Rebecca Smeyne

Rebbecca Smeyne can't draw, paint, or do any of that stuff.  But she does have a really good eye, which for her can be a frustrating thing.

So, what kind of stuff were you into when you were a kid? You don't have to say photography at all, but if it was, tell me about it. What were you interested in? How did you have fun? Oh, and where did that all happen?

Oh boy. I grew up in Texas, but I was raised by northerners. Lubbock, Texas, to be exact. I didn't fit in very well, but I tried. I wouldn't say I was ever doing anything subversive. Honestly I was really into shopping which sounds lame, but I think for me, it was a creative exercise.

Well, what did you watch or see as a kid? What did you like? Movies about shopping?

Crap. Well, I did like porn.

There you go. “Honesty” always plays the hits if you dig a little.

There was this Cinderella porn, specifically

Tell me all about it.

Well, when I used to hang out with my girlfriends when I was around 10, 11 years old, my fave things were to sleep over, play dress-up, and watch stay up late watching porn on pay cable. We didn't have it at my house so for me it was really exciting.

The one that I remember most vividly was the Cinderella porn, which is exactly what it sounds like, very literal Cinderella story but with a lot more fucking and a corncob dildo thrown in... And my memory could be making this part up, but I think there's a scene where Cinderella uses the corncob dildo in the bathtub, and after she's done, popcorn starts popping out of her pussy. I loved that part, if my childhood memory didn’t make it up, that is.

I need to believe that’s real. So when did you end up leaving there and heading to the city?

I went to Columbia so I moved here right after high school -- that was over 10 years ago. I’ve been here the whole time with a few stints in Paris.

So when did you start taking pics?

About a year and half ago, I was really depressed. I'm a very depressive person, if I'm not doing what I want to be doing and I had gotten to a point in my life where I had already done the thing I thought had wanted to do, and I was miserable. Then my dad sent me an old camera in the mail that he found in his attic it was actually something his father had given to him for the

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occasion of his birth... this is cheesy I know... but trust me, it wasn't that kind of thing. We actually all hate each other.

Good.

Whatever. I bought a book about photography--- I should say I had been a follower of contemporary photo already, but never shot anything--- and I learned how the principles. It ain't that complicated, you know this, and I never showed anything to anyone but then I wanted to learn to print so I took at class at cooper union I was on around my 10th roll of film ever at this point and the instructor, who had just finished at Yale, flipped out over what I was printing so I started talking to him, and he told me I should put a book together, all that. I never did, but on a whim one day I entered a show and got in.

Man, those "on a whim" moves always pan out.

It’s cool but the shooting is something I do for me. I don't mean just the process of shooting but more the creation of a body of work, for its own sake

Do you always have the camera on you or do you pick and choose when to carry it around?

I pick and choose only because it's big and it's a separate bag I have to carry and I hate to always drag so much shit around... I keep trying to get a tiny camera that's good but the sensors all suck in them, I find. I always get pissed when I see stuff and don't have it.

What's the craziest thing, or the thing that sticks out in your memory the most, that you didn't have your camera with you, or wasn't able to shoot for some reason? What’s the “Big Daddy Kane” of them all?

Honestly, for some reason, the first thing that came to mind -- this is fucked up perhaps-- is my brother and his girlfriend hitting each other and screaming at each other in Chinese while my mom stood there trying to break it up. That shit was hilarious. I'd give anything to have shot that. Of course that presents a whole other issue, which is shooting in situations where people don't want you shooting them.

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What's your favorite thing to shoot? We all like a pile of options, but overall, we're looking for something, always would opt for one thing over all the others. Have you decided what yours is?

Yeah but I haven't done much of it. What I just said basically, that’s really the holy grail of photography, to me. It’s about access; it's about voyeurism that's what I'd like to do. It takes a lot of balls and I’m still working on mine, my balls that is.

So do you find yourself shooting a lot from the hip? That’s how I get most of my shit where I wouldn’t be allowed to shoot. I just do it anyways, at anything other than eye level.

Yeah I got the camera I have because it's got live preview and an adjustable waist-level viewfinder. That's the only reason I bought that one. Though I'm prob’ gonna just go for it and buy something crazy soon because I have quality concerns with the current one.

How did you evolve as a photographer? What did you start off shooting?

I started off shooting only things -- mostly intersections of colors and things, including people, but usually from behind. I don't think I shot anyone's face for the first six months. Also the “school of anomie” that's fashionable these days. I was into that for a while, but I feel like I'm too influenced by the work of other people when I do that. Like I'm replicating someone's style....and it looks good, but it didn't engage me enough.

The school of anomie?

All the photos with themes of alienation, empty spaces. That's what I call it.

Ohhhhh, gotcha. The desolation genre, post apocalyptic “A Boy and His Dog” type landscapes.

Yeah, Eggleston kind of stuff, but more dark and bland, though I LOVE him. He makes much better use of color and it makes all the difference. I’m really into color on the visual level -- I don't think could shoot black and white, I never have, never wanted to.

So besides photography, what are you up to?

Well my latest development is also photo, but curatorial. I'm going to be a guest curator for group-show.com, and I’m using my company -- myopenbar -- for sponsorship, and promotions because humble is bringing group-show to live, starting with a show at 3rd ward in December. I'm working with Jon Feinstein on that. It's all emerging fine art photo.

So that's it for the curatorial thing -- it's something I’ve wanted to do for a while; I'm sort of a defacto curator of everything in my life anyways. It's a mental defect I think.

Tell me about the birth of MyOpenBar.com.

The genesis of myopenbar was a strange one. I used to live with a guy, and when we broke up, he moved in with this hipster in Williamsburg, started drinking going out all the time, which he had never done before. He was super depressed too. They were both pretty cute band guys so their phones rang, a lot -- so much that it became a problem.

Most of the people were calling to find out where the parties were, and rob, the roommate, said, we should just throw this shit on the web. Seva, my ex-boyfriend, is, on the inside, kind of a dork, so he actually did it. Overnight they had a crazy response, just to the rudimentary version.

They called it myopenbar, since it's all events with free booze. Seva called me, I remember, I was in Miami, alone, sitting by a pool in the rain. And he asked me if I’d write the website. He said he wanted my critical tone for it. He always used to rag on me for being such a critical person...but really, he loved it.

So I started doing that. I took a hiatus for about 3 months while we worked out some interpersonal problems, and he wrote it -- and it was still good, and very similar to my tone -- but very sloppy. Then when the full page story in the Sunday NY Times came out.... I called him up and agreed to be back in. I wasn't intending to get involved nearly as much as I did, but I very quickly took over the entire editorial side, and I’m a partner and major player in the development of the business as well and shit is insane now. The business is good, so good. Not money but connections, partnerships... expansion vertical and horizontal.

It’s always so strange how organically and simple great things start out and how fast they just mushroom.

I love brand-building on this level when you have people and tools to work with. Yeah we started a year ago and now we have about 35 people working for us, and we have weekly, consistently good, full, funny, well-written, well-edited sites in NY LA SF and CH. Boston is in development, and then of course there's the new site, the sample sales.

So getting back to your photography, tell me about the time you got to pop a photo of something completely fucked and you can't believe you got away with it, or how perfect it came out or how well a theoretical “shot in the dark" came out.

Oh, okay. Well, actually now that I think about it it's sort of hard to apply to what I do. I mean I do catch dudes fingering girls and stuff; I have a couple of those that are good. You mean like that? Oh! The guy in the blue shorts, it’s one my very early shots. And that was not a zoom lens; I just try to be subtle.

So that picture isn't staged?

I don't think I’ve ever shot anything staged. Staged is a turn-off for me. I was waiting in line for a ferry to take me from a beach in jersey back to Manhattan. I was just sitting on the ground. He’s a stranger, standing in line. We were both just talking with our friends.

A lot of people compare my stuff to Martin Parr. I had never heard of him, now of course I love his stuff. I don't want to look at it though. I don't want to be affected. I feel like even seeing one photo, he had one in the New Yorker recently, that tainted me a bit, influenced me too directly. I immediately saw it in my work.

It’s a hard line to walk.

Yeah it's important to have your own voice but inevitably there are other people with similarities. It’s also kind of exciting to discover someone else's work you can identify with so strongly though.

You just have to eventually grow confident enough in your voice or style that you can appreciate the work but not feel directly impacted by it, but not so set in ways that you can’t keep evolving it. Again, it’s a tough road to hoe.

Do you think, to a degree, the omnipresence of cameras have for the moment, done some damage to parties in New York? Have you felt the backlash?

It's annoying and laughable to me, because you know most everyone’s pictures suck. And sometimes they take the good spots, if it's at any sort of act- music, stripping, whatevs.

But at the end of the day, if that’s what people want to do they should be able to do it as long as they don’t get banned, so then I cant take shots. But it’s easy to hook up access, and best to, really, in those kinds of situations.

Have you ever gotten into some shit over a photo you shouldn’t have taken?

I got threatened with a knife on the G-train, a few Sunday mornings ago. Flash street photography in a closed environment is a terrible idea, FYI.

The guy screamed at me and called me a bitch. The picture was just of him. It sucked too. That’s the day I learned the lesson -- if you're gonna pull that shit you'd better as well at least make it worth it. I didn't though. Well, I guess I did get this story, so not a total loss.  It helps to be a girl for all this stuff, usually.

As a final question; tell me a quick story about a time that you thought you were going to be killed or a time that you pulled of some shit you'd love at least one more person to know about. It's random I know, but we we're all fuck ups at one point or another and everyone's got this story. Let's hear it.

When I was 15 this dude picked me up in his truck and drove way out into the middle of nowhere (i lived just around the corner from there) he drove deep into a dirt field, told me to get out, and turned off the engine. He took these big cases out of the back of the truck and opened ‘em up. And they were full of machine guns, like Rambo style. Totally illegal shit. Then he gave me one! He commanded me to shoot! I was afraid but I did it.

We just shot at the ground for a while, both of us, with machine guns. He had more guns too, a small one in his pants. I asked if I could go home and he said no. He said I had to keep shooting, but then eventually we just put the guns back and he drove me home.

That was it. No monkey business, very anti-climactic I know…. but you did say “a time I thought I would be killed....”

Websites

http://www.jenbekman.com/blog/?p=50
http://www.myopenbar.com