{ aesthetic profile : jeff barnett-winsby }

Jeffie B. is possibly the single most successful artist I have ever stalked. Wait, I mean met. He is disturbingly honest in the depiction of his subjects which is a quality that is also reflected in his personality. He has successfully grown from just any old stock photo guy to a full blown Phartist (photo artist). He lives and works in New York.

{ the night watch }

{ q + a }
So Jeff, what are you currently working on?

I am finally finishing my super long dragged out prison break project called "Love Notes and Promised Freedoms." I leave tomorrow morning to make the final image in Tennessee at the US marshal's office. [The photo] is of a bird. A parakeet, I think.

This is the project that started as documentation of prisoners rehabilitating dogs and then turned into a wild jail break love story with the dog trainer and a man 15 years her junior? I love that one.

Indeed it is!

How do you think your photos changed over the last year or more, specifically during this project?

I think my understanding of what photography does well has changed. I also think my relationship to being a photographic artist is different now. Working over a period of almost two years on this project has been another really strange aspect of it. And actually it is more like 2 1/2 years since I photographed the dogs. That is a crazy amount of time to stay interested in one subject. I guess my photographs are as varied as ever in style and I am more committed than ever to that and serving the idea above all rather than the aesthetic.

In regards to the time spent, I am more fascinated with it all the time. Daily I have new ideas about what was really happening which sort has made me into an observer of my own work as well as its creator.

{ love notes and promised freedoms }

You told me once that you didn’t want to be a part of that “exclusive art crowd.” Now that you are heating up a little under the lime light do you still feel that way?

I'm really not interested. But all my best friends are artists so it might not seem any different from the outside what I am talking about. I guess I am just drawn to smart, creative, and kind people. My friends are the best and I would say that we were super inclusive. God that sounds mushy.

Its perfect. Speaking of perrrrrfect: what do you think your craigslist project says about you?

It says I am super lonely. But, more than that I think it speaks about how we are changing in regards to socializing. (and I should add that it is not necessarily positive.) I think where people get confused with that work is that I really empathize with these folks I am photographing. Its not that we are just strange and zombie like, it is that we all want to be a part of something or do something interesting. We are just not sure what that is.

Well I think you are doing plenty of interesting things. I am always excited to see what is next on your horizon. So what is next?

My very good friend Peter and I are getting ready to launch a website that will change the way you think about travel...
I think also there are a few other web projects on the horizon as well as possibly another foray into the prison for yours truly. I will be teaching this spring in Rhode Island and am looking forward to that landscape again. So, we will see..

{ love notes and promised freedoms }

Check out more of Jeff's work here.