Sad Mag: Who is Jeff Downer? What do you do?
Jeff Downer: I can’t remember the last time I was bored. My favorite thing to do is to go where I have never been before. I am a photographer. But when I think of a photographer, I think of one who shoots manicured fingernails on a bed of diamonds, a freshly-washed, well groomed poodle, or a structurally accurate rendering of a building that looms large overhead.
I use the medium of photography to present to others what I find around me when I am haunting the streets that may otherwise go unnoticed. I think if I wasn’t photographing, I would like to own a nick-nack shack on the side of the road, selling strange oddities, horrible coffee, mediocre food, smoking cigarettes, somewhere lost in the deserts of New Mexico.
SM: Why did you transplant to Vancouver?
JD: I moved to Vancouver because the stagnant pressure of the suburbs was too intense. In high school I spent my time doing homework at the bus stop, scrawling mathematics — a subject I disregarded — using the metal pole as a surface to write, or reading Franny and Zooey for English on the long bus ride into the city. This is also where I met some close friends, others who were just as estranged by the suburbs as myself who put up with the long bus ride down the highway, through countless strip malls, suburban lawns, taking us to the then old, defunct Woodwards on Hastings. However, like most Vancouverites I know, give me one year and I will be thinking about leaving and moving elsewhere.
SM: What did you shoot for Issue 9?
JD: Photographs I took when I was hitchhiking across North America, shortly after I realized how much a 9-to-5 was the least congruent thing I could do to myself. It was like wearing one of those radiation protective jackets they stick on you at the dentists when making x-rays of your teeth; it was that heavy. The other was of a terrific restroom in an Elvis themed cafe, lost in the middle of the highway somewhere near Hells Gate, BC, that had the kookiest owner ever. Imagine an Elvis paraphernalia hoarder with two shih tzu’s that probably hadn’t talked to a single individual for the better half of the morning.
SM: What do you love about photography?
JD: I want to describe the world around me, and attempt to do this through the medium of photography. I photograph what is around me, things that are just there, things that I am interested in. I like the process of taking pictures, wondering around finding things that catch my eye. The photograph is secondary to this act of moving through the world, and is sort of a document of this process.
SM: Do you have a favourite photo?
JD: Yes I have one, but no one will ever see it.
SM: Favourite local photographer?
JD: Besides Bryan Adams (kidding), has to be Tim Barber, even though, he lives between Vancouver and New York. His “untitled photographs” are so alluring and are refreshing moments that loaded within the moment. Beautiful.
SM: Where can people see more of your work?
JD: If anyone is going to be in Boston, I am part of a group show opening Friday the 13th at the Presidents Gallery. I have two publications out, one called “Gol Nu Get Mote” but the first pressing is currently sold out, and a new book coming in May “[ver-seylz]”. I have a website too.
Catch Jeff’s photographs in Issue 9, on stands everywhere at the end of April!