BILL TAYLOR. A Soul Reader.

With a camera as an extension of his body, Bill Taylor is a character decoder, who brings to the image the essence of reality.

Brought up in North Carolina and currently based in New York, the photographer and musician sat down with GATA Magazine to talk about his artwork.

As for craftsmanship, this artist explores photography not just as a form of portraiture but as a way to connect with his subjects and develop a relationship beyond the lens.

Balancing between monochrome and vivid film colours, Bill Taylor’s photographs tell the stories of the people that he encounters.

With a clear music influence that emanates 90s documentary-realism and 70s aesthetics, his art is an ode to the real street, real people and real souls.

Hello, Bill, can you introduce yourself to the GATA audience?

Hello, my name is Bill Taylor I’m 26 years young from Charlotte, NC. I’m currently living in Brooklyn, New York.

I practice photography and I'm a musician.

How did your relationship with photography first begin?

My relationship with photography started when I was about six or seven.

My parents got me a Pokemon film camera that I would take photos on. I'm sure my mother has those somewhere, where she keeps everything. As I grew up, my mother was always scrapbooking with family photos of my grandparents, great grandparents, etc. So I was exposed to photos of the early 1900s of my family in New York, very posed and uniformed, people dressed very sharp and for their job, black and white wedding photos of my relatives… It’s had a massive impact on me.

I would pull them out religiously and look through, seeing my great grandfather and his milk cart and horse in front of some buildings in Brooklyn, my grandparents in front of their home on Chauncey St. a block away from my first apartment in Brooklyn, when I first moved to New York.

It's stuck with me. I feel like I'm carrying on my family's footprint in New York by being here and telling my own story through my photographs... I still look at them today when I visit her. She is still adding to them.

As I got old I always admired musicians from the Jazz/Blues/Rock and Roll scene. The photographs of them were always so powerful…. (Francis Wolf, Jim Marshall, David Ghar...).

In my late teenage years I had a big obsession with war photography in Vietnam in particular (Nick Ut, Eddie Adams, Henri Huet, Horst Faas...) They had such a passion for documenting that they went into war zones armed with a few cameras and nothing to defend themselves. Then I discovered the works of Helmut Newton, Bruce Davidson, Joel Meyerowitz and many more.

All of this was the start to my relationship with photography. I've been like a sponge absorbing all I can from these masters and adding a piece of me.

“...it’s just my environment, that’s all documentary photography is, it’s stepping in the photographer’s shoes and feeling like you are there experiencing it. The intensity of a situation or the tension in someone’s eyes.”

— Bill taylor

Your photography has a documentary feeling that reminds us of the “Boston Five” (Nan Goldin, David Armstrong, Mark Morrisroe, Jack Pierson, Philip-Lorca Dicorcia) Why does this rough reality appeal to you and your photographic sensibilities?

It's not so much that it appeals to me, it's just my environment, that's all documentary photography is, it's stepping in the photographer's shoes and feeling like you are there experiencing it. The intensity of a situation or the tension in someone's eyes.

People are the main subject in your art, what does the portrait offer your lens that an inanimate object doesn't?

I talk to all of my subjects and form friendships before I even pick up my camera. If I don't feel anything from someone I don't feel an overwhelming need to photograph them.

A portrait is an exchange of energy from person to person something that you don't get from objects. At least for me anyways, I don't walk away from photographing objects with the same feeling as capturing a person. There is always a human interaction which to me is the finest moment for me, you both leave an impact on each other through the short or long time together.

I once spent ten hours with someone I met out front of my apartment, sitting on a trash bag. We talked for a few minutes before walking around together and sitting on stoops drinking liquor, he told me he had stage four cancer and he was living in a shelter... I learned a lot from him. He was very mysterious, intelligent, spiritual, and intense. He spoke eight different languages.

I ended up having to go to the hospital with him. He had a seizure right in front of me, I held him and called the ambulance for help (I have photos of it after EMT arrived to help him it's in my first photobook) and we rode to the hospital a few blocks away, where he never got the care he needed no one tried to help him, even with his sickness, so we ended up walking out and spending some more time together in the park. Rahson wherever you are I hope you are well brother. Salam.

Along with photography you have worked in casting for numerous fashion brands like Helmut Lang, Gucci and several media. Do you think photography and mastering the craft of portrait has helped you to do a job like this or was it the other way around?

I don't think working for those brands ever helped me much... to be honest it helped me realize I never want to work in fashion and it gave me some good opportunities to travel and meet some great people. What really helped was doing castings/go-sees with Midland Casting Agency.

I started working there after I met Walter on my birthday in 2017 we really hit it off talking about music and cracking jokes till the early morning. After I left I didn't see him for two months, then we ran into each other again and we were hanging out everyday for two weeks straight. I didn't even know he had a casting company until he saw my photography and liked my eye for people. He told me to come by a few castings and help pick people out and take casting photos and at the time I was working for a construction company in Brooklyn and was looking for a way out of that so I was excited to get involved. After that I was able to photograph an endless amount of models and street casts which was my favorite part, being able to practice light and composition with my camera and also taking straight on casting portraits of people that were acceptable for clients.

That has really helped me improve my idea of the portrait. (Thank you Walter and Rachel). But I'm by no means a master of the portrait. I’ll be a student till my hands don’t work... then I'll use my feet.

Where do you find the inspiration for your work?

I find inspiration through just about everything...I'm constantly looking for new things to pick up and ways to change which usually opens the door to inspiration.

Music is a huge source of inspiration for me. It fuels everything I do, even my photography. I play guitar and other instruments that I can get my hands on and it's similar to photography. You have the freedom to do anything with the tool you are given; there are no rules and they both require practice and a lot of curiosity.

Reading about my heroes and seeing how they have navigated life and the many stories they tell is so fascinating, It makes me want to make stories of my own and tell them through photos or even music or whatever medium I choose. Photography and art books as well provide endless inspiration. Though I am always interested in the process of creating rather than the product…. The process is the product.

“You have the freedom to do anything with the tool you are given; there are no rules and they both require practice and a lot of curiosity. ”

— bill taylor

With the pandemic, the streets were off limits, did you develop any projects indoors?

No actually, I spent most of my time on the empty streets of New York. I couldn't help but to explore and photograph what that was like especially as a visual artist seeing the city like that generated a lot of ideas. I wanted to make a short film but no one wanted to come outside which was understandable. I would walk to Central Park every day and just lay in the empty park listening to nature... not a soul in the park. It was blissful for once New York was almost dead silent but nature was thriving, a lot of time to reflect and shed the weight of previous years.

Are there any upcoming projects that you could tell us about? Have you considered developing your photography in the fashion field?

Yes, I'm currently working on a book about my dear friend Dragonfly. She's a gifted tattoo artist and illustrator, we met on the street four years ago and have been friends ever since. I had the idea to put this together and actually tell her story, after seeing all of her photos of her life. I had photographed her before I saw any of her archive and wanted to do a personal project of my photos of her, but then decided to just collaborate and include the current photos of her I've taken, and the images that she's taken over the years chronologically, with her guiding you through with her writing.

It's a very precious process though that will take time you know? It’s someone’s life you have in your hands…all her work. It's very personal, but for her to trust me to do this with her whole archive is a true blessing and I will do it justice.

Your photography is very raw, very real, what message do you want to share with the world through your photography?

I personally don't have a message for the world through my photography. It's just my life and my reaction to my environment and I feel that the viewer draws from it what they feel when they view it. I can't explain what it is I exactly go for but it has never been for the pleasure of the public eye, It's just what I'm curious about.