Vice Style

Brett Lloyd is a great photographer and the bits of the fashion world that get excited about photos of skinny young men love him. In maybe three years, he went from being unpublished to having his work featured at the very apogee of fashion publishing, maybe not the mass circulation stuff, but the stuff fashion people want to be seen in; AnOther Man, Vman, Candy, i-D, and Vogue Hommes Japan. Brett doesn't just shoot fashion, he also takes tons of photos of the friends he makes trawling the world's social networks.

New York-based art photographer Felix Werbowy was one of those boys. After loads of emailing, and a bit of Skype, they're friends now but have never met. Probably like a lot of people's faraway iChat friends, the two only really communicate when they've got some stuff to offload. Eventually they came up with the idea for their Tumblr, The Seldom Seen.

Art guys will want to know that the abstract pictures are mainly based around light, shape, and color, and everyone into guys will like the fact that there's plenty of skin on there. The result is a weirdly collaborative diary of two guys - who actually live completely separate lives and something like a new-wave-Tumblr-fashion-thing - where posting a picture is reciprocated with another well thought through picture, and the participants get to buzz off each other making something pretty.

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Vice: Did you know each other before you started the project?

Brett Lloyd: I was introduced to Felix's blog by a friend in Paris in 2008. We didn't really start chatting properly until a couple years later. The first proper chat we had, we'd both recently separated. It was a sad Christmas.


What do you like about each other's work?

Felix Werbowy: I like the eroticism in Brett's work. It comes across as completely heartfelt.
BL: The work in Felix's diary instantly had me thinking. There were lots of shots through the window of the world beyond and it seemed like he was some kid trapped in his house. Maybe he's not trapped in the house, maybe he just doesn't want to go out and he's happily playing around with his camera. Straight away I was thinking about the photographer, imagining what he was like. I was interested in him. That doesn't happen very often with me.

What is it that makes you feel a particular affinity with each other's work?

FL: There is such a powerful emotional presence in his photographs.
BL: Though his photographs are not explicitly self-portraits, you get an overwhelming sense of Felix.


Have you both actually met in person now? And if so, what was the first meeting like?

FW: As of right now, our relationship is purely electronic.


What was the original concept behind the project?

FW: The Seldom Seen has always been about talking with pictures.

BL: Invention or discovery and dialogue within light and shape.



Brett's took the picture on the right, it's a photo of his computer screen. The guy is his former boyfriend who lived in Moscow so they talked a lot on Skype. He sent it to Felix because he loved the colors and filthy marks on the screen. This reminded Felix of some pictures he'd taken of his friend on his own computer screen a month earlier. Though he thought Brett's was heavy, he replied with something "cute and playful". Felix reckons the pair is like a first date.

As you said, the works focus on light and form as opposed to people. Why?

FW: When Brett asked me to do this, he really put a lot of emphasis on light and I was attracted to the idea of exploring something as abstract as that.

BL: I guess shooting portraits all the time was getting on my tits a bit and I wanted to try something new. I went to South America last year and thought I'd try out landscape photography. It didn't work out though, I just couldn't get excited by it. When I got back to London I began experimenting with my iPhone camera, shooting light and shapes. I was getting some great shots that reminded me of Felix's work.

You guys are using images as a form of chat. How does that work?

FW: Think of it as a sentence that is only whole once the two posts are up on the page.
 One image explains the other.

BL: One of my favorite pieces was the shot of the shiny penny on the windowsill. It wasn't particularly my best image, but once Felix put his response up it literally took my breath away. I got the impression he was thinking above and beyond normal stuff. Straight away, these two images set a scene - the start of a movie almost. I wish there could of been a third and fourth of that series.

What's Seldom Seen for?

BL: To tell stories. 

There are also pictures of our lovers and exes.

Did you always want it to be that personal?

FW: I don't think we thought about that. The majority of the photographs come from our private lives, so that made things unintentionally personal.
BL: I guessed it would be, given what we shoot. My boyfriend forever inspires me and he's always around me. Lucky me.

Some of the images are very voyeuristic.

FW: That's very important to the project because I like to capture my subject without disturbing it. For me, that makes a pure image.
BL: Yeah, it's about seeing what's around you, not interacting with it. I have taken lots of the photos whilst on the bus or the train. Shooting fashion, you are always constructing an image and everyone involved is in on it. With Seldom Seen I can do the opposite. Taking photos of people on the street or on the bus is great. If the person sees you, even better.

What sort of pics work best?

FW: I try to keep Brett in mind and how my image will work with his. Though the decisive factor for me is the presence of light and the intensity of the colors within the image.
BL: I want people to go, "I love that, what is it?"



 

TEXT: WILLIAM OLIVER
PHOTOS: BRETT LLYOD, FELIX WERBOWY

TAGGED: Felix Werbwoy, Brett Lloyd