A Conversation Between Ian Dunlop and Brian McKee More even than the work of the great architects, I loved buildings that grew silently with the centuries, catching and keeping the best of each generation, while time curbed the artist's pride and the Philistine's vulgarity, and repaired the clumsiness of the dull workman. -Captain Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh Tell me more about that long street. Actually we are overextended; time is running out. While still all things to all people we are no longer swimming in the pool left by the sunrise. -Of Dreams and Dreaming in Hotel Lautr?amont by John Ashbery
Q :	why do you call this new series of photographs 'Urbanus'?
A :	The term URBANUS is a Latin word which has a number of different meanings related to the idea of the city. On a basic level it means 'of, or pertaining to, the confines of a city', but it also has a meaning derived from religious activities. Early on, 'Pagans' were thought to inhabit the countryside while 'Urbans' were those who lived within a structured, more often than not, religious society. All of the places that I photographed for the URBANUS project were at one time cities which were self contained entities and which lasted from anywhere between 15 and 200 years. All of them, for various reasons, failed as societies. The reason for the collapse of these cities varies quite a bit, but in the end I see them all as a metaphor for the recurring collapse of societies throughout history and especially now in our modern age.
Q :	What were you intending to achieve in this new series? How does this new work relate to your 'Detritus' series?
A :	The intention follows the way that I work. I begin with a concept, and then make three different bodies of work over a period of years describing that concept. In this case the first body of work was Afghanistan and the idea of DETRITUS. Afghanistan was about the collapse of a society in modern times, and the means by which it fell- i.e. by political strife, war, international issues, etc. In the end, though, it all comes down to Detritus and the idea of what we leave behind and what we can tell from the little that remains. Each image from the Afghan project tells a story. But even if you do not know that it is Afghanistan, the images reflect an idea of a culture, of a society abandoned, in ruins, bombed, shot at, etc. These are obvious facts one can gather just from looking at the images. However, my intention is never to confront the viewer with an image and say 'this is Afghanistan, or this is India. These are the buildings, this is it.' That is why the title of the project has nothing to do with the country in which I have been working. Rather, it is a term that reflects upon a larger theme which is true of a great number of societies throughout history. I always make strong efforts to ensure that my work, regardless of the subject matter, does not appear to be merely a document which is something we can see so easily in countless images in magazines or newspapers. There are very important steps I take to distance myself and create art that has life within itself. The URBANUS series looks at the ideas of older cities and, I hope, examines them in th same way as my previous work.
Q :	Are you primarily interested in buildings rather than landscapes?
A :	I am more interested in buildings, than in landscapes - although in the future I may find myself looking towards landscape, depending on how you define it, in a different way. But for now it is clear that all of my images take architecture, mainly interiors, as their starting point. This is because buildings, architecture, the planning of cities, are what we leave behind. Also, my work is rather large, approximately 57 by 71 in. (146 x 181 cm.), and my photographs are presented without a frame and without glass so that the viewer can be as close as possible to the feeling of the original space. One can never come close to representing a large landscape in a real way to a viewer. The images would have to be far too large.
Q :	Are your photographs saying something about the effect of time on buildings or are they a reflection of cultural changes which took place long ago?
A :	My work looks at time in general. Detritus is an idea of time. So is Urbanus. Buildings are time. Anything that remains after the creators of it have long since departed has time ingrained into it. I live in Brooklyn, New York in a building built in or around 1894. Throughout the years this building has been used for a number of different purposes and by a number of different groups of people. Right now I have the entire top floor as my home and studio, but at one time it was used as three separate apartments for workers who toiled in the factories of the Brooklyn piers. It was divided, reconstructed, and built again and again. There is a door that now leads to a wall. There are fake walls, oddly placed windows. I like to look at these things as evidence of the way the past creates the world we now inhabit. And so I can photograph in a building that is 500 years old or I can be in a 10 year old building, and still we are always going to be dealing with the idea of time, or history.
Q :	What attracts you to far away subject matter? Could you final similar subjects in your native America? Or do you have a preference for travel to foreign parts?
A :	I have done quite a bit of work here in America. An early body of work that I produced here dealt with sites where historic events had happened but are now completely devoid of any relation to the event itself. I only began traveling when I needed to in order to complete a body of work that I was working on. One thing that I dislike, and have never done, is travel to a place just with the idea that I might find things to photograph there. I research a project for around 4-6 months before I go. I know where I am going, quite often what the sites look like, and what I want to do when I get there. Everything is very well planned in advance.
Q :	I appreciate that your recent pictures are not intended to be site specific and are not 'travel' pictures as such, but they clearly have an Indian or Asian origin. What drew you to India? Do you have a particular interest or feeling for Islamic architecture?
A :	When I started the Detritus series I had no strong feeling about Islamic architecture in itself. The first part in Afghanistan involved looking at a very strong Islamic society but the architecture was for the most part European. (This is just another point that I wanted to make). Since that time I have developed a love for Islamic architecture. But it is still not what the work is about.
Q :	Are you attracted to the feeling of symmetry in Islamic architecture?
A :	What I do like about Islamic symmetry is that it does not exist in the way that we as Westerners think of symmetry. It is an entirely different way of looking at and feeling space.
Q :	Would you call yourself a 'Romantic'? Or are you trying to be as objective as possible in your photographs?
A :	I do not think of myself as a Romantic. I make images of sites that are both beautiful and ugly. I believe in making a very straightforward and well composed picture, and yes, I hope that some find them to be beautiful, but I do not think this means they are Romantic in the traditional sense. I just need to be in certain places that will provide the images to complete my concept. I feel that I am very objective in my approach. I make a point of including the entire space or room in almost all of my images. I move nothing. I light nothing. I just wait until natural light forms within the room to make the image that I see in my head. These are straightforward photographs and I feel they are more powerful that way.
Q :	I understand you like to work with a large plate camera on a tripod. Is that correct? What does this kind of camera offer which other cameras do not?
A :	Yes, I work with a 1950's Dearadorff 8x10 inch field camera which I mount on a tripod. This is the only camera I work with because if offers me a view an internal vision that no other camera can offer. Within photography there are a number of different cameras one can use. I think that most photographers chose a camera that fits the way they see best and stick with that camera. For me it is the 8x10, as I really can work with the images I am photographing. In the ground glass I see the image while I am composing. It is exactly 8x10 inches and with that I get a real feel of the space I am photographing. It is a slow process and it takes me around 10 to 25 minutes to make one single image. I like this pace. It gives me time to work with the image. It allows me time to see many different aspects of the space I want to recreate as a photograph. This camera was introduced to me by my teacher Stephen Shore, and he is perhaps the first American master of the 8x10 inch color format. The first time I used it I knew it was the way I wanted to work.
Q :	What do you think of digital photography?
A :	As for digital photography, I feel it has its places in photography, but it is not something I would want to work with at this time. The idea of digital and what is digital and what is not, is so large that one could never cover all the issues. Even Stephen Shore is now printing all his old 8x10 analog images as digital prints. Is this digital photography? Gursky does much the same thing, as does Struth. As for me, I have done digital prints, with mixed results, but I　would never use a digital camera. I define myself as a traditional analog photographer.
Q :	How important a factor is natural light in your pictures? Do you use any artificial light in some of the darker interiors?
A :	Natural light is everything for me and light for me is like paint for a painter. I spend hours sometimes waiting for the right light to hit the right space at the right time in the right way. I never use artificial light and for me this is very important.
Q :	How do you set up your shots?
A :	I set up most of my shots very slowly. I am dealing with architecture, which does not move. There are no people in my photos and because I am very dependent on light I take my time. Most often I visit the site first without my camera so I can just look at the areas and decide what I want to use as a final image. Unlike a lot of photographers I edit in my head at the site as opposed to photographing a number of different angles and then editing once I get the results back at my studio. I only take one shot for each location, and I shoot very little. For the six weeks I was in India I made only 90 photographs-33 of which I will be using for the final project.
Q :	Are you particularly drawn to symmetrical compositions?
A :	I always allow the space to dictate the way I photograph it. Many of my images are very 'centered' but really if you look at them closely they are not as correctly 'centered' as one might think. Things are always off to the side or the focal point is not quite in the middle. This is because the rooms need to be presented that way. Also, I am not one that believes in absolute symmetry. As human beings we do not see that way. We tend to look at a room as a whole. I want to be able to show the room as close as possible to the way the viewer would see it if they were there in person. As a painter you have the choice of placing your easel and canvas wherever you like. As often as not in the older traditions of painting an 'ideal' view was selected and painted even if it was not realistic view. I　try　to stay as 'real' as possible, while at the same time creating a very whole and beautiful image. I　have no pre-planned grid systems, it comes from my eyes.
Q :	How are your prints made? Where are they printed?
A :	My prints are for the most part traditional c-prints- color prints from color negatives, printed analog in the same manner that color prints were made 50 years ago when this method was first made popular by mass production. All of my prints are made at Foto Leutner in Vienna, Austria. With Rosi, my printer, we work on each image one on one and I　am there for all final production prints.
Q :	Where did you learn photography?
A :	I started photographing on my own when I was 15 with a camera my parents gave me. I always worked in the arts, but photography was the first medium where I　really felt I could create the vision that was in my head. I then studied it at high school, The Interlochen Arts Academy, and then went on to Bard College in New York where I studied with Stephen Shore and Larry Fink among others. Stephen Shore was the defining teacher for me and was the one that first introduced me to color and the 8x10 inch format camera.
Q :	I see from your CV you worked for a time as an assistant and studio manager for Lynn Davis. What effect did this experience have on the development of your own work as a photographer?
A :	Lynn Davis was very important in my development. I started working with her in my second year at Bard and worked for her every week throughout my remaining three years there and for two years after that. She was someone who taught me the non-academic side of photography. Stephen, Larry and other teachers were always there as professors and although they were amazing instructors, I was still within an academic environment and as we both know, you cannot teach art. I learned important techniques from Stephen and Larry but I learned a lot about the methods and reality of making art from Lynn. As you may know, early on, Lynn was very important in the New York school of portrait photography and was very close with Robert Mapplethorpe and Peter Hujar. She has always been deeply involved with the Mapplethorpe estate as well as other art-based entities. As a result I had close contact with numerous artists' work including Mapplethorpe, Hujar and all of Lynn's work. I was never interested in taking portraits myself. None the less I was able to get a close personal insight into the way artists like Lynn and Robert worked. Lynn's later work, say post 1986, has certainly had an important influence on me. We both are very deeply involved with architecture and we both use travel as a means of creating the images we want. Also we both believe in making beautiful photographs and prints. However, I have never worked with black-and-white in my own work. I think I gained so much from each person I worked with, but in the end I knew I always had a vision of my own and I wanted to make sure that vision did not look like anything the people I was surrounded by had already done, regardless of how successful they were.
Q :	Are you attracted to the German school and the photographers coming out of the Bechers teachings at D?sseldorf?
A :	As for the German school I like most all of them and think they have done so much for contemporary photography. Their work influenced me in a way but I tried to stay away from certain hallmarks. I never did what they did. I never did what Lynn Davis did. I never did what Stephen Shore did. I looked for a way to create my own vision and if it was not for the fact that I thought I was creating something of my own I would have never continued with photography. In fact, in the beginning I wanted to be a poet. The main reason I went to Bard was to study with John Ashbery. Luckily for me John took an interest in me and my poetry and not only did I study with him but I spent three years as his personal assistant while at the same time working with Lynn Davis. I had wonderful one-on-one contact with John and we became, and still are, good friends, but once I left Bard and the academic environment I realized that my photographs expressed more clearly my intentions as an artist than my poetry did. I still feel there is a relationship between the two.
Q :	I notice you also live in Vienna. How did that come about?
A :	I ended up in Vienna because of Gallery Ernst Hilger. I was in an Art Fair with a small gallery from D?sseldorf and Ernst saw my work from Afghanistan and really likes it. He was the first gallerist to really recognize the work and he was also able to offer me a solo show as well as many other things I had wanted at the time. Soon we began working together and things have been wonderful ever since. Before that I was having a hard time getting a gallery in the U.S.A.-for many reasons, but mainly because no one wanted to take a risk on a young unknown artist. After my first show, with Hilger, at the Basel Art Fair in Switzerland I sold everything Ernst had brought and was able to get into some major collections. Since then I have had solo shows throughout Europe and now I am showing at Mitchell-Innes & Nash in New York, which I am very happy about.