Looking at the works of Jacob Morel you can feel a continuous sense of discovery. His attention to details, and the quality of his graphic rendering make you feel in the middle of the action. Jacob Morel was born in Baltimore, he graduated previous this year at the Maryland Institute College of Arts and he now working of different projects. One of them, “Night Photography” takes now a big part of his Instagram account, and the optic effect of this work is quite impressive.
In this series, Jacob also focused on cars, and their role in the urban landscape. We reach him in order to know something more about his job.
I’d like to start asking you how did you get in touch with photography. I read you started drawing and then discover it. It is true?
Yes, this is true. When I was in high school, I was getting more into photography as a means of aiding my drawing skills. Around this time I began paying more attention to photography as something more serious than a hobby. I had my photographs in numerous school, county, and statewide shows in high school and as a senior I had a few of my photographs on display at the U.S. Capitol building. at experience acted as a boost in my ideology of ‘hey, maybe this is something I can be taking more seriously.’ I take photos because it relaxes me, some people like yoga or playing games, I like to make photographs.
How much of Baltimore, your city, is there in your works?
A great deal of my work is of Baltimore. It’s where I’m more or less from and I think this city deserves more content created about it that doesn’t portray it in such a distasteful light.
In your focus on Night Photography, it can be seen a lot of attention to cars and, in some sense, a kind of “investigation” of the place of cars in the urban context. It is a good interpretation?
I’m drawn to photographing automobiles almost purely on the principles of their design and how the shape of them interacts with the night-scape, (i.e. how they catch the light). The way older automobiles look is very distinct and in contrast to a rigid shape of city buildings or of nature, it makes for a compelling composition.
Also: in the last years cars have been, in my opinion, in the middle of a re-evaluation process in photography. A lot of photographers started to be interest in cars. Do you agree?
I think humans, ever since their invention, have been fascinated by cars. However in more recent years, especially in smaller, less ‘main-stream’ groups of photographers, a concentration on older automobiles has become a point of interest. I don’t know why there is this occurrence but I certainly don’t find it controversial, bad, or inline to have any effect on the work I’m making.
Your photos (in Night Photography) seems to frame vintage moments, that seems to come directly from 90s or 00s. It is your intention or it just happens due to the place you shot?
I wouldn’t quite say the images I create are exclusively ‘vintage moments’. Cities like Baltimore have a recent history of being categorized as “Rust Belt” or a once major city where production and efficiency was high back in the early days of America’s industrial revolution, and into the 1960’s and 70’s. Where as now, cities like Baltimore are falling into physical and economic disrepair. It is my belief that a part of why I like to photograph these old cars is because they have a faded call back to when the city was more alive. People hold on to old cars, people restore and repair them, why? Because they’re nostalgic sure, they are works of art, and they are functional.
How and, above all, why did you get in touch with night photography? Also, which is in your opinion the best “plus” night can add to a photo?
Photographing at night is unlike any other time to photograph. Everything from who is out, to the immense diversity of lighting situations you come across at night are unbelievable. The smallest things make the biggest differences with light at night.
I read you were inspired by Hopper works and his use of illumination. In your pictures there is a masterly usage of illuminated signs, something that is typically American. What are the great power of those signs in your opinion?
Yes, along with the Luminism painters like Albert Bierstadt, I’m fascinated by illumination. As for the signage and neon signs, there’s just no denying that they’re interesting to look at. They function as excellent pieces of light, art, functional design, and just something to catch your eye. It has a very overwhelming sense of ‘Americana’ that just seems to complement the work I’m making.
If I’m not wrong you started shot in digital, and then moved to analog. Why?
That is correct. I started shooting film mainly because of the large negative/positive I could obtain and the quality of the resolution produced once digitally scanned. Shooting night photos, the latitude of most color negative films aided the dynamic range I was able to obtain in a single exposure. All the digital photos I had been shooting were very dark in the shadows and very blown out in the highlights. Shooting a film like Kodak’s Portra 160, I was able to have the perfect amount of detail in shadows and highlights.
Baltimore has become “famous” in the world due to the tv series The Wire. But the Baltimore that comes out from your works seems very different from that one. Which is, nowadays, the situation of the city?
I’d say that Baltimore has become more infamous than famous for The Wire. John Waters puts it very perfectly when he said Baltimore as a whole is nothing like The Wire, but there are parts of Baltimore that are exactly like The Wire. This city isn’t New York, it’s not San Fransisco, this city is very divided, in good and bad ways. There’s little pockets everywhere in the city. Pockets of extreme wealth, pockets of extreme poverty.
Pockets of beautiful lakes, rivers, and rock, pockets of toxic industrial wasteland. Baltimore is certainly not one thing and it’s not a city that can be summed up in one word because it’s all simply too different, there’s so much that’s unlike everything else. It’s a city that does struggle with many issues and those issues seem to be the only things outsiders want to focus on. No one talks about the amazing sites, history, people, and innovation that Baltimore is.
Last question: which is, for you, the goal of photography? In other words, that photography should “do”?
For myself, I just want to make content that makes me happy. If others enjoy it and want to share with me the joy that comes from it, then that’s great, if I can support myself from that, even better, if not, I’m just going to do what makes me happy. Projects may come up where I have a goal to showcase issues, or document whatever, but as far as my work in the night, I work for myself.
