Brooklyn-based Daniel Arnold’s photos are rarely pretty. On Instagram, his images appear like a record-scratch. Heavy observations of the daily strain and mundane are frozen. His blatantly honest images take you closer, amplifying the discomfort and the uncertainty.
For our first MPN feature we talk to Arnold about intent, awkwardness and how shooting mobile affects his photographic process.
Your images capture the beautifully awkward, sometimes appearing almost judgemental. Do they have a common theme?
I think the theme of the photos has more to do with the viewer than with my intentions. Some people see a thread of vulnerability or awkwardness or even cruelty. To me, the best of my photos show moments when recognizable, commonplace elements align to suggest something larger than reality. Pictures with a story that real life can’t completely support. When I can’t pull that off, I edit emotionally. The photos that get in your stomach with a whiff of old feelings are the ones that make the cut. Awkwardness usually gets that point across pretty directly because it is so universally avoided. It’s the awful truth slipping out, and we all know how it feels. I think I fall back on fumbling Times Square mascots as often as I do because they combine both of those “themes” in a literal package. They are eeriness incarnate — familiar supernatural — and they ooze shame by not having any. I’m sure I’ll change my mind on all this a thousand times by tomorrow.
Your images are carefully presented, often cropped significantly. Why?
That’s a style choice that comes and goes. I do it less and less lately, but when significant cropping happens, it’s done to tell a story most efficiently. In a busy subway car, the story might only be happening in an eye twitch. I just do what I have to do to tell it best. Same goes for all care in presentation. Boiling an image down is particularly handy when you only get to see it as big as a postage stamp.
Has shooting with a mobile phone changed your photography with other cameras?
First of all, I never don’t have a camera. In that regard, the phone accommodates obsession better than a camera ever could. Also, the ability to shoot people without flashing a camera allows me to capture honesty I’d never get otherwise. The potential that the phone unlocks keeps me more alert than I knew I was capable of being. It has re-trained my eye and made me worlds better on a regular camera too.
How does your contact with an audience on Instagram impact you and your work?
It’s a great ego stroke. Can’t deny that. I don’t think many humans are immune to the allure of attention and community, even if they’re not crazy about it. Although I think ‘like’ counts and comments often undermine the photos, constant feedback (positive or negative) is definitely a factor in the motivation to stay feverish and to keep improving.
Finally, please name one mobile photographer whose images have impacted your own work.
Before Instagram was introduced, some friends and I posted mobile photos to a blog called Born Tired, that nobody outside of our social circle really knew about. The photos were mostly cruel inside jokes aimed at other members of the group. I came into the project very late, as a fairly distant outsider and didn’t know anybody well enough to feel comfortable mocking them. So I had to use a different language to tell a different kind of joke.
Keeping Born Tired in the back of my head as I went about my day, trained me to be extra sensitive to the cheap comedy around me. But I ended up seeing a lot more than I expected to. What I ended up with was a stockpile of images that, in my mind, beat all my joke shots easy, but that felt too heavy for that venue. So, when I finally found my way to Instagram (which has since unfortunately all but killed Born Tired), not only did I have a significant back catalogue to tap, but I also had a pretty specific style already developed. And now I had a place where I could do more than just tell jokes, and my hobby went crazy into a full on sickness.
That initial group of people included @jeffhenny, @chronicolas, @terryojohnson, @machuelster, @joegarvey, @sunbunz, @workoutband, @jeremiahfinds, @jimburon, @ryanmcgaffigan42069, @traviskiewel, @adamjloeb, @mormon_nailer, @macglove and several others.
You can find more of Daniel Arnold’s work on Instagram (@arnold_daniel) and his blog When to Say Nothing.