JONATHAN CHERRY: What did you want to be growing up?
SIRUS F GAHAN: I really wanted to be a soccer player for the longest time, then when my dad told me when I was about 10 that I wasn’t good enough, I moved on from that dream and wanted to be a comedian. I’m not very funny.
JC: Who or what is inspiring you at the moment?
SFG: The will to not end up in an office is what’s inspiring me right now. I recently graduated university in the UK and am realising the world is real. So inspiration to produce and create is amounted almost instinctively out of that fear. Ideas wise I’m really inspired by the work of lots of film makers and cinematographers, especially within skateboarding. Riley Blakeway is constantly producing beautiful images both for himself and for innovative brands. He manages to incorporate celluloid too, which I always respect. The words and work of Greg Hunt are forever an inspiration, he makes me see documenting in a weird different light, in terms of why I’m doing it, which is important for how I’m doing it. My girlfriend introduced me to the work of Knut Egil Wang a few months a go and I’ve been looking at anything I can find from him ever since, I find his image of Norwegians pretty funny. And I’m pretty much in love with anything Evan Prosofsky shoots, so I’m a big time lurker of his work, which probably influences me a lot.
JC: What are you up to right now?
SFG: Right now? I’m in Oslo drinking frokostkaffe. In general, I’m working as much as I can filming skateboarding, finishing off two of my own short documentaries about skateboarding in Palestine and trying to figure out a way to not live in the UK anymore. At the moment I just take photographs because I want to, which I think is probably the best way.
JC: Have you had mentors along the way?
SFG: Honestly no, I don’t think I have, at least not ones I know personally. I’ve always found I work best alone and don’t like the blended nature of products when you collaborate. When I produce my own work, I want it to be my own. I want it to be my idea, my hands that have moulded it and my brain that’s ordered it. For this reason I’ve always avoided being the person that asks questions in class, or is taken under a practitioners wing, because I enjoy the process of working it out for myself, and relish the opportunity to attempt to create something new, and possibly different, without the influence of someone that’s done it before.
JC: Where are you based right now and how is it shaping you?
SFG: I’m currently based in Brighton in the UK. It’s a really great city and so comfortable to live in, but because of that it’s something I want to escape. I’ve always found England bland, it’s extremely grey. There’s some charm to it’s mundane nature but not enough to hold me to the island. I guess because it’s been my home for the past however many years, it’s really pushed me to travel as much and whenever I can. When you travel you acquire a new pair of eyes, and a sensitive set of ears, where everything is different and you soak it all in. I accept that this is why the place you live is can become stale, where all is familiar, and to some this is warming and safe, but for me I get a very slow feeling when I’m in the United Kingdom.
JC: One piece of advice to photography graduates?
SFG: I think the advice should possibly be issued prior to graduating. While you’re enrolled take all the chances you can to utilise that free equipment, and the masses of spare time that comes with creative uni courses. Personally I don’t think your grade matters for a study based on images, what you’re signing up to is 3 years of only having to hand in a few papers a year and having the freedom of no real job or responsibilities. It all seems very important at the time but I think once you’re out of your institution you’re going to be more excited to look back and think of the time you spent developing and creating your own projects and what’s come from that, rather than dark days typing essays and the cool piece of paper with a number on it they gave you at the end of that.
JC: If all else fails - what is your plan B?
SFG: Work in a coffee shop! I’ve always wanted to work in a coffee shop. If the city is cool and you get to smell coffee all day, then really you’re living the dream. Sometimes you need that occupied lifestyle to make your brain kick into creative action too, so I think full time coffee shop employment would probably provide that imagination boost I needed to get back on the path. Plan C is to move to Vanuatu.
JC: Is it important to you to be a part of a creative community?
SFG: Not really. Though in some ways I am. Certainly virtually I find it incredibly useful to be a part of an online community of creatives, through all the sites we browse everyday, Flickr, Tumblr etc. It’s amazing to be able to see and be inspired instantaneously by artists’ work from across the globe - hear a song someone just wrote in their bedroom or zoom in on a painting they just scanned, the flow of inspiring material is truly endless these days. Locally I feel less connected to a network of similar minded people. There’s a lot going on in Brighton where I live, open houses, the photo biennial just went past, constant exhibitions, but I think in a bid to not get too stuck in this one place I’ve not submerged myself in them socially. Some of my friends do run a creative collective based in Brighton, called Iklect, they help to exhibit and sell young artists’ work locally. I’m so appreciative to be a part of something like that, because I think it’s exactly the kind of circle that young artists need to get their work out there in physical form, run by people like them. I know that they’ve personally helped me a lot.
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