Our next interviewee is Vinnie Piatek:

please introduce yourself. what is “your style” of photography? I’m Vinnie Piatek, known on Flickr as “Museum of Dirt”. I guess I’m mainly a Street Photographer. However, I kind of consider “street-photography” to be more of a genre, or discipline than a style – much like Landscape or Portraiture, both of which have styles within them. Street Photography has styles within it, such as the traditional Henri Cartier-Bresson or Robert Doisneau, Bruce Gilden’s in your face New York style and the straight social documentary photojournalism of the likes of Garry Winogrand, and every mongrel combination in between. Different locales seem to have inherent styles too; New York Street has a different quality or feel to it than Parisian and other European Street, which is different to Asian Street which is different again to Australian Street. I think a city, its pace, its people – both the producers of Street Photography and the passers by who are included in the street photograph – its tales, the times and even its climate and weather all add up to a place’s style, or feel, to at least some extent. For example, New York shot in the dead of winter by a New Yorker will have a different style to Darwin shot in the height of summer by a Darwinian. But me though; I just get on the street, shoot what I see and feel and try to convey that in a photograph. I’ve also lately been working on a couple series of Portraits too.

how long have you been shooting film? I’ve always shot Film, and have never shot Digital. No particular Film vs Digital thing, I just like film and the film process better. In some way or another, I’ve been shooting pretty much all my life. I remember the time I grabbed my Mum’s camera and shot my very first photo – a picture of the grass in the backyard as Mum grabbed the camera back when I was about 5 or so. I did the High School photography thing for about 4 years – became the “official” yearbook photographer and skipped heaps of classes and all that sorta thing. Later on, in the 90s, I bought my first SLR, a Ricoh. I liked to chuck that in the car and go exploring Victoria and just drive and shoot. I actually just recently found about 20 undeveloped rolls from around this time that I’ve been going through and developing and scanning over the last few months (which I might actually end up getting around to posting somewhere one day), which is pretty different to the stuff I shoot these days. But I put the cameras away after a while of this to go and play bass for a while, and about 3 years ago, after the music project had run its course for me, I picked up a camera again and I’ve been shooting constantly ever since.

what do you get out of it? Interesting question. To be dead honest, I really don’t know; or at best, I really can’t put it into words. I enjoy every bit – from rolling rolls of film from the bulk loader to seeing stuff hanging on a wall. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a kick out of people seeing my stuff on walls and liking it. I don’t hand print stuff these days, but whether it’s scanning negs and fine tuning the image on the computer or spending time in the darkroom, even simply souping a roll, everything else just seems to go away, and I think I’m pretty much at my happiest when I’m working. The intensity of the mental focus, or clarity is insane – not quite the same as performing, but right up there and ‘different’. Wandering around the place – sometimes just a bit of paper on the breeze –and just being, with a camera in hand is a freedom I enjoy immensely and is rarely matched. However, having something in mind, or a particular place I want to shoot, and going after it, gives me a massive high when I think I’ve nailed it. Even more so when I develop the neg and see that I did get what I was going for. But that can be a pretty rare moment. Othertimes though, grabbing a shot while just going about the daily makes me glad to be a ‘photographer’ and thankful to be dedicated enough to always have the camera out, wound, and metered and ready to just fire away. But there is also the challenge of finding new levels of creativity – sometimes overwhelmingly frustrating but always in the end rewarding – that drives me too; striving to be a better photographer, make better images, lift the overall tone of the body of work.

in regard to the above shot; what did you take it with? This one was shot with a Canon A-1, with a 50/1.4 lens. It’s about all I ever use. Very occasionally I’ll whack a 28mm on, but this is about it. I developed it in Rodinal 1+50, scanned it on a HP Scanjet and just touched it up in some other programme on this computer – not photoshop or anything flashy, just one I found on it one day.

how did you do it? This was one of those days where I wanted to shoot something, but had no idea of what it was I wanted to shoot, so I went up the top end of Collins St and just wandered and wondered. I’d tried and tried to shoot, but nothing really said anything to me and I’d only actually shot a couple frames, frames that I knew were going to disappoint me in the developing stage. So I stopped for a snack and a sit down, and saw this little spot here. There was a couple standing nearby and so I thought to myself, “there’s gotta be a shot in there somewhere”. I fired off a few frames, and again, nothing really screamed out to me. I was just walking away, thinking I’d gotten the best I could get out of the sequence, and glanced back one more time, and saw the lines fitting into the frame like this, which I liked. So it was a matter of waiting only a couple seconds for someone to walk exactly right into the frame and I had this. So to me, it really captured both the creative frustration and the indecision I was feeling that day.

why did you pick this shot out of the 3? Probably because it shows the street as a living, dynamic studio. Also because it is one of those extra rewarding shots that come from that creative frustration and indecision.

what were you aiming to achieve with it? All I really wanted to get out of this particular shot was a shot I liked. Simple as that. I don’t think that as I shot it I was thinking that, y’know, this was going to be special in such-a-such a way or have extra meanings or anything like that. I just wanted more than anything, to make a shot I liked. Ultimately, that’s what it’s all about – trying to get shots I like.

how would you take it / arrange it differently if you had the chance? Hopefully I won’t sound arrogant here, but I don’t think I would change anything on this. I’m happy with the composition, the tones and the final look; what it means to me is what it means to me and I wouldn’t change that and while this was published and stuff, there were plenty of others that I didn’t publish.

do you prefer colour or black & white? do you have a favourite film? Black and White. Hands down. It’s all I ever shoot at the moment – I haven’t shot a roll of colour for probably about, like, 6 months. Why? I don’t know. I just love Black and White. The closest thing I can give to a rational answer is that Black and White allows me to indulge in and have complete control over the whole process. But that doesn’t explain the actual love of Black and White photographs. As for what I choose to shoot with though – You just can’t go past T-Max 400. There’s nothing special about it, it’s just a good film. I’m shooting a lot of Ilford HP5+ at the moment, but I think my absolute favourite film of ever, is Ilford Delta 3200, although, I’m actually scared to shoot it in case I make a roll of shots I don’t like and scare myself away from it.. I want to shoot some of the other Delta films too and see what I get from them.

what do you like to see in other people’s photos in the MSM pool? When I go to the pool, I guess I’m always looking for and at new names and new work. It’s always good too to see how other Miners are coming along in their work too. But I’m always looking for new creativity and ideas … sorry, but I want to see more than just the standard shots of Flinders St Station from St Pauls and stuff like that, as good as some of them are. Luckily, we have more than that in the MSM.

Thanks very much for your time, Vinnie!

You can find his pictures on flickr as Museum of Dirt, and read his blog at museumofdirt.wordpress.com. You’ll also be able to see his work exhibited as part of UNSENSORED09.