Shooting Star

Photographer J.J. Tiziou thinks you are beautiful.

by Deni Kasrel

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Published: Oct 4, 2006

"A lot of times the most interesting part of a story isn't the most obvious one, or what people are jumping to present," says photographer Jacques-Jean Tiziou. "Some of the nicest moments are when that last straggler is left, or before something is supposed to start."

For Tiziou, every picture tells a story. Every picture. The freelance shooter is keen to aim his camera at people doing seemingly banal things: smoking a cigarette, chatting with a friend, answering a phone. All of which are included in the vast archive of images he took for the Live Arts/Fringe Festival. (How vast? Fest organizers estimate Tiziou shot some 22,000 photos this year.)

Of course, Tiziou took plenty of shots of performers at the fests; even so, he firmly believes you can take an attractive portrait of anyone. "Whether that person is up there on stage with a microphone in the spotlight, or it's the person who's running the spotlight ... it's all pretty valid as far as I'm concerned."

He prefers to capture things as naturally as possible, and doesn't care much for posing. You won't find him toting around a lot of studio equipment (strobe lights, backdrop) to make a setting picture-perfect. Tiziou is most comfortable being a fly on the wall.

"He's very different from your standard institutional photographer," says Peshe Kuriloff, director of communications, policy and planning for Temple University's College of Education. Kuriloff accompanied "J.J." as he photographed people in their offices, classes and hallways, in order to illustrate an array of interactions at the college. "He just kind of hangs out and lets things happen," Kuriloff observes. "He took a lot of informal and relaxed shots because he really tries to present a person. It's not just a headshot — they just seem much more alive."

Similarly, Hannah Sassaman, program director for the Prometheus Radio Project, recalls riding with Tiziou and others down to Immokalee, Fla., to help build a community radio station. En route, Tiziou furiously took shots of people talking and sleeping in the van and relaxing at rest stops. Once in Immokalee he operated almost 24/7, taking thousands more photos. "He was able to capture the passion, the focus, the drive and the exhaustion of building a community radio station," says Sassaman. "The level of depth he brings to it is part of the success. He wants to capture every angle in order to tell the story the best."

Sometimes that means ascending 60 feet up the rickety ladder of a water tower — which Tiziou did during a community radio barnraising in Oregon. He's game. "I always end up getting myself in precarious situations, dangling for pictures," he says.

That urge to take on fresh points of view is why Tiziou became hooked on photography while in high school, in Washington, D.C. "Photography got you to places you wouldn't otherwise go," he remembers realizing. "I shot a lot of punk rock concerts and having a camera was an excuse to climb on stage and get a new perspective on things."

He came to Philadelphia to study at the University of Pennsylvania, where he initially enrolled as a biochemistry major, but later switched to fine arts when his interest in photography grew, due to involvement with the student paper The Daily Pennsylvanian. "Again, there was the appeal of discovering a lot of new things with the assignments I was getting. I didn't care about going to a football game, but being on the sidelines taking photographs was fun."

Nowadays J.J.'s lanky frame is a familiar presence on the local performing arts scene. He's also developed an interest in joining with organizations that work for social causes, such as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Medical Students Making Impacts. "I would like for my photography to support work for social justice," he says. "I'm transitioning more that way."

When not actively shooting he keeps busy archiving his images — which now number close to 250,000 — such that he's "become somewhat of an IT person" who "spends more money housing my data than I spend on housing myself." Meanwhile, he's always looking for opportunities to photograph individuals of interest.

"People are inherently beautiful and fascinating," he says. "Every person I take a picture of, for a split-second, I fall in love with ... I am rapidly becoming overextended in that sense — where there are so many people that I have this brief intense experience. Because with every single picture, I put a bit of my soul into it."

(d_kasrel@citypaper.net)

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