Art Will Set You Free / Classiq Journal

Conversation with Photographer Bill Phelps

Ada Pîrvu for Classiq Journal / April 14, 2021

As life was turning constantly during this past year, when at times there seemed to be no belief in hope, but only in the present, one of the things that constantly kept me looking, hoping to see beyond what I saw was my on-going conversation with photographer Bill Phelps. From the very beginning, we both agreed to keep our conversations in writing, in mutual appreciation of the time we would afford each other to truly carve out time and space for a little more communication, for letting our thoughts form, for coping with everything that was going on in life. Bill’s creative process came up in our interview, but it was his openness and honesty about his feelings, about navigating life, about his New York City bar that stood as Café Moto for more than a decade before it had to close last year, about homeschooling his daughter, about a day’s perspective that started from sitting by a burning fire, that made me fully understand that his creativity came from and was reborn from his perception of everything in life.

His photography is like that. It has no hurried departure, nor a preconceived destination. It’s more like a wondrous path in which spontaneity, intimacy and a truthful eye are at play time and again. It’s about discovery, letting something unfold, full of the unexpected, but always looking for what’s genuine and real, and relating to people, to the human part of people. I remember how moved beyond words I was when Bill wrote to me one day, telling me how emotional a recent shooting had been, the first one since lockdown, when he was able to be among people again, sharing with them the excitement of feeling alive and creating. Creativity is his basis of self-expression. Affection runs through all of his work, sprung from his desire to express himself, to give everything he can give, to let it go and be part of life, art and heart his greatest companions, and resulting in such a deep and profound experience for everyone being part of, witnessing or viewing it.

For as long as possible, he hung on to analog photography, which I believe has enabled him to shape his stories, like a maker. He is a storyteller. The most important thing is to tell a story – through light and shadow, through a personality, a gaze, a mindset – that genuinely talks about life, and being, and that he can share with people through his pictures. He doesn’t just capture something or someone, it’s more like a connection between him and his subject and the space around them. He captures what makes sense to him, just a moment of pure sincerity (even when he is shooting a landscape), just an evanescent moment of life.

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