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September 8, 2008 |
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Created and Maintained by: The Photoimaging Information Council |
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by Sarah Coleman |
 
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>>Click here to read Chip Simons' Ten Tips for making creative images... It’s a warm Wednesday morning in New York, and Chip Simons is brainstorming about bread. “You could have a photograph where two loaves of bread are curled up on a sofa, and the caption is, We Knead Each Other,” he says. “Or how about this: I’m Not Crazy about Him, but He Makes a Lot of Dough?” He looks up and laughs, blue eyes sparking in his boyish face. “Or you’ve got a baguette that’s all mangled and crumbly, and you call it Bread Head.” This is the way Simons’ head works: a dozen ideas a minute, churned up and burped out by the extravagant machinery of his fertile mind. After a few minutes with him, you start to imagine what it’s like in there: a multi-layered, endlessly spinning amalgam of gears and conveyor belts, all bringing in data then dissecting, mis-matching and garnishing it to create something entirely new.  A very striking image © Chip Simons
Undoubtedly, this wild imagination is the quality that catapulted Simons into the top rank of American editorial photographers in the early 1980s. Like a punk crashing a prep school gathering, Simons arrived at the party with a new bag of tricks: fisheye lenses, colored gels, jerry-rigged lighting setups made with old soup cans and the lids of woks. Fresh out of art school, he used his madcap creativity to disguise a lack of technical expertise. “I didn’t know what I was doing,” he admits. “I was just hanging out, having fun making images.” Apparently, though, he was doing something right. After Interview magazine launched its first color issue in 1984 with Simons’ images of dogs shot at dogs’-eye level and lit with colored strobes, his career literally took off. Put in the enviable position of being on every major photo editor’s speed dial, Simons didn’t look for work for 17 years. “They all came calling,” he says, a touch of awe in his voice. “Everyone wanted to know, Who is this dog guy?”  My Black Period: Snow Crab leg. © Chip Simons
Before long, the “dog guy” became known for images that didn’t look like anyone else’s. He shot restaurants with fisheye lenses and lit them to look like bordellos, the fiery red glow emphasizing a spice-laden menu. Portraits of celebrities might be shot in hazy silhouette, or from behind. Using spotlights and LEDs, he’d “paint” squiggles of light onto a negative during a long exposure. It was the pre-digital age, before Photoshop made visual wizardry mainstream, and to get his effects Simons relied on such low-tech materials as grease from the side of his nose and $2 flashlights.  I Am a Dog: Bulldog © Chip Simons
Success built on success, and at the peak of his career, Simons was getting frequent assignments from the likes of Rolling Stone, Time, Newsweek, Fortune and the New York Times Magazine. At one point, his style became so influential that it spawned a crop of “Chip rip” imitators, which was flattering but ultimately annoying. “I’m not business-minded,” he remarks with a sigh. “Some people have made more money imitating me than I’ve made being me.”  This image was part of a series for a magazine assignment on bad hair days. © Chip Simons
Still, Simons was definitely prospering when, in 1993, he and wife Cyndy left New York for New Mexico, where they bought a farm. It was a dream life, complete with sheep, gourmet kitchen appliances and a ten-mile bike trail along a river. Then, two years ago, the marriage began a slow decline that ended in a bitter divorce. Emotionally raw and financially strapped, Simons recently moved back to New York to find a new direction for himself.  The “Bunny” series is a contemporary fable about a group of creatures living in a post-apocalyptic landscape. © Chip Simons
As his marriage crumbled, Simons found himself creating a wealth of images. There’s a series he calls “Bunny,” a poignant contemporary fairy tale about a set of half-human, half-rabbit creatures who live in a strange, post-apocalyptic landscape. In retrospect, Simons says, the series was deeply autobiographical: its melancholy, threat-laden atmosphere foreshadowed what was about to happen in his own life.  Teenage bunnies hang out behind a barn. © Chip Simons
At the same time, for light relief he started creating a series of surreal, Pop-inspired visual puns that range from obvious plays on words (“Toe Truck” shows a giant toe poking out of the back of a pickup truck), to more refined send-ups (“Face of Christ in Burnt Toast”). Not meant to be sophisticated (“I suck at Photoshop,” Simons admits), the images are sometimes sublime, sometimes ridiculous, and often both. “How often do you look at a photograph and laugh?” Simons asks. “I love it that I can show this series to anyone – a senior citizen, a Tasmanian, an autistic person – and they laugh.”  Face of Christ in Burnt Toast © Chip Simons
Finally, as he was preparing to leave New Mexico and his marriage behind, Simons created “My Black Period,” where he isolated over 6,000 objects in his home – from garlic bulbs to bulldog clips and Brillo pads – and photographed each against a plain black background, using a large Ellenchrome light to give the objects an uneathly glow. Shot over four days, the series was an obsessive attempt to wrench some scraps of meaning from a life he was about to leave. “I’d send it to people and they’d say, This is the worst shit you’ve ever done – but you know, I think it’s really great,” he says, eyes twinkling.  My Black Period: Mushrooms. © Chip Simons
Now, back in New York, Simons is ready to move on to the next phase of his colorful career. A keen cook, he’s often inspired by food. “My favorite thing to cook? Meatloaf,” he says emphatically, then rattles off a list of other favorites: pot roast, chili rellenos, crabcakes, guava cheese pastries. Perhaps that’s why so many of his images feature food, from his bunnies holding giant peapods and carrots to the Magritte-like “Corn Dog” (inspired by a Belgian friend’s comment about how Americans have strange names for food, like corn dog and popcorn chicken).  Corn Dog © Chip Simons
So what comes next? One plan Simons has is to start his own greeting card company with his funky surrealist images. He’d also like to do more editorial work, but not if he has to compromise. At fifty, he’s clearly comfortable in his own skin, and makes refreshingly honest comments like, “I don’t want to go back to being a big fake guy working for People magazine” Clearly, these could get him crossed off certain editors’ call lists for good, but Simons doesn’t care. “My ego and identity isn’t tied to publishing,” he says. “I’m probably bigger with rednecks than with the gallery crowd – which, as far as I’m concerned, is ok.” Whatever happens next, one thing seems sure. Simons will continue to create unique, vivid imagery, whether for billboards, greeting cards or coffee table books. As he rides around the city on his mountain bike, or cooks up his signature meatloaf, the idea factory in his noggin will be whirring away. Soon enough, something odd, whimsical and unexpectedly moving is bound to emerge.
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