On Christmas day we lost writer and photographer Christopher Bryson. In his honor we are reposting his interview and work. Thank you Christopher for you generous spirit and for inspiring us. We will miss you.

“Using white chalk, In the night, she scratched his name on the coarse gray wall, telling her love, describing its never ending nature, its eternal flow. It lasted, clinging like salve, until the rain came—a small morning storm, really—washing it away forever. The wet powder raced through the gutter like a white penny, rolling toward the river, the sea, eternity.”
Christopher Bryson

Would you please tell us a little about yourself?

Although my university training is in science and literature, I am a photographer, writer, and graphic designer who lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. I have lived in North Carolina, Ohio, California, New York City, and an assortment of other locations for shorter periods of time.

My photographic work involves portraits of people in the French Quarter and along the Mississippi River, as well as landscapes in California, Louisiana, Texas, and Florida. Currently, I am interested in occupations, labor, how people work, and how they transition to and from the workplace. These proclivities, along with an ongoing inclination toward street photography keep me involved.

Where did you get your photographic training?

I would have to suggest that early technical training came from my father,and uncle who were both avid photographers, and from looking at many pictures. A Brownie box camera, and a Kodak Pony 35 mm.were my first cameras—my mother and father’s cameras, respectively.

Later, I learned,and have continued to learn, from other photographers who produce work that I admire. These mentors are both living and dead, some of which have become friends along the way.

“On the occasion of Ms. Elizabeth attempting to teach my dog, Jack, to sing, we made pictures, and passed a good time. Jack never learned to sing, per se, but he sure did like the way Elizabeth smelled, and sounded.” Christopher Bryson

Tsarina Cabildo,Alley, New Orleans © Christopher Bryson

Chef Dominique Catches some Morning Cool.Restaurant Angeline née Stella, and others French Quarter, 2015 © Christopher Bryson

Why do you create?

This is an excellent question, but not one that I have often asked myself.  I usually ask ‘how,’ as opposed to ‘why.’ I suppose I create for multiple reasons. I like to express how I feel. And, in the form of photography and in writing, I like to record what I see. Specifically, it is a sort of record, ‘proof’, that I have observed that I experienced the thing and sometimes I choose to expand that record with an extended caption or other verse. This is generally not something I contemplate until long after the picture is out of the camera.

“What is straight?  A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains.”
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire.

Who has had an influence on your creative process?

Well that could be a very long list. My parents, several university professors, Kafka, Neruda, Borges, Chekhov, Tobias Wolff, Bukowski,and photographer friends who have encouraged me and given guidance. Mostly, these are people who have given me permission to become whoever I would like to become. This has been a vitally important gift in my life, this permission.

Please tell us about an image (not your own) that has stayed with you over time.

That’s easy. The first one that comes to mind is the portrait by Édouard Boubat.It does everything for me

.What image of yours would you say taught you an important lesson?

Hmm. That would be a photograph of a man in St. Augustine Catholic Church, in Faubourg Tremé, in New Orleans, Louisiana. I was in the church, after morning mass, to make pictures of people who had deep, inter-generational roots that connected them to the church and the community. Tremé is the oldest neighborhood of free people of color in the United States, and the church itself has a long and rich history. I was there in part to help gather family histories in celebration of the 300th anniversary of the city of New Orleans. The experience taught me that it is better to get too close, than to not get close enough. After that experience, I get very close to people when I shoot them. This was not a small lesson, for me.

What makes a good day for you creatively speaking?

I am naturally a curious person, so most days are good for me. I feel like it is a good day if I discover something new about myself and how I process the world I live in, or if I discover something unexpected, or unusual, about someone else.

If you could spend a day with another photographer or artist living or passed who would it be?

I’d enjoy hanging out with Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz for a day. Am I allowed a two-fer?

How important is the photographic community to you?

While not reclusive, I tend to work alone, and I enjoy the lack of distractions when working in a solitary environment. So, if you had asked me this question five years ago, I would have said, “Not at all important.” But that is changing. This interview is proof of that.

What equipment have you found essential in the making of your work?

I’m not much of a technical photographer, so the equipment isn’t the thing I think about very much. I like to have a camera that I will take with me when I am on the move, out on the street. The SONY RX100 has been good for me that way. Over the past year or so, I also bring along a SONY A7RII more often. But I’m not much of a gear guy. I just need something that will allow me to get what I want using ambient light.

Is there something in photography that you would  like to try in the future?

I’d like to learn and experiment with working in a large format, wet plate situation. But again, I would likely use it to make portraits of people doing their work. Documenting people involved with labor is exciting. And to me, there is a heroic aspect of this that activity that could be tremendously majestic in the wet plate format.

Whats on the horizon?

I am just recently starting to show work in galleries, so I’m going to try to do more of that if people are interested in seeing what I’m seeing. And I’ve been contemplating ideas for a book. Meanwhile, I’ll just keep looking, seeing, and making a visual record of my experience. I have ideas to explore.

To learn more about the work of Christopher Bryson please visit his page by clicking on his name.

Featured Comments

“How does one describe such a loss? Work that once seen, never leaves our thoughts, an ability to discover deep, sonorous stories. Faces that are as powerful as one of his heroes: Boubat. He deserves a retrospective in a major gallery.” Robynne Limoges

“These are such beautiful and haunting images. Very sorry to learn of his passing.”
Lynn Buchanan

“Wonderful man and work. A loss for us all.”

“This is beautiful. Thank you” Kyle Roberts