Maxwell Duryea is double majoring in art studio and print journalism at UNM. He's hard-pressed to find something that doesn't inspire him to whip out his camera.
Besides doing independent study, he's taking intermediate photography, art history, photo art history and sculpture. He's going to the U.K. after he graduates at the end of this semester.
Daily Lobo: You think everything should be photographed?
Maxwell Duryea: Yeah, everything.
DL: Even lint?
MD: Anything, yeah. Everything should be photographed. These are all photographs I've shot in the last four or five years. These were from last semester. It's a series on my nervousness of cycling.
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DL: Your nervousness of cycling?
MD: Yeah, like the installment of fixed-gear riding and the carelessness of everyone.
DL: What does that photograph have to do with cycling?
MD: You have to look at it very closely. There's bikes in the window. The trash can is filled with bikes. Within cycling culture, there's every sort of genre of riding. I think that a lot of people are irresponsible with it, so there's a series on that. Subsequently, I worked at the UNM bike shop and felt that it was different than what I'm used to.
DL: (Pointing at a photo.) They're eating a bike?
MD: This is a photograph shot on Thanksgiving where a bike stands in for the turkey.
DL: What's your bicycle nervousness?
MD: I've been an avid cyclist my whole life, and I think that there's a misuse sprung of people getting into it as sort of a way into a group, not as a way into exercise or enjoyment - careless and part of riding around and not thinking of being part of transit or traffic.
DL: Did you get into an accident that made you weird about that?
MD: No. I went to the U.K. for a year for school and realized how motorists and cyclists should act and then came back here and was a little frustrated by it. The other major thing I do is portraits. I think portraits can be of anything, but these are portraits of people.
DL: (Points at photo.) Don Schrader!
MD: Yeah, I've done a lot of editorial work around campus and fellow artists and neighbors and random people; March Mustache Madness. All these things. Again, it goes back to shooting everything. I don't see a point to not try everything. Try it out. If you don't like it, then you don't like it.
DL: But at least you tried. Do you have any shows coming up?
MD: I had my graduate show at the beginning of this semester in the John Sommers upstairs. I have a piece at North Fourth Gallery right now. I'm going to Europe this summer to do an internship with a magazine over there - Mountain Biking U.K.
DL: So you'll be taking bike photos?
MD: Well, yeah, portraits of everything.. I worked for Kim Jew shooting sports. Photojournalism, portraiture, editorial, sports, fine art and so forth - I've really been lucky to try everything. I'm not exactly sure what I'd like to do. But what I would like to do is shoot everything. I don't see the point to just focus on one area when there's so much to do. I've yet to find an end to photographing something.
DL: Is there any constant thing you use in your approach?
MD: I think that interesting photographs, to me, are uninteresting to other people. And it goes vice versa. Ordinary things are ordinary things; they don't interest anyone. So having a little bit of both is generally exciting for someone.
DL: Having both what?
MD: Something that is visually interesting to one person and uninteresting to another person.
DL: Well, that's anything, right? I mean, people aren't going to agree on one thing.
MD: I have to look at these photos over and over again. Any photos I've shot. Be it on my cell phone or anything, from back when I was 5 to 10, I used to shoot disposables. And I just kind of look back through them and see both the progression of my life as well as technology. I've been really lucky getting into this program right as there are all the processes available. We get color, black and white, fiber based, non-silver, and now digital.
DL: What's your favorite one?
MD: Digital is best on the environment and resources. You can shoot so much more. You can experiment so much more.
DL: Did anything big come of your time here?
MD: I have friends in other art institutes, in other photo programs, and this one by far is the most strict and the most helpful. They really push you to do better work. They critically analyze your stuff. They won't just hold your hand and say, 'Good job,' which is exactly what you need, especially coming out at this day and age into a market where there's not really a market.. The teachers here are wonderful. A lot of the professors are professional photographers that have made their place in the world doing what they wanted and then are teaching us how we might be able to do it. It facilitates a great learning environment for doing what you want to be.
