Photographer Phillip Lehans created the book “Village Beaches,” which includes a series of photographs taken at East Hampton beaches using a pinhole camera. We spoke with Lehans to find out more.
Tell us about your background and your work as a photographer.
I’ve been a photographer for the last 29 years, ever since I got a camera as a middle-school graduation present from my father. Friends, vacation photos, and landscapes were my main subjects and I got my first taste of the darkroom in high school. That’s probably about the time I began to view photography as an art form, when I was hands-on through the whole process. I had always gravitated to the arts but there was something just so fascinating and soothing about the darkroom, and yes, magical. From that point on, I mostly left drawing and painting behind and went all-in on photography. I began stringing for newspapers, studied photography in college and went back to school when the medium transitioned to digital. The new technology was really exciting but required a whole different set of skills. Film photography felt as though it was doomed to be entirely phased-out but thankfully it’s held on and has even seen a resurgence.
Can you talk a little about your latest book, “Village Beaches”?
“Village Beaches” was in every way the right project at the right time, a creative response to what was known as the “new normal.” Summer on the East End is always so hectic with most of my time being spent running a photo studio. In-season, it monopolizes the majority of my attention and creative energy. When the pandemic hit, it was basically radio silence. Nothing was happening. As brutal as this was from an income standpoint, it created an opportunity to develop a project and work in a way that attracted me to photography in the first place, as an analog, tangible art form. Over the summer of 2020, I shot 200 rolls of film for what became a very meditative, etherial series of images. Using a camera without a viewfinder, screen or any immediate method of feedback was also part of the appeal. Relinquishing a certain level of control shifted the creative process to a more intuitive and naturalistic experience.
You use a pinhole camera to capture the beaches of East Hampton. What made you choose this medium?
I had purchased this wooden pinhole camera years earlier and had used it intermittently for fun. It’s not the kind of thing a client generally requests so it spent a lot of time on the shelf. It’s a miniaturized version of the origin of photography, a camera obscura, basically a box with a tiny hole in the front, no lens. The pace of the world during the pandemic called for this medium. It’s a slow, patient way of working. With exposures ranging from two seconds to a half hour, there can be a lot of down time. With nowhere to go and nothing to do that summer, hustling wasn’t really part of the culture. Exposures with longer durations were moments to settle in and absorb my surroundings, which was an excellent use of time.
This became your pandemic project?
Yes, my “pandemic project” is what I affectionately refer to it as. From shooting the first frame to delivering the final manuscript to my publisher took exactly a year. The ritual of setting my alarm every morning for quarter to five established a routine and sense of purpose at a time when I and much of the population was deemed “unessential.” I hadn’t done any all-consuming personal work in a long time so for better or worse, the pandemic response created the environment for me to develop a project and work in a way I wouldn’t otherwise have had the capacity to do. All the photography happened in the summer. Through fall and into winter I scanned almost 900 pieces of film for which I put together an abridged demo book. Once I got the green light from my publisher, I began to build the full version, wrote the introduction, and petitioned my friend Michael to write the foreword. By the time all the parts were in order, it was May of 2021 and the East End exploded with its characteristic, seasonal influx.
Have you always had a strong connection with nature?
My connection to nature didn’t play as prominent a role in the beginning. The project started out a bit more mechanical, probably because I was getting reacquainted with the camera and feeling out the direction the series would take. I feel guilty sometimes when I don’t take full-enough advantage of my proximity to the ocean but a stronger bond came with familiarity. As I became immersed on a more-regular basis, I found myself increasingly in tune with nature’s rhythm and the photography almost became an accompaniment. With many of the exposures in the ten to fifteen minute-range, much of the process was out of my hands. All too often, my photography is a lot about the gear, the lighting, the lenses and the accessories. In the case of this book, nature’s influence overshadowed the equipment, which was an absolutely refreshing way to work.
What other types of cameras do you often use? We see you do a lot of work with film.
So much of the work I do is digital. It’s probably 80/20 digital to film though I’d like to reverse that. Most photography these days call for digital. Clients generally need photos quickly, almost in real-time. I don’t really like how the medium has morphed in to a largely superficial, disposable craft. For this reason, I try and separate my digital “jobs” from my film-based personal-work and art. For more spontaneous and casual shooting I have a couple 35mm Canon film cameras along with a beautiful 1934 Leica. For portrait work, I really enjoy using my Contax 645 and Pentax 67. They’re slow to shoot with which feels more deliberate and with the larger film format, the images they produce have more presence.
What about the East End inspires you?
On the East End, I’d say I’m most inspired by the people I meet. It’s a very driven population, lots of people pushing themselves, experimenting, creating things, doing their best to chart their own course. Also it’s an amazing place to find collaborators, someone trying to find the missing piece for something they’re working on. People asking, “How can we make something great?” Even in the off-season, it’s not a sedentary population.
“Village Beaches” is available locally at BookHampton and Sylvester & Co. among other specialty boutiques. Prints are available through the artist’s website, lehans.com with a select series on display at the Monika Olko Gallery in Sag Harbor.
