My Interview with Jeffery John Masino

Jeff and I sat down and basically talked about each others work and are majors as well. It was interesting to see some of his work compared to mine since I was a graphic design major and he was a photography major. We shared our work with one either and then from there we went ahead and started the interview. He interviewed me and I interviewed him. This was all also recorded on video too.

Jeff- Hi my name is Jeff Masino I am a 5th year student at Mason Gross and I am photography a major. I came into the school thinking that I was going to be a filmmaker and be a big time movie director and first day of video1 it turns out to be all experimented video. I came into my own to realize that I like photo better than video, but I still enjoy the sound making of video. I did a piece with a loose narrative with 35mm color and from here I did my first foray into digital photo. I focus on doing closeup of objects that made the viewer try to figure what it is. I also wanted to focus on trying to make the piece look like a painting or something with textures. From there I did a set of somewhat smaller in size but same basic theory or theme where its closeups of pictures that you cant really tell what it is and from here, "I saw or heard sound from the images and I created a sound piece that". I put two photos together and projected on the wall and you heard the sound piece and basically you would feel some type of emotion by it and stuff.

Rudy- How long have you been doing photography?

Jeff- I been doing photography for the past 3 years and then before that I was doing video, so I've been in some type of photo or video imagery for the past 4 or 5 years now.

Rudy- What would you say your more comfortable with shooting snap shots of pictures or doing stuff with video?

Jeff- Photo and video are very different. Photo you could just put a lot of stuff into one photo and have a series of photos and could experience it that way. Video is basically moving images, which is basically a bunch of images put next to each other and fooling your eye into thinking that it's actually moving. I feel like right now I feel more comfortable with photo, but I also want to do video and incorporate the photos and the stuff that I learn in photo with my videos.

Rudy- With some of your work and even with some of your ideas that are put into your work, do you have any influences that inspire you?

Jeff- In my video background my influences were people like David Lynch, Peter Greenaway, and ummmm Kenneth Anger. Their stuff is very experimental and kind of absurd and just creepy stuff. And I guess a lot of my early work with imagery was very creepy and the sound work was very creepy and kind of gave people nightmares. With photo I guess I use my influences with film and video and set up the photos like that or try to tell a story with the photos like them where it's a loose narrative. I also get very much influenced from music, sound and from stuff that I see.

Rudy- With some of your work what do you want the viewer to feel or experience while looking at your art piece?

Jeff- For most of my work I would want the viewer to just experience a emotion or feeling from some of the work whether its a sense of nervousness that leaves them unease or even joy. I just want the viewer to be have some sort of feeling whether good or bad when looking at my work.

Rudy-Do you have any ideas for your Thesis?

Jeff- One of my ideas that I have is a continuation of my project from last year which was two photos projected on a screen and created a sound piece through that. Basically what I want to do is create a experience where there will be speakers sounding the viewer and that they will feel the vibration of the speakers and then maybe if it was a cool blue photo one will feel like a cold air and such from a fan. Basically I want all the senses to be affected by it. What I want to do is have the viewer interact. I wanna try to achieve with my thesis is something that you have to interact with and basically you are the piece and you feel like your part of the piece.

Rudy- Ok, one last question. How do you feel about thesis? Are you excited and looking forward into showing your work or are you nervous about the whole thing?

Jeff- I was nervous earlier last year thinking about it because I should have done it last year, but I didn't because I just had no idea what I wanted to do. But now that I have an idea I'm not as nervous. I have an idea and I'm excited for it and I just can't wait to experiment with the idea and through trials and errors finally figure out what I what to achieve.

Rudy- Ok that will be it. Thank you

Jeff- Thank you