Charles Rozier: House Music
I featured the work of Charles Rozier some time ago on Lenscratch, so I was delighted when he sat down at my table at Photolucida. Charles has been documenting his family for a long time and had several monographs to share with me of the work. As I slowly turned the pages, I was profoundly moved (and admit I teared up) by his photographic legacy of those he loves and lives with. It was as if I was on the journey with him through part of his life.
Thought I’d let Charles do the talking from here on out:
I was born in 1951. Like many others I took an interest in photography, or more accurately cameras, at an early age. Then, in college, I discovered the work of Cartier-Bresson and Arbus. This had a profound effect on me, a life-changing experience that forced me to completely rethink what I was trying to accomplish in taking pictures. Eventually it led me to start on what 35 years later would become the current project.
Thought I’d let Charles do the talking from here on out:
I was born in 1951. Like many others I took an interest in photography, or more accurately cameras, at an early age. Then, in college, I discovered the work of Cartier-Bresson and Arbus. This had a profound effect on me, a life-changing experience that forced me to completely rethink what I was trying to accomplish in taking pictures. Eventually it led me to start on what 35 years later would become the current project.
I photographed for many years in a consistent manner while having little contact with the photographic world, taking pictures of the lives around me as the opportunities arose. Having a camera with me has always given me something to do with my hands and made me feel more at ease.
Again like many others I found work and started a family. Inevitably the pictures centered themselves on my immediate family and my in-laws, who lived not far away.
Over the years I accumulated contact sheets and files containing many thousands of images. Finally in 2001 I set aside a block of time and began compiling and printing them, and in 2008 I began showing them. I am now working a book that will encompass the most recent 25 years in a roughly narrative sequence.
House Music
These photographs are from a much larger 35-year series of unposed portraits of the people around me, mostly of my family. This project has driven most of my photography and remains a work in progress. I am in the process of assembling a selection of the images into a book, titled “House Music”, that will encompass a 25-year period in a narrative direction like a memoir without text.
Though not staged, these images differ from the purely documentary in that they generally remain ambiguous; I believe they are more likely to raise questions than give answers. In each one I am searching for an unexpected moment or undertone, captured within an ordinary but formally complete, evocative space.
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