An Interview With Garrett Faber
Interview: Mark Turnage

Garrett Faber is a photo poet, music aficionado, and a writer/interviewer for Suicide Girls. Notoriety notwithstanding, he enjoys supermodels, counterculture, and cheeseburgers.
MT: Tell us a little bit about what you do.
GF: First and foremost I’m an insomniac, my sleep schedule is so fucked up right now, besides that, I write and take a lot of pictures.
MT: How does insomnia figure into your work?
GF: Ever since I was little I’d stay up late, watching Monstervision on TNT or Late Night Black and White on Cartoon Network, possibly playing video games until I was in zombie mode. Now I tend to stay up late editing photos or writing a story, or possibly running the streets taking pictures of whatever.
MT: Did your taste in television and videogames influence your creativity?
GF: I think I grew up at a good time because I got to experience some really cool shit as far as TV and video games go, I remember Rocko’s Modern Life, Are You Afraid of the Dark, Tales from the Crypt, Duckman, Ren And Stimpy, Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers, I gobbled that shit up as a kid because there wasn’t really much else to do in Oxford. Movies and TV and video games are in my blood, my friends and I can have whole conversations made of just quotes from movies. The influence is intense because I’m a Pop nerd and a visual freak. When I take pictures I try to present the images as larger than life, legit and timeless, if I want to. I could also make it look scary or shitty depending on the vibe, the Joker has always been my favorite comic character even before Heath Ledger made him popular again. Those characters are larger than life and really fuckin’ inspiring.

MT: Ever had any dreams inspire your work? Bad ones, good ones?
GF: I’m incredibly fascinated by dreams and deja vu, stuff like that. I always ask people about their dreams because our brains seem to just run wild while we sleep and maybe try to tell us something. I analyze my dreams so I can see what kind of food for thought they can provide me with. Recently I had this fucked up dream that a UFO crashed into the street by Seppe’s house and little alien rodents and lizards came crawling out and ate all our normal animals. It was really scary, I woke up at 2 am and drew the spaceships and animals, it was fucked up.
MT: You said you write and take pictures, tell me a little about both.
GF: Photography has always come more naturally, writing is something I’d have to get close and intimate with. When I’d write a story or something it would be like I was taking a chunk of my soul and converting it or some shit. It was hard, but when you’re in that zone where it flows and your fingers are just hammering away and you feel it, that’s incredible. I don’t usually write stories anymore, every once in a blue moon, I’ll do an interview with someone I admire. I’m a very visual person, photography is more of an extrovert thing while writing is more introverted. It’s fun to run around with a model or whoever and go somewhere pretty or ugly and take pics of them there. Writing is lonely and not very fun, it’s like homework to me.

MT: With photography being your medium of choice, what equipment do you favor?
GF: I use whatever I can get my hands on, it was all about megapixels for a long time and people loved to dis digital over film. I grew up with disposable cameras, shooting like 30 and then waiting for your prints. When digital rolled around I was hooked. I don’t care about film vs. digital, darkroom vs photoshop, I just care about the final image. After my cam was stolen, I found myself taking a shitload of dreamy black and white pics with my phone, the LG Voyager, then in February I got a Sony Cybershot that I’ve used religiously ever since. I like the fact that I can run around with it and shoot whatever. A bunch of people would have those giant ass nikons that they never want to carry around anywhere and mine isn’t an inconvenience so I find myself shooting a lot.
MT: What would you say is your philosophy of photography?
GF: I don’t put much thought into it, I feel like my photography is more a discipline than a philosophy, it’s just something I try to do everyday. I try to learn as much as I can and try to put those lessons to good use. I love a good photoshop tutorial or photography book because chances are it’ll inspire me. I was listening to Eminem’s early shit when he was young and hungry and not rich and his imagery is so vibrant that it was giving me scary movie ideas. Philosophy has nothing to do with it…yet.

MT: What interviews have you done?
GF: I’ve done a bunch, I feel like each interview I got published was out of pure luck because I didn’t know shit about journalism. I just really liked to ask people random questions, especially people I admired.
MT: Like who?
GF: I don’t want it to sound like name dropping because I hate that shit, but so far I interviewed Chuck Palahniuk, Frank Kozik, Irvine Welsh, Ross Halfin, Kate Nash, Luke Pritchard, Mike Vallely, Nate Sherwood, Kareem Black, Saul Williams, Karin Tatoyan, Brian K Vaughn, Adam Wallacavage, Mickey Factz, Asher Roth, Donnis, Deron Miller, uh…..Mike Carey, Ben Frost, and recently I interviewed May Pang and George Lois. I got lucky, but that’s writing shit and I mostly take photos now. I learned something from every interview though because I asked those guys things that I really wanted to know as opposed to standard interview fodder. They’re all great and I thank them again. It’s fun.
MT: What was the worst critique/review/feedback you were ever given and how did it make you feel?
GF: This old lady gallery owner in Lancaster trashed my paintings once, years ago when I was more interested in painting. She said it looked like something a college kid would have on his wall, and i’m like “is that…bad?” She made it clear to me my paintings would never sell and that she really really didn’t get it. Her daughter came in and was looking at this big painting of a robotic hand that I drew and she goes “the fingers look like penises”. That was kind of a turn on though, she was pretty hot. I have tons of art school horror stories too, those critiques were like facing a firing squad because my classmates were some catty little bitches. They dissed everything they didn’t like, or didn’t understand, and they were venomous about it. I liked getting such an adverse reaction though because it inspired me to do some more beautiful and aesthetic fuck you’s to anybody with a closed mind.

MT: How did that experience change or not change the way you feel/felt about your art?
GF: It made me realize the power of art, and the gut feelings it could invoke. I mean I grew up wandering through video stores looking at the boxes to horror films and being impressed by the dark art of it all in one place. That video store was like an art gallery to me at one point, kinda like malls are art galleries if you wanna see shitty people. Despite any negative reactions I love when I make something I feel is beautiful and people agree. When people like a picture of mine or buy it or give me props or whatever, I’m very fuckin’ thankful about it because the absolute worst reaction is no reaction at all.

MT: How did you start doing poladroids?
GF: Well I saw my first poladroid picture on Tumblr (http://garrettfaber.tumblr.com) and I asked the chick how she did it and she told me about the program, I then started really messing with it, that and photoshop and it started coming out pretty cool so I went looking through all my old pics and converting them, I also started shooting with an eye for how it could be a poladroid. I started uploading the pictures on facebook because I couldn’t afford a website and their photo uploads are free, also all my friends are on there. For a while I would just shoot everyone and tag them in the photos, sometimes they would make that their default pic and I found that to be the greatest honor. Just because as much as people tend to hate on facebook or myspace or twitter or any of those sites, they do work. They connect our brains, the audience message channel thing is all there, and it works.

MT: What are your favorite things to shoot pictures of?
GF: People, I dig people, a picture is worth a thousand words and an image can really capture the vibe of someone. Look at that picture of Che that everyone loves, that image became an icon and a symbol that’s been bought and sold left and right. I love appropriation too although not too much, I recently did two series of poladroids, “The Most Expensive Paintings Ever” and “The Hottest Chicks Ever”, I went digging for some images and then I edited and converted them into poladroids and I think they’re gorgeous. I love to shoot pictures of personalities, characters. Luckily for me growing up in Lancaster, I knew a lot of cool people. Running around with my cybershot in my back pocket allowed me to always be on some photo shit. So, that’s cool.

MT: What are your goals right now?
GF: I have a lot of goals, my main goal right now is to make a bunch of money so I can pull off some of my bigger ideas. Another great photographer Hank Willis Thomas did a massive balloon installation across a river and I was really impressed with that. Money is the motive though. This economy kind of changed shit; the nineties were all about bling bling and c.r.e.a.m and whatnot. The first ten years of the 2000s seemed to be about fear and loathing, hopefully this next decade can be a creative and gorgeous one but you never know. We could have world war three tomorrow, or a meteor could destroy earth or something. I always think my time is running out so I try to get my kicks while I can. I also want more shows, I had my first one in May and it was amazing. I want to print like a thousand poladroids and do a massive installation somewhere like a giant wall, or hallway just so you’re completely immersed in pictures. I want to tour America and take a shitload of pics, I want to revisit Highway 61. I want to take Mary Kate Olsen’s picture, I want to get a sweet job and make some cash cuz I’m hungry as shit.
MT: Here’s a cheeseburger. Tell me about your first show.
GF: Holy shit I love cheeseburgers! Nom nom nom. I’m a big Depeche Mode fan and I really dug the song Halo on Violator and the chorus goes “Though our worlds may fall apart, when the walls come tumblin in, though we may deserve it, it will be worth it.” That shit just stuck with me, I wrote it on a sticker and put it on my door, it was like a daily affirmation, “It will be worth it”. When I got my first gallery show and it was time to make the facebook event and promote that shit, it just popped in my head and suddenly the show was called “IT WILL BE WORTH IT”. I had 777 poladroids printed and Katy and Nicole and I were in the gallery till like 3am taping pictures to the wall. If it weren’t for them it woulda took me forever. Anyway the show was a success to me, I took a shitload of pictures and I got people to join my mickey mouse club. It was during first Friday and a lot of people were out and they visited the gallery and it was so cool. I sold my pictures three for five bucks, and it was the cheapest art in the city. People were selling their pictures for like 80 bucks and nobody I knew was willing to drop cash like that on a picture, but five bucks for three was a deal and I actually sold a bunch. It was worth it. We had a black and white party after that and despite that day being shitty, the party was amazing because we were doing giant murals and at one point all my closest friends were there and we were all busting our ass working on this giant mural. It was rad, I definitely wanna do more.
MT: What would like to say to the other underdogs out there?
GF: Life is short, don’t doubt yourself just follow your gut and do what you love, you can waste your time doing shit you don’t believe in while wishing for something more but if you do what you believe in and really work at it, think about it and grow with it you can get what you want. It takes balls, it takes nerves, it takes long sleepless bouts of insomnia and invisible guns but goddamnit, you only live once so go make some shit happen. Don’t waste your time fighting the light.

You can check out Mark’s sweet Batman fanfic The Face We Call Our Own, and you can take his incredible Arkham Asylum Quiz.
Goodnight and thanks for reading <3 <3 <3 <3 <4
Also check out Garrett’s blog at:
http://garrettfaber.tumblr.com/