Kelly Casto: Spotlight 7 Week 13

Archive of Week 13 interview.

Please welcome our week 13 featured presenter, Kelco.

1) Tell us about your hometown and where you live now.

I grew up across the street from a plum orchard in San Jose, California. Section 8 housing in the suburbs, right down the street from Apple Computer. I currently live in Santa Cruz, CA.

2) What inspired you to do this set.

I thought it would be interesting to shoot a large number of people with the same basic lighting set-up, composition, expression, etc, and then show them together as a series. I like the fact that although many of the elements are the same, each image is completely different from one to the next. Plus, I think it will be a cool sociological experiment to see how people react when they walk into a room and see 50 grim hoodlums staring back at eye-level.

3) What is the lighting setup for that?

A Canon 550EX with a diffuser on camera, bounced off several reflectors.

4) How do you get the emotion you want from your models?

I ask. Most people are surprisingly good actors.

5) If you could spend one week all expenses paid anywhere just doing photography, where would it be?

Ellis Island at the beginning of the 20th century.

6) How about one person you never photographed that you'd like to?

For what I'm doing right now - Clint Eastwood. If he's not into it, I'd take Tom Waits.

7) Is there a type of photography you've never tried but would like to?

I'd love to learn how to make Daguerreotypes or work with other antique processes like Wet Plate Collodion.

8) Tell us something about one of the photo's we chose for Spotlight Seven

Rasputin is probably my favorite of the shots you chose to display. It's a profile of my cousin on Christmas Eve of last year, smoking a cigarette in my grandmother's garage. He's a character that treats every holiday like it's Halloween. He's also a model who has worked with a who's who of famous photographers - so he knows what he's doing and is always a blast to shoot.

9) What are some long term goals in photography?

I'd like to make at least one classic, iconic photograph before I head to the happy hunting ground.

10) Show us a photograph you wish you took on flickr.

There are so many, but here are two that immediately come to mind:

Tacos de Chorizo by Luis Montemayor

The Genius by Rodolphe Simeon: