the collection...

I’m a professional photographer based in Portland, Oregon. Photography is my business, but also my art and lifelong passion. I started taking photos when I was a kid, mostly of my friends skateboarding and graveyards, old weathered barns, etc, typical high school photo subject matter. My dad was a fairly serious amateur photographer and would shoot slide film and I remember a fair amount of slideshows when I was a kid, so I guess that rubbed off.

These days I work out of my studio in Portland, commercially, I shoot a lot of footwear and sportswear for clients like Nike, adidas, Keen, Giro,  some agency work and some editorial, some portraits. One the personal side I like to make portraits of people, still life (ie the collections), I also love to photograph cars on the street and vernacular architecture.

I suppose I'm more of an a archivist than a collector of 'things'. I collect images of collections! I used to collect a bit more, but I don’t have a lot of room these days, so I try to keep it paired down. Lately I’ve noticed my drawer of defunct technology objects getting more full, I’ve started calling it my Technology Museum, this is my latest collection of interest.

A lot of these items are special to me or the person that collected them, so I feel they deserve an elevated treatment. It also starts to make the objects interesting on a more basic level - patterns, color, shape. Most of the images take on a life of their own when printed larger, say 1-2 meters, then you can really dig in and take a look or from a distance they form interesting patterns. I've been photographing objects from above commercially for years, so this is a logical extension of that work into my personal photography.

I suppose they all 'tools of the trade' so to speak - whether work or leisure. The scissor collection is amazing to handle, you can see all the wear and tear on the items. Same with the hunting/rifle collection.

One of my favorite things to do, photographically, is to elevate an ordinary (singular) object into an extraordinary object by making an exquisite image of it. At the same time, making the images solves my curiosity to get really close and handle interesting objects, to get more of a sense of the character of the object as well and portray that to the viewer.

The chainsaw is all oily and dirty in the larger print and you see that patina, you can almost smell the wood being cut and the hot oil from the chainsaw. Same thing with firearms on black, they look beautiful, and menacing, but have interesting shapes and patterns on them too.

I try to photograph the objects as straightforward as possible as to not distract from their character. I use one light source and keep any post to a minimum. For the items on black, I use a high quality velvet as a background, it eats up any stray light. Again, I use one light and use fill cards as needed to subtly sculpt the light, then paint the multiple exposures together in photoshop. I try to keep the post to a minimum, I really want a strong image out of the camera.

The collection images are photographed with camera overhead, with one strobe, bare bulb, from overhead in line with the camera or slightly offset if I want the shadows to fall to one side or the other. In some instances, I’ll bounce a strobe into the white wall or ceiling in my studio to great a more diffused shadow, so the shadow will not distract from the objects (ie the scissors and the locks).

For some of the collection images, I work with a collaborator, my friend and stylist Kristin Lane. Kristin and I did the cameras, camping, rifles, musical instruments, beachcomber and houseware images together, among others. She has a great eye for selecting objects and the patience of a saint to arrange them all.

I never really thought of them representing a slower paced life, but there is a good bit of nostalgia in most of the images – I think this is one of the reasons to why people relate to them as well. I do enjoy the shoots as the pace is very slow building the compositions, much unlike my commercial work which can be a bit more harried. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty either. I’m a terrible gardener and a mediocre carpenter but I will always give it a shot. I worked on cars a lot as a kid, I can do that fairly well. If I get in over my head, I call in the pros, I learned that a long time ago from the photo business.

When I was in New York, I wasn’t shooting commercially yet and my personal photography was much less focused. I was very busy working as a retoucher, so I needed some space from photography. I mostly photographed architecture and landscapes when I traveled and a lot of NYC from the street, more like a diary than anything else. All film or Polaroid, I was heavy into the SX-70. Portland and the Northwest have influenced my photography, but not really from a lifestyle aspect, more from it being such a different landscape, weather, etc.

I have a bunch of different projects ongoing at the moment too. I’m continuing my series of collections, I have tin toys, vintage bike gear and a few others on deck. I’d also like to get the collection images to move somehow, whether stop-motion or a cinemegraph. I’ve been working on a project about the coast of Oregon and Washington for the past 3 years, that’s forming into an interesting body of work, some of it is on my site. I started a project last summer about churches in unconventional spaces, i.e in a house, a strip mall, warehouse, etc, there are a lot in Portland. I’ll be picking up that project again now that the weather is getting a little nicer. I’m always shooting cars I see on the street, that is a series that I love and get excited about when I run in to a cool car.

You can visit Jim's website here and tumbler here

 You can visit Kristin's website here

all images © Jim Golden and used with his kind permission

The Collector: Sally Hoban, lecturer and writer, Birmingham, UK

The Collection: 20th century fashion

The story behind the collection…

I have been collecting old and unusual items since I was about four years old. My parents were collectors and so I grew up in a house surrounded by antiques, including furniture, ceramics and glass. They inspired my love of antiques and encouraged me to buy small pieces that I could afford with my pocket money. We had the Miller's antiques price guides in our house, which were a wealth of information. I learnt so much from them, so when I was offered the chance to write one of the Miller's guides when I was older I was delighted.

My love of vintage fashions and textiles goes back to when I was about six years old and I loved dressing up. A friend of the family who was an antique dealer gave my mother a 1920s Chinese embroidered piano shawl. It was black silk with long tassels and embroidered all over in vivid reds, greens and blues with motifs of flowers and butterflies. I loved it and would wrap it round me and run around the garden feeling incredibly glamourous. That was the piece that sparked my love of antique and vintage textiles, although I didn't start to collect them specifically until I was about 15.

I used to go to the old Rag Market in Birmingham and antique fairs and auctions looking for 1920s and 1930s pieces. I was also involved in professional theatre when I was younger and would come into contact with antique clothing, shoes, handbags, powder compacts and more in both costume fittings and in the shows themselves, so I learnt a lot about fashion history and individual pieces through the theatre as well. 

My main interest lies in the 1920s and 1930s. Art Deco pattern design was amazing - so vivid, fresh and stylish. I also love the luxuriousness of Deco fashion - flapper dresses covered in beads and sequins, silk velvet jackets with enormous ruched collars, delicate leather shoes with heels inset with rhinestones and floaty, silk chiffon tea dresses in floral patterns, which are timeless and still look beautiful when worn today.

I also love 1960s and 1970s fashions by Emilio Pucci, Louis Feraud and Ossie Clark. My favourite piece of Ossie Clark is a floral Radley blouse with a print designed by Celia Birtwell. Her prints are beautiful and the overall style of this blouse is gorgeous.

Left: Orange Feraud suit. Right: Ossie Clarke blouse

I also love my orange Feraud suit and wear this for working in during the summer. You simply cannot beat the quality of vintage items and tailoring - a suit that might cost £100 in the vintage market today for example could cost you over £1,000 if you were to go out and have it made for you today. I have parted with many pieces over the years but a couple always stand out because I would love to have them to wear now. The first was a rich, plum covered silk velvet jacket from the 1920s with tiny buttons running all the way down the front and the second is a gold sequined flapper dress that was in absolutely mint condition and would look stunning worn today. The piece that I regret not buying was an Ossie Clark blouse in Birmingham's Rag Market in about the year 1990. It was beautiful and in great condition and was priced at just £10. 

Items that I buy usually have to pass the 'would I wear it' test but I do have pieces that are too delicate to wear that are great examples of their kind or that I simply love to look at and display on an original 1920s mannequin.

Shoes are a good example of things being too small to wear - most of the really pretty vintage shoes you can find are in very small sizes so I buy those to display. I also buy pieces that I use to illustrate some of the lectures that I give on the history of fashion and design. I lecture for NADFAS (National Association of Decorative and Fine Art Societies) and take along pieces from my collection for people to see and handle after lectures and during study days on the history of fashion and style. There is nothing like actually handling a piece of vintage fabric or being able to look at how an antique dress is constructed. 

It is always difficult to say which designer may or may not become collectable in the future but as a general rule pieces that are representative of their time or capture a particular moment in fashion or contemporary culture will be the pieces that collectors will want in the future. Vivienne Westwood's early punk pieces are a great example of this as are Utility label fashions from the 1940s. Horrockses floral cotton dresses from the 1950s are absolutely typical of the best in 50s fashion and were also made from high quality fabric so they have become extremely collectable. Pieces made from fine quality fabrics and materials such as silk, cashmere and wool will stand the test of time as well. Collectable vintage now wasn't necessarily expensive when it was made. Paper dresses from the 1960s for example were designed to be fun items that captured the spirit of the time and not that many have survived because they were so delicate if worn so they are now very collectable if they have survived. I look for clothes now that are designed well, have a great pattern or an unusual construction and have been made by a recognised or up and coming designer as these may well become pieces of fashion history in the future. 

Visit Sally's website here

All images © Obsessionistas and used with Sally Hoban's kind permission.