Lou Reed, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Kim Zorn Caputo TG-S: You know, one of the other things I see in Lou's pictures, is that he likes grain a lot. I know you like high-speed film, right?
LR: I guess it's kind of moody. I remember someone saying to me: Well, you can't do that because of the grain. And he was talking about something I'd already done that I really liked. So that's when I realized: you have to really love something - that's all, it doesn't much matter what anyone tells you.
TG-S: You also seem interested in night photography.
LR: That's because all these things happen to it, in the developing, with the high-speed film. This actually goes back to something I was doing with video. I did a tour where I went out with 60 TV sets. I had the old Betacam; it was for newscasters.
TG-S: The TVs were on stage?
LR: Yeah. It was just this cassette, and it was about 15 minutes long. I had a camera, and I brought the camera in to modify- 'cause I like high contrast. I had the camera reworked, so it... so it didn't need much light. I'm always trying not to use a flash always trying to get as high a contrast as possible, and not use any artificial light. Which may be 'cause I'm lazy. That's another possibility. I had seen these photos by Billy Linich (Billy Name). He took photos of Warhol's Factory. All very high-contrast. I loved those photos. I made films off TV sets, where I took the horizontal bar - which you could do in those days - I did this with old black-and-white movies, set the contrast all the way up and then - flip flip flip flip flip. It had to be a really old black-and-white movie; it couldn't be a modern movie; they have too many grays. And then I videoed it. You start hallucinating to it, and you can't tell what it really is. Then I made 12 stacks of five TVs each, and I played the videos through these stacks. They looked like giant ice cubes. It was incredible.
TG-S: What tour was it? Do you remember which album?
LR: It was my TV-set tour. I got these TVs from a hospital - they were gonna throw 'em away. We just wanted them as monitors. I loved the way this stuff looked. I thought it'd be so great to have these things in back of me on stage.
TG-S: So they were behind the band?
LR: Yeah, 12 stacks of five. And they'd be a little taller than me spread across the stage, all getting these different videotapes I had made. We're talking '77, '78. And sometimes there'd be tech problems. All of a sudden, instead of my tape you would see a Fred Astaire movie, you know, or a newscast right in the middle of it. (TS laughs) I guess the point of this whole story...
TG-S: Relates to...
LR: ...really high-contrast. So then we fast forward to here, and you were asking: Why shoot at night? It's because of the high contrast. If there was a film that reacted in daylight the way it does at night I would be using it. Something that makes the colors blaze more.
KZC: All your pictures have sparks.
LR: The blaze, yeah. I like it when it's blazing at you, but I also like color.
KZC: Like in the picture with the ducks.
LR: Yeah...
KZC: Let's talk about ducks. (Laughs) That picture, is it really a duck? Or is it a shadow that's looking like a duck?
LR: No, that's a duck. It's a real duck. But I can't tell you anything else about it. It's a duck in a magical place, and that's why I'm mad about that duck. It's a timeless place; it's like nothing I've ever seen. And it only exists in the camera.
TG-S: What's also marvelous about that picture is that the focus is so weird. You know, people have taken pictures of duck ponds and turned them upside-down before, but this couldn't be manipulated on a computer. And part of it is, it's sort of in and out of focus.
KZC: Well, the idea of a single duck on a pond gets to me. There is a small pond in Fieldston where I walk my dog almost every afternoon, a couple of ducks live there. When I don't see them around I feel lonely. When I see only one I feel even worse. I worry that the mate was eaten by a cat or raccoon.
LR: There are two ducks plus in the picture.
KZC: Oh good.
LR: If you really look.
KZC: I'll have to look again.
LR: Yeah. I didn't even realize this. Don't you remember those comic books, you know, "find the dog." And you'd look in the picture, and there is a dog somewhere in there.
KZC: Hey, speaking of mutations; How does it feel being a refrigerator magnet? (Laughs) Someone told me that they have Miles Davis, Aaron Neville and Lou Reed refrigerator magnets.
TG-S: They make those?
KZC: I guess they make them.
LR: Well, I'd like it a lot better if I was paid for it. (Laughter) If I'm gonna hang on someone's refrigerator, I'd like to get a royalty. But if my image is out there, it has nothing to do with me, there's a picture of someone that looks like me on a refrigerator magnet.
KZC: What are your dreams for the future?
LR: I want to keep pursuing photography, and working on stage plays. I'm doing Time Rocker with Robert Wilson at BAM and that's really exciting. I'm incredibly lucky to have access to these tools. This custom acoustic guitar, which was delivered to me by a luthier named Jim Olson is one of the most beautiful instruments I've ever heard. It arrived today. Some of these things I could have only dreamt of when I was younger: Someday, wouldn't it be great? Like that lens that I bought for the camera.
TG-S: Gorgeous.
LR: Every time I get one of these pieces of equipment, the first thing I do is set it to its extremes. It's kind of like me. I go right to the extreme. I want to know where the limit of it is, what happens over there.
And then I back down...
then I come zipping back down....
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