Interview: Kareem Black
Posted on July 9, 2008
Kareem Black
Interview by Joe Marconi
In the bustling venue of Union Square’s Coffee Shop where the waitresses are also models (attitude and all) I met up with one of my personal favorite photographers, Kareem Black. Over a few Bloody Maries and Yuengling beers we talked about his work, past present and future. I have to say the experience for me was inspiring. Kareem was more down to earth than half of the people I work with on my day to day which was extremely refreshing to see.
KAREEM - (To the waitress) Do you have any Tobasco?
JM - You really do love Tobasco, huh? I wasn’t sure if that was a joke or not.
KAREEM BLACK - No I really do love Tobasco, on everything.
JM - So when I think of New York, I think of all the art that’s in New York and how it has it’s own cultural stigma to me. Does Philadelphia have anything to do with the artistic decisions that you make?
KAREEM BLACK - Yes and no. Philadelphia is dope. Philadelphia is a lot doper than most people know because it’s so close to New York and it’s kind of in the shadow of New York. It’s like New York’s little sister. But most of my adult creative life has been here, from 18 on. I started taking pictures when I was sixteen and a half or something than I went to school and I’ve been learning everything from when I was in SVA [School of Visual Arts] and afterwards.
There are things and people in Philadelphia that totally inspire me: like Philadelphia graffiti, this cat Espo is bananas and I think that he’s inspired me in terms of self-promotion with the sticker campaigns that I’ve done and other abstract promotions like that. But I don’t think there’s a Philly “look” in my photography.
JM -I’ve done quite a bit of research on my favorite photographers, Terry Richardson, Jeff Mermelstein yourself and others. You’re the first photographer that I’ve come upon that’s seems really involved with the graphic design world and I thought that was really interesting. Have you met Chuck Anderson (http://www.nopattern.com) and Nigel Dennis (http://www.electricheat.org) and all those guys?
KAREEM BLACK - Oh yeah. I always thought it (design) was really dope. I felt that I was really part of something special. I mean I feel really lucky just to be here at this time. There are a lot of really talented people, like Chuck Anderson, like all these motherfuckers who, for one reason or another, either I’m out drinking with them or connecting through Magazines like the Royal Magazine (http://www.theroyalmagazine.com/) or something and it’s cool to actually rack these people’s brains. I don’t think a lot of people do that. It’s becoming more and more prevalent but if you have access to these people why not work with them?
JM - I feel like what tends to happen is that it’s forced. I feel that the product is still great but the photographer may or may not know the end result but with you it’s like “Let’s work together!”
KAREEM BLACK - Yeah I really don’t have any idea what’s going to happen when I pass the photography on to these people and that’s part of what makes it fun. You know it’s like Christmas morning. It’s always amazing because these are such talented people.
You always have to take time out to make the shit that we like to make. I’m not getting paid to do this documentary on a female Muay Thai fighter. I flew myself, and my cinematographer, out to Thailand and then to Tokyo. That was a ton of money but it’s completely worth it because it’s much more exciting.
JM - Are you still doing the Polaroids?
KAREEM BLACK - Not too many on jobs anymore. On jobs I’m shooting about 95% digital. When I went to Thailand obviously I was filming but I also shot some images and all that stuff was film. All my personal work is film.
(drops mic - and the waitress comes by to bring us more drinks)
JM - I love Lindsay Lohan. Have you met her yet?
KAREEM BLACK - No, but I know she’s seen my stickers. I’m a degree of separation away from her. There’s a friend of mine, who’s a really good a friend of hers. I used to like her more than I do now; I think I’m over her now.
JM - Who is your current infatuation?
KAREEM BLACK - I don’t know.
JM - If you shot her would it be rekindled?
KAREEM BLACK - Who? Lindsay? Maybe, I don’t know. I haven’t seen her recently. I heard she’s a really cool person though. The one girl I totally have a crush on is this girl CJ Miles.
And there’s another girl that’s about to come out. I shot her about a year ago and we’ve been in touch, she’s a singer, her name’s Jessie Malay. She’s dope. She’s very, very, very smart. Very smart, very sharp. I’m always impressed when I speak to her..
JM - Who came up with Donnie Darko inspiration for the Gnarls Barkley (http://www.gnarlsbarkley.com/) shoot?
KAREEM BLACK - They put out a couple of concepts and I thought the Donnie Darko concept was pretty dope, and it’s one of their favorite movies. They had the whole thing where they were doing movie-inspired press so that’s how that happened.
JM - I never particularly liked that movie that much.
KAREEM BLACK - Me, neither.
JM - I was wondering if you were jamming to Tears For Fears and shit during the shoot.
KAREEM BLACK - (very seriously) No.
JM - If you could, tell me a bit about your technique.
KAREEM BLACK - Like I said for my personal work I’m shooting mostly film. I love 4×5, I always have. But you can’t be running around with a tri-pod and everything all the time. It’s not a fast thing. Lately I’ve been shooting a lot with the Hasselblad H2.
JM - In your pictures you’re always holding this huge camera.
KAREEM BLACK - That’s probably my Mamiya RZ. I’m about to sell it. There are a lot of new digital cameras, which are just much better.
But I’ll shoot with anything really. I really like the Canon 5D. There are two generations that are coming out that I want to get. But if you know a camera, it doesn’t really matter. I remember when I was in school people were like “This camera takes really good pictures” and I was like “What are you talking about?”
It’s not the camera; I’ll shoot with anything. If you give the same camera to twenty different photographers shooting the same thing you’re going to get twenty different pictures. It’s all how you see shit.
So that’s the technical side. Most of the stuff I’ve been shooting recently has been ads. I don’t really even shoot for that many magazines anymore and I really want to. I really want to get back in to it. But most of the stuff has been ads; Verizon, Vitamin Water… all that shit.
JM - Are you signed with an agency?
KAREEM BLACK - No. I feel like I’ve been able to take advantage of contacts and press. I think I’m a good marketing person. I think a lot of artists are not good at (1) Dealing with people, (2) Dealing with Money and (3) Marketing. I like dealing with people most times. I’m a total control freak about my career so I want to have complete control over it and not put it into any agents’ hands or something like that and I like marketing. Marketing can be an art. I’m my own agent and it’s fun. And by doing stuff that’s just a little bit different than what everyone else is doing to get my name out there it’s helped to do just that and to get my name in front of people like Pepsi, like Verizon, or like Cingular. And then the ad world, which is the hardest to get into, is incredibly small. Once you’re in, and you’re doing good work, you’re in.
JM -You seem to be making a segway into film. Is that something that you want to do? Is it a natural progression?
KAREEM BLACK - I mean, I think it’s a natural progression for me. You know like you said, I used to paint, before that I was doing illustration and shit, I was drawing comics and then photography and now I’m what finding out what directing is about. It’s a lot of work is what I’m finding out.
What happened was Verizon did this commercial about me a couple of years ago and I just became really close with the director and kind of became fascinated by what he did, you know? His name’s Maurice Marable and he does a bunch of shit for HBO. He did the opening sequence for Entourage, he was just up for a fucking Emmy for Six Feet Under. So I’m just fascinated by what the guy did and I started fooling around with it. I put out my first film called Kissena maybe two years ago and it’s about track-bike racers out on the Velodrome out in Kissena, Queens. That’s touring with the Bicycle Film Festival right now.
My second short film was called “TWINJA” which had a little more production. I’ve directed a couple of commercials for clothing lines. Four for Camp Beverly Hills, one for a clothing line called Kiser.
It’s really rewarding but really fucking hard work. It was a surprise to me that; I don’t know I mean I’m a photographer, I’m a visual person so when I’m directing a lot of the compositions are like my photographic compositions. I know about lighting so it’s like, in a weird way, when I started directing I was better at being a DP [Director of Photography] because I know lighting and composition. I knew that more than I actually knew how to get a great performance out of somebody. When you take pictures you kind of need it for that one moment but [with film making] it’s like, you might need a fucking monologue that’s ten paragraphs long. So I’m learning about that, I’m learning about the shape of the thing.
See more of Kareem Black’s work at www.kareemblack.com
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4 Responses to “Interview: Kareem Black”
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Daps!
I’m a Pittsburgh PA native and I’ve been following Kareem Black and Kwaku Alston’s work a lot in the last two years or so. Dope work man. Original and super fresh. Photographer’s would love to do what they do, but don’t have the personality to do anything with an opportunity. I can tell after reading this interview Kareem definitely has the personality to do what he does. Big ups to Kareem Black’s work. God Bless.
Vernon Young Jr.
http://www.vernonyoungphotography.com
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