Soul Magazine

This month my work is featured in a very cool arts and culture magazine from Greece called SOUL.  The four page article included this interview with Vagia Matzaroglou.  

What were your childhood nightmares?

As a small child, I was frightened by the monster that I knew to be hiding under my bed.  I grew up in Kansas, so I was also very frightened of tornadoes.

How do people react to your photos?  Do the viewers tend to identify with frightened characters as a means to exorcise their own fears?

There is a wide array of reactions to my work.  Some people gasp or clap their hands with delight.  Others laugh out loud.  Many seem genuinely upset or disturbed.

The Horror genre allows us to confront our worst fears, and our most perverse feelings and desires.  In this it performs an important cathartic function.  Stephen King describes this as the “playing out of basic drives, wishes, and primal feelings by proxy.”  While I believe that the experience of Horror can be cathartic, I do not presume the experience will permanently eradicate fears in the audience.

Would you say that being a Horror photographer can push your career forward?

We’ll see.  If I were more concerned about money, I would probably be photographing bunnies and kitty cats.

All of us get fascinated by Horror culture.  Why do people want to get frightened?

Horror is an exercise in recreational terror, a simulation of danger not unlike a roller coaster ride.  In recreational terror, we fear the threat of physical danger, but the danger fails to materialize.  Horror fans enjoy the pleasure of being frightened and experiencing emotional extremes.  Horror allows us to express repressed feelings, such as terror and rage.  Horror constructs an environment where these taboo feelings are sanctioned.  I believe that Horror can help us cope with the terrors of everyday life.

What role does fear play in America’s culture?  Is it a tool of politicians in order to control and manipulate people, as we think here in Europe?

Advertising often uses tactics that induce fear to help sell products. Am I good enough, pretty enough, popular enough?  The news media seems focused on lurid and violent stories in an effort to maintain ratings.  These elements, along with our War On Terror, help to create a backdrop of fear in American culture.  

I agree that my government, especially under President Bush, has used fear tactics to gain the public support they required to further their agendas.

Life without fears: is it possible?

Yes.

Do you think that “Horror artists” (directors like Tim Burton, actors like Christopher Lee, photographers like you…) are extraordinary people?

The Horror artists I’ve met are extraordinarily light hearted people.  I think it is because we are comfortable with the darker aspects of life. Art renders my deep seated fears as playthings to take delight in. Being comfortable with Horror is a special kind of morbid zen.

What inspires you to create Horror photographs?

My work is inspired by Horror movies, fairy tales, Jungian psychology, and the works of Joseph Campbell.  I love the literalness of a photograph. Photographs are more real than paintings.  Unlike a Horror movie, a photograph is an art object that you can physically handle.  You can’t really carry a movie in your pocket, or hang it on your wall.

I also love that a photograph is a fixed moment in time.  With my Horror photographs, there is no Before or After.  The suspense or tension of the scene can never and will never be resolved.

Are you a God-fearing person?  (One of your models looks like Jesus).   Do you believe that God (in any form or name) provides a sense of safeness?

I am not religious in any traditional sense.  I do believe that religion and a belief in God provide a sense of comfort for those who seek it.

Is Horror photography your full time job?  Is it hard to make a living through Horror art?

I finance my costly art projects with freelance commercial work.  I like to shoot conceptual photography for bands and musicians.  Someday I hope to be able to devote myself entirely to my art work.

What are the differences between Wedding and Horror photography?

Wedding photography is a completely different genre.  Rather than spend weeks slaving over one image, you have to create hundreds of images off the cuff, with no chance for a re-shoot.  Wedding photography teaches you to have confidence in quick decisions, to roll with things that don’t go as planned, and to keep your eye on the story.  I enjoy being a witness to Love.  Sometimes I like to use my powers for good rather than evil. Honest.

Who is your favorite Horror celebrity?  What is your favorite Horror movie?

Victor Miller, the screenwriter for the original FRIDAY THE 13th, is the coolest Horror celebrity I’ve met.

I have several favorite Horror movies.  POLTERGEIST and EVIL DEAD 2 are high on the list.

Do you get scared with something or someone?

Well, I’m still scared of tornadoes.

AfterCapture

I should mention that this month my work has also been published in AfterCapture, a new magazine from the publishers of RangeFinder, a popular photography magazine.  While my work has been published in several impressive foreign magazines, including LoDown, Lamono, and Russian Playboy, this is the first time that my imagery has ever been published in a national American magazine.

Thanks to Christopher Wiltz for taking an interest in my work.  I really appreciate it!

Making DEVIL

Hey kiddies! This is my new Horror photograph, called DEVIL. After the gruesomeness of FACE and ISOLATION, I felt like doing something a little more playful.  This image was probably inspired by all of the lovely letters I’ve received telling me I’m going to Hell.

This photograph was shot in my studio.  I constructed a set with a floor that was raised three feet off of the ground.  My good friend Jason Coale, who works as a professional scenic designer, acted as supervisor. My friends Damien Vela and Matt Tady helped with all of the carpentry.  I met Damien through the Kansas City Horror Club. Matt is a fine art photographer specializing in Burlesque portraits. He shoots on a vintage Super 8 movie camera, and then prints on resin plates that he creates himself.  Demian and Matt also worked as production assistants during the actual shoot.  My best friend Kevin Sisemore worked as my first assistant during the shoot, and helped steer the enormous Hasselblad camera that was loaned to us by Digital Labrador.  

I drew out the shape of the crack on the carpet with a Sharpie pen.   Jason then cut out the crack in the floor with a jigsaw, carpet and all. The furniture was borrowed from my sister Sarah and my daughter Shiva.

To line the inside of the crack, we cut out separate cardboard rectangles and covered them with shiny red fabric. We nailed and taped the rectangles together into a position that would match the jagged contours of the crack.

Most of the toys came from my mother’s basement, and belonged to me and my sisters as kids. Others were borrowed from my daughters.  The angel drawing taped to the wall was made by my daughter Sade.

My friend Bob Barber played the Devil.  I met Bob through my Dad. Bob invited us to ring side seats at the cage fights that take place at The Whiskey Tango, just on the outskirts of town.  His amazingly thin physique, and gentle demeanor, struck me right away.  On the drive home, I told my Dad that I needed Bob to be a model in my photographs.  

I wanted my Devil to be fire-engine red, with horns, long pointy ears, and an arrowhead tail.  As archetypal as possible.  I wanted him to look like a child’s drawing come to life.  Bob proved to be completely game for anything.  I bought prosthetic appliances online for the horns, ears, and the bony nubs on his spine.  My buddy Jason Coale came in from St. Louis to apply the make-up for me.  He used an awesome air sprayer to paint Bob red.

Most people don’t realize this, but the Devil wears blue jeans.

I was counting on the fog machine to hide the fact that Bob’s fantastic make-up job did not extend below his waist.

I wrapped Bob’s waist in the same shiny red fabric that we used to line the crack of Hell.  The tail was made from a rubber snake that I swiped from my nephew Matt.  I removed the head and spray painted the body red.  I made the pointed tip of the tail out of cardboard, gaff tape, latex, and paint.  We used fishing line to puppet the tail into position.  I later erased the fishing line in Photoshop.  I still owe the boy a new snake.

When Bob and I were done with our dress rehearsal, we brought in my daughter Chloe.  It took hours to finish Bob’s makeup, style the set, and set up all of the lights.  Chloe had spent the evening in full costume, eating chocolate chip cookies, watching cartoons, and playing with Tiffany, Kevin Sisemore’s wife.  The crew kept referring to Tiffany as ‘the child whisperer’.

In this photograph you can see me giving Chloe her directions while standing in the crack of the floor.  I turned off all of the music so that Chloe would only hear my voice.  While my daughter Shiva appears in the majority of my finished works, it is Chloe that has the most number of hours clocked performing in front of my camera.  This is largely due to her starring role in my short film BLACK LULLABY. During that grueling shoot, Chloe would sometimes repeat the same shot forty or fifty times, getting it perfect.  While still a very normal kid, she has the talent and focus of a professional child actor.

Nobody on set that night had ever seen Chloe act before, except me. All evening long she had just been this silly laughing little girl, playing on the outskirts of all our hard work.  But when she came on set, she became instantly focused.  I asked her what she wanted to do. She made a face of dread.  I asked her if she could pretend to scream for me.  She nodded and said “Sure”.  I told her she needed to look absolutely horrified, and she smiled and nodded.  She got into position, where the light caught her perfectly, and cracked her knuckles.  It’s funny – that’s something she started doing when we were filming BLACK LULLABY.  Just before a take, she takes a deep breath, blows it out, and cracks her knuckles.  When she’s done, you roll.  Out of nowhere, Chloe went into this amazing pantomime of gestures, flexing her neck muscles, clawing her hands, mock screaming, even letting tears roll down her eyes from not blinking. My crew, to say the least, was floored.   As soon as I said “Good, relax”, everyone erupted into applause.  

Kevin Sisemore took this photograph of Chloe.  She is smiling in reaction to everyone in the room, Devil included, breaking out into spontaneous applause over her jaw dropping performance.

I tell you, this kid knows how good she is.

The next project is called BUBBLE BATH, and Chloe is again the star. You must come back to check it out!