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Q: Why did you publish a photo of a kid doing his homework?
A: That's my kid. He's not doing homework, he's signing the book we are selling. We both sign them when we sell them. He signs his name, I sign mine.
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Q: I thought you guys already signed a bunch. What up?
A: Oh, we published 20 books, figured we'd sell 7 of them and then have the rest hanging around for Xmas gifts or something. We sold all of them!
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Q: How did you do that?
A: We got lucky. Discover Magazine did a beautiful spread and story in their BRAIN issue. Then TIME did an online book excerpt and then the next week NYT's did a story on LENS, written by Jane Gross. News of the book spread out of the photo community and into the mainstream and we started to sell a bunch.
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Q: Any memorable moments with all the media?
A: Yah. The most fascinating thing is all the response I've gotten from other parents who really see their own kid in the images Eli and I made. People sent me photographs of their kid, things their kid created, and these shots could have fit directly into my book. It was the same channel, the same manifestations.
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Q: Did it make you think about this differently?
A: Yea, for sure. I think that really this ECHOLILIA thing I made photographs of is going on in every home of every family that has a kid like Eli. All I did is operate the camera a little more elegantly than the average parent who has a snapshot camera. I was there to document it, but all these other parents are seeing these things and feeling these things too.
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Q: Any low points?
A: One Sunday afternoon CNN was promoting TIME's book excerpt and had turned my photograph " The Tooth Fairy, 2008" into a click here button.
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Buy the second edition of ECHOLILIA/Sometimes I wonder HERE.
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8 comments:
I am a grateful owner of a signed copy of Tim and Eli's book and encourage others to buy it too. A really exceptional document with superb photos and insights into a condition often shrouded in mystery. They have managed not only to enter into a conversation between themselves but have invited us readers in as well. Worth every penny!
Thank you for this self made interview, because of your book I realised I have to "see: my son more like before. I even made a little tribute thanks to you: http://juliehendriks.blogspot.com/2010/11/beers-world.html
So good luck to you two!
Congratulations on getting Echolilias seen all over the place! It's amazing what a different audience will do for you - have you got any more exhibitions lined up or is the book the way to go?
Hey there Colin-
Thanks for your note. I think alot of things clarified when I stopped hiding from the word "Autism", I must say. I kind of admitted it, used it to introduce the body of work, and I think it made things clear-er. Or, exploited more? It's really for the audience to decide at this point. But I did need to own up to the truth of the work I think, then it seemed people got it more.
We had a show here in San Fran, part of a 3 person group show last month, then the show travels to Union College in Schenectady N.Y. to be part of a group show there...I worked in the darkroom at the school and studied there as well when I was a teenager.
So, its getting around but not the traditional gallery channels. I'm kinda experimenting with where it can go, what I can do with it, and see what comes. Been a long time pushing this one rock up the hill, huh?
Julie- thanks so much for sharing those photographs with me and everyone...they are so on the channel, but your son's own channel I'm sure. That shot of his head in a hand is just a keeper...so wonderful.
Patricia- I'm your biggest fan these days. Discovering your work was such a gift too! Thanks for being so supportive...always great to hear good things from a great artist.
I would not say you and Eli were lucky for the press- it is a touching story beautifully expressed. I would say, however, that the people who got first editions are lucky!
Did the response from other parents make you think about compiling those photos- from other people too?
Cheers to you and Eli, TA.
I remember you started with the autism thing and then kind of left it, now have come back to it.
Any case, non-traditional routes are the best ones - the great thing is it has beauty and content that goes beyond the photographic so will speak to a wider audience. Keep on pushing it up that hill!
Jennie-
Ya...I'd love to share these photographs people have been sending. Got to get permission first, of course...but to me, they look like something right out of the book!
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