Behind the lens

Cole Barash: Get Gone


Age?

28

Where are you based?

Berlin/Cape Cod, MA

How do you make a living?

Artist/Photographer

What camera do you use?

Mamiya 7, Sony ar7, Contax G2

How has travel made an impact on your life?

I’d say pretty largely as I have not been in one place for more than 40 days at a time since I was 16.  So 12 years?  I like to spend 50% of the time on the road making new work and then the other 50% of the time in my studio working on the images, sequencing them and sometimes taking them to additional mediums such as books, or resin pieces.  This is where the real magic happens as it starts to become something tangible in the studio.

What is your relationship to travel/adventure, and what does it mean to you?

I will forever be exploring new zones, waves, cultures and odd places.  These days the term “explorer” is viewed as someone that explores new places in nature it seems.  I actually think exploring can mean many different things including exploring new cities, new ways of a medium, new kinds of people- it doesn’t have to fully be about going to alaska and climbing denali.  I also think how Thoreau states something about how the true magic and secret is in your back yard and exploring every square inch of it.  I have been trying to keep this more in mind and realize you can travel, adventure, experience, new things right close to where you live by breaking out your routine and going against the normal track.


New England, October 2014

I live in a very small town surrounded by the atlantic ocean in new england 7 months out of the year.  Up there I have space to think, process, edit and also experiment.  It allows me to get in the mindset out of the madness of the world a bit and this is a direct result of that.

Grimsey Island, Janurary ’13.

This is from a body of work I have been working on for two years now, Grimsey.  Grimsey is an island located in the arctic circle, 6km long and a population of 95 people- truly such a beautiful odd place.  I’ve been going there exploring the land, going into people’s home and making photographs o this place that is frozen in time. The full body of work will be releasing in an offset printed hard cover book this September at the NY Art Book fair published by Silas Finch.

Cinque Terre, Italy, September ’14.

For the first time my family and I did a real “trip” together and we decided to travel europe for 30 days.  Cinque Terre was without doubt one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.  The water is crazy warm and has a very high content of salt which makes floating easier.  This is my girlfiriend Alix floating into eternal happiness.

Land of the lost, Iceland, Jan 2012

Three years ago I looked at my work as a whole and really wasn’t pleased.  I knew that it was time to dedicate some serious time to creating a new body of it or ideally a few different bodies.  Always been drawn to Iceland so I booked a 6 week long trip there with no plan of where I was going to stay or what I was going to go out and make photographs of.  I knew things would fall into place once I was into that mindset.  At one point in the trip I took off solo from Reykjavik, and just drove into the blue and darkness of the cold winter there and got lost.  Driving for hours on end, listening to music, and stopping whenever i felt something no worrying if it would work or not.  This is a result of that process.

Buchupuedo, Chile, April 15.

I like oddness and slightly off things.  I think those moments are more of a challenge to find or create or infuse.

Jay – Far north, B.C. Feb 2013

Jay fled to Canada from Wisconsin in 1989 when he was 20 in search of a simpler life in the wild. He eventually met a woman, married her, and moved into the wilderness 11 miles outside of town. He built a home and raised a family, living entirely off the land: A rare find in today’s world.

Iceland, January 2013

Driving solo into the blue north of Iceland for hours always obsessing over the dusk hours that brings the palette I most enjoy in search for nothing, everything and raw substance.  I had seen this from the distance, pulled over and hiked out for a while then making medium format long exposures of this raw expression of the earth.

Kobe, Japan, February 2014

I like to find small odd subcultures and then go spend a period of time with them developing a visual representation of my reflection of the experience.  I had always thought sumo wrestling was such an interesting but very serious Japanese tradition.  I spent several days in this sumo world in Kobe with a translator diving into their training facilities and their home life.


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