The Starbeck Orion Issue #7 Not Advent: An Anthology. Page 1 of 25 Featured Artworker: Jerome Berglund

A Feast Of Words And Image

Our Front Page Featured Artworker is Jerome Berglund

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Jerome Berglund

graduated from the cinema-television production program at the University of Southern California, and has spent much of his career working in film and photography. His pictures have been featured prominently in many journals, including gracing the cover of a recent issue of pacificREVIEW, have further been published and awarded in local papers, and he staged an exhibition in the Twin Cities area which included a residency of several months at a local community center. A selection of his black and white fine art photographs was showcased at the Pause Gallery in New York, and his fashion photography is currently on display at the BG Gallery in Santa Monica.

The Artworker Interview

Q:1. When and why did you start making photographs?

The first real photos I took were on travels around country I made with family in my youth, I had some great experiences with grandparents in the black hills and badlands of South Dakota and with nuclear unit on visits to Wounded Knee and the Pine Ridge reservation which had lasting impacts on my interests both aesthetically and morally for the rest of my life! I also was fortunate enough to get some seat of the pants experience with independent documentaries celebrating local indigenous culture in my adolescence which really informed and translated into my future philosophies and gonzo, naturalistic, cinema verite approaches both to photography and storytelling.

Q:2. Who introduced you to photography?

I had some extraordinary instructors in black and white DSLR analog picture taking and video art at university, interestingly the professors who most impacted me rather than those in film school (the University of Southern California, if the top rated cinema program at the time, in essence proved something of a bilking and great disappointment -- and grotesque waste of resources -- in practice though I still had some unforgettable and highly impactful positive experiences nonetheless) were the ones who generously instructed us at the local community college where I completed my general education credits before transferring and earned an associate degree. I had some incredible teachers who truly cared and communicated, impressed profoundly on me a love of and appreciation for the thoughtfully immortalized frame, deep meanings which could be embedded for posterity with careful execution. Besides an emphasis in philosophy I essentially completed all the credits besides some labs required for a theater/drama minor according to their framework, and a comprehensive and inclusive appreciation for the back-end complexities relating to the stage, from set construction to lighting and makeup, additionally provided me much valued perspective and countless precious insights which I later applied regularly to work behind a lens!

Q:3. How aware are and were you of the dominating presence of older photographers traditional and contemporary?

I'm not sure if age per se was the aspect or element that I've personally witnessed as borderline problematic and deeply detrimental in photography and film, but more the domination from my experience was caste related by those with capital and influence, which of course was deeply correlated with, inextricably linked with maturity as naturally those with more years under their belt would of course have more resources, better connections, a monopoly and stranglehold on the market expectedly. But it was equally possible for young aristocrats, bourgeois inheritors to corner the market, shoulder out and squash competition with ability to own superior equipment, work at cost to undercut others, etc. In the film world these concepts apply gratuitously, those persons I know who succeeded and carved out a niche for themselves were extraordinarily talented, driven, hard working, but there was always also that crucial necessary component where they had to invest several hundred k (or a mil) in equipment whatever way, whether in camera body for renting out for filming or massive competitive packages for wedding photography, DIT gear, grip trucks, editing or sound bays, brick and mortar headquarters, and so on. Back in the midwest similar patterns presented themselves to my eye, for fashion and portraiture having a rented space, grandiose studio lighting, medium format cameras etc., willingness and ability to complete large quantities of portfolio and test shoots gratis, allowed a disproportionate advantage and dominating by those which means which from an egalitarian standpoint raises many concerns about the 'pay for play' aspect of all professional career photography and entertainment, though it's also extraordinary and exciting to see how cell phone editing apps and increasingly sophisticated technology are democratizing and make available to the underprivileged plebs, unwashed proletarian heroes the tools and capability to compete impressively with the affluent classes and forces who have been reigning dubiously for so long thanks at least in part to fortunate positioning, economic circumstances?

More from Jerome on a later day in this issue.