Artist Inspo #8
Ginger Fierstein
Merry December everybody!
I hope you’re all having a cozy start to 2023’s holiday BONANZA (season).
So, you probably know I’m a cartoonist (and if not, welcome to my Substack!).
I’ve turned my life’s passion into a career— which is great… but there are downsides.
There is often something inextricably lost when you transition from art for self-fulfillment into art for surviving capitalism.
It can create a full fledged disconnect with your creative process.
Fortunately there are methods for managing this disconnect.
A common method is to fill your hobby-void with another creative outlet that is free of the soul-sucking need to beg for money:
For me, that’s photography.
I am a proud amateur and I don’t try to be more than that.
I was gifted a hand-me-down Canon AE-1, 35-mm SLR well over a decade ago and I love it for all of it’s intricate ‘lil analog parts.
I love loading the film and taking photos that will likely come out as complete garbage— then waiting for unknown periods of time before I develop the film to find out if I captured anything special.
I love my precious ‘lil moments forever frozen in lightly grained, soft colored majesty.
And this leads me to Shit for Breakfast’s 8th Artist of Inspiration!…
Photographer extraordinaire—
Ginger Fierstein
Ginger is an Oakland-based photographer and artist who specializes in highly colorful multi-exposure shots that range from portraiture to landscape to, uh, anything really.
I’ve always felt inspired by Ginger’s passion and playful expression in her art.
I am proud to say Ginger is also a personal friend of mine and that whenever I would be around her she would always have a newly discovered gadget she was tinkering with.
Her art has always seemed to come from a place of authentic joy, curiosity, and self-fulfillment.
Ginger is well-known for capturing the Bay Area’s music scene, distilling the ephemeral nature of live performance art into mesmerizing points of beauty.
Ginger is also the master of capturing a candid moment— forever immortalizing space and time into a precious gift of wonder.
To elucidate my point, here are some shots from my wedding, where I begged Ginger to be my wedding photographer (lol— so worth it).
And since I have the god damn mother fucking PRIVILEGE to actually know this artist who inspires me— I put together a cozy ‘lil interview for you all to get to know a little bit more about this wizard, known as Ginger Fierstein:
✨Interview with Ginger Fierstein✨
[Erika] When did you first discover your interest / passion for photography?
[Ginger] When I was 7 I started taking photos of my beanie babies and I've been hooked ever since! In 8th grade I got my first digital camera and became the group documentarian.
In 12th grade I got mt first film SLR and I was radically changed after that. My Sopomore year of college I switched from the Graphic Design program to the Photo program at California College of the Arts and I have been shooting almost non-stop since!
What do you think is extra special about photography in contrast to other art forms?
Something I find alluring is that photography is both literal and metaphorical all at the same time. It's a photo of a tricycle, but what does it MEAN?!
That's a silly way of saying that I often find myself in awe of the fact that light has been reflected off of one thing and trapped in another, whether that be photons of light exciting silver halide crystals or activating 0s and 1s on a sensor.
To photograph is often to witness the tangible world around you and that is something that still gives me goosebumps.
Do you have any photography heroes or icons that inspire you (or other kinds of artists that inspire your work)?
Studying photography in college I had the privilege to meet some of my influences.
One alum of the California College of the Arts program was Todd Hido.
Hido’s use of the night in his images exist as a layer to narrative you don’t know the exact details of, glancing into a glowing home in the distance, looking into the forlorn eyes of a mysterious figure in a rundown hotel room, one can weave their own tales unfolding before them. The liminal space, the mystery of night and dusk create are a driving force of my image making.
John Chiara, another CCA alum, and his unique chromatic early works gave me permission to use color boldly to interpret the environment around me.
Abstract expressionist painting and the world of abstract photography have had a very strong influence on me.
Photo artist Silvio Wolf’s Horizons conversation with Rothko’s Color Fields opened up a world of light as paint for me.
I feel as photographers we get overly attached to the tangible world around us, we point our lens and capture what lies before our eyes. I envied the freedom painters had to create vast interpretations untethered to reality as we experience it in real time. I wanted my photographs to break free of the reality around me, to converse with it, to interpret it in a way that a painter could.
Joan Mitchell’s paintings are some of my favorites; when I look at her work I feel I can see vivid landscapes deconstructed into their color essence. Her use of color and bold movements translate into meaning. They are chaotic, they feel intuitive, each stroke emanating from the subconscious to build meaning.
When I am swiveling my camera and popping a flash and dragging the moon to burn across the canvas that is the frame of my camera I do so not with a plan but with a sense of guided freedom.
I feel closer to an action painter like Pollock using my body and movement to layer and interact than I do to Ansel Adams approaching a landscape with razor-like precision.
The use of color in abstract expressionism is also a point of overlap. Colors collide with a fit of passion–there is no controlling where every drop of pigment lands on the canvas, new colors burst forth serendipitously.
As much as I talk about being attracted to the comforts of familiarity, it’s the unknowingness of chance that invigorates me.
What art piece or project of yours are you most proud of and why?
I would say I'm "proud" of my entire "social" archive from when I first started shooting film in 2006 to the film I shot last week.
I am so honored to have an amazing community of friends I've been able to connect with through documenting our lives together.
Building up an archive over a longer timeline really feels like something that gives my life meaning and is something I can give back to the community.
Do you have any advice for aspiring professional photographers?
If you want a bunch of likes and followers make sure you take pictures of young, attractive women, it does not make much of a difference how technically good you are if your models are "hot".
No, that's not real advice, that's just me being bitter... My real advice is to find a "voice."
That doesn't mean you always have to do the same things over and over (unless you want to, which I am a bit guilty of), it means that the work you're making feels authentically you.
Where are the best places for people to find you and your work online?
I have an IG I update sparingly @gingerfphotography and a website: www.gingerfierstein.com
Comments (Let’s Chat!):
Have you ever dabbled in photography?
Do you wish you had more captured moments from your life or are you indifferent?
Or maybe even annoyed by someone in your life who takes too many photos of you! It can be sensitive!
Do you think taking photos can take away from the lived moment?
As someone who is a bit obsessed with the ease of photography on my smartphone I do worry sometimes that I need to chill tf out.
Mind you I’m rarely taking pictures of people, I’m much more the person taking a picture of a “cool rock”… 15 times… then shows no one, haha.
Listening to:
Hey, always enjoy your posts.
And, yes, I've loved messing w/ photography for years. Because I have really long arms I've been able to take "selfies" since before there was such a thing. For 10 or so years now I've been photographing my bare feet in various outdoor settings... go feets!
Ginger!! This is great.