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BC ~ Thank you! But to be honest I don't really know how I'm received in either form. I take pictures, and then put them out there. After that I rarely hear about them. I suppose I'm received on line and in hard copy about the same. The reality is hard copy books are a thing of the past, most book publishers have gone out of business.
HST ~ How different was/is the transition from record producer to being behind the lens? Anything you miss/regret from the flip?
BC ~ Taking pictures of people and producing/recording records is pretty much identical. Whether it's musicians or models, you're trying to get the best performance out them. It's something I'm good at. Basically you need to make the model or performer feel like they rule the world, then go with it. With some people, you have better chemistry, and those are the shoots/recordings that tend to be best. I like to work fast and not think about what's happening much. I feel like, soon as you start thinking stuff through, it goes from being inspired to contrived. It's the same with music or photography or any art. I loved doing music. The reason I stopped, was I was constantly being ripped off by record companies. There's no money in music anymore, so I'm glad I'm out of it. I love it that all these record companies went broke because from people coping/sharing songs. People that own or ran record labels feel they've been ripped off, but that's exactly what they did to musicians for years. Yay, good riddance!!! Photography is in a similar boat these days. Any good pictures on line, get stolen, and reused over and over. I've had people steel every single picture on my site - like over 250,000 pictures, then make their own sites using my pictures. Plus, anyone and everyone has a camera, takes pictures, and puts them on line. The pictures are all crap, but no one cares. Most people don't even know they're crap.
HST ~ Sex, drugs and rock n roll baby, is it all is cracked up to be? How much of your life style, personality and actual environment on a day to day basis is reflected in your shots?
BC ~ I guess that depends on where you're coming from. If you're a banker, then I suppose my life looks pretty out there, but to me it's not. I just take pictures a lot. When I did music, I was in studios non stop. Sex, drugs and rock n roll is more for observers.
HST ~I saw on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Bob_Coulter/status/463734485486690304) your keen to shoot porn star Asa Akira. Any news or updates from that series? Being a avid DVDASA pod cast fan this excites me; Also, are You a listener?
BC ~ How do you find stuff like that??? I don't think I'd even heard of her before I tweeted her that. I'm not in the porn world mix at all. For one thing I live in NYC. Porn people live in LA. I never watch porn - like never. I must have seen someone I know talking to her on twitter, looked up what she looked like, and thought it would be an easy thing to set up a shoot with her. She didn't respond, and I forgot about it (I had to look up just now what she looked like). I'd definitely shoot with her, but that tweet was about as far as I ever reach out to models.
HST ~ Of course a man never kisses as tells as I respect privacy , but do you have any interesting stories from a favorite shoot? My personal favorite was the Janine Lindermulder lip stick and mirror set, any back ground tales there or any other shoots?
BC ~ Actually, I have a story from that shoot you just mentioned with Janine. That was my first shoot with her. Her web master liked my pictures and suggested she shoot with me. She phoned me and said that she was going to be in LA the next week and did I want to shoot. I got a room at the same hotel where she was staying, and we shot that evening in some shithole motel I found nearby, then on the street, then I think back at the place we were staying. I thought the pictures were pretty awesome! The next morning she phoned me and asked if she could look through the pictures. She came over to my room. I gave her a copy of all the pictures so she could take them home with her, plus I let her look through them all on my laptop. When she finished about an hour later, she looked at me like her brain was going to explode and started screaming at me, saying I'd made her look like some "has been porn star old age prostitute wretch", and on and on, and how much she hated the pictures and hated me. She refused to sign a model release, told me to fuck off, and stormed out of my room. I flew back to NY, pissed off that I'd paid for my flight, paid for my motel, paid for my car, paid for the location were we shot etc. and with no signed release, I wouldn't even be able to use the pictures. About 10 days went by and Janine phone me asking when we could shoot again. I asked her what drugs she was on. I reminded her how much she hated the pictures, me and everything else. She said, oh, ya, sorry, bout that, but she had shown the pictures to her mom, and her mom had said they were the only pictures she'd ever seen of Janine that she liked. We ended up shooting a lot of times, but I'm pretty sure Janine never liked any of the pictures I ever shot of her.
HST ~ English, French, Spaniards, Dutch. Where do you find your work most understood/popular and where is your favorite place to visit/shoot?
BC ~ Germany. I've never shot there though.
HST ~ Do you believe in God, or something? Anything? Kind of a staple question I like to ask around here?
BC ~ Yes I believe in God - doi. I can't come up with these pictures I shoot on my own.
HST ~ Your lens infiltrates every part of the scene, physical and materials, how important is the backdrop, the environment? Does the shoot have an actual rock and roll hype or is it strictly business - snap and shot?
BC ~ The background is almost as important as the model to me. If the surroundings aren't happing I don't get good pictures. I can't seem to ever get past that. I've never been able to do a good shoot if the background isn't cool looking. As far as what are my shoots like, my shoots are 100% like how they look. I have music blasting, and alcohol there, and make it super relaxed. The more of a party feel, the better the pictures come out. I don't let anyone hang out at my shoots, it's always just the model and me. It used to be that way with music too. I mean, you don't wanna get shit faced but you want a party vibe.
HST ~ You also shoot fashion, I want to ask your opinion on the differences between porn and art but I fucking hate that whole concept and the whole debate shots me. Right? Or am I being a wanker?
BC ~ I don't really shoot fashion. I've been trying to shoot fashion for a number of years now, but the fashion world doesn't want any part of me. Not sure if I just haven't connected with the right people or what. I've been told my pictures are too wild. But I don't believe that, think they are scared of being associated with porn. Pretty much the unanimous comment I get is, "you will Never get work shooting fashion"... As far as the differences between porn and art. Do you think my pictures are, porn or art? I look at them and they look pretty different than what I think of as porn. That's an old question, that a lot of "wankers" have come up with answers for, however this is that actual answer; when there's more red in the picture it's porn and when there more green it's art.
HST ~ Ever been star stuck?
BC ~ In high school with musicians like Dylan or the Stones I suppose. But as soon as you start working with people, you loose that. I've certainly never been star struck with a model. Years ago, I worked on a song for one of Keith Richards solo records. Keith wasn't there, but he and his manager told my partner Daddy-O and I that he was having problems with the song and asked if we might try making it work. I was excited about that, until I started listening to the tracks. It was bad. They had mailed us two 2" tapes (48 tracks). I think drums, bass and vocals took up 8 track, and the rest of the 40 tracks was Keith going plink ploink on guitar. It as insane. Every track was full of crap, there were no tracks for us to even do anything, the tapes were completely full. The first day I spent 18 hours going through all the tracks, erasing garbage, and boucing anything that even sounded remotely ok onto a few tracks so we had room to work on the song. The song was lame and we couldn't really do much to help it. A couple of days after we mailed it back to England, I got a phone call from Keith's manager Jane Rose. She said, "Bob, thank you for working on the song, but I need to ask you something. Did you make a backup of the tapes we mailed you"? I said no, I thought you had mailed me a backup to work on. She said, no, we mailed you the master... Apparently Keith was upset cause I'd erased all his guitar bloinking.
HST ~ Care to leave us weirdo's, creeps and misfits at HST with any words of wisdom?
BC ~ Stay in school, get a degree, fuck art.
"Drunk at the matinee" is a collection of candid poetry about stupid shit that we all experience from day to day.
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