Interviewed and Photo Edited by Joe Cuccio

Ian Edward White (b. 1996, San Jose, CA) is a photographer based in Nashville, TN. White’s practice originates from the necessity he feels to close the distance between himself and the world around him. He is interested in using the camera as a device for connection, and it is through the photographic act that White finds poetic meaning in a flawed, yet wondrous American social landscape. White received an MFA in Photography & Related Media from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2022 and is now a Lecturer in Photography at Middle Tennessee State University.

© Ian Edward White, Untitled, Shelbyville, TN, 2023

Musee Magazine: When did you realize photography was the path you wanted to follow?

Ian Edward White: Back in 2018, I finished my undergraduate studies. I moved back home that summer feeling hopeless about my future knowing that I did not want to live the life of a businessman. Photography was something that I enjoyed doing in high school, and while it took a back seat during college, it never fully left my psyche. I’d take my camera with me on day trips or go see exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

That Fall, I planned to go on a three-week trip to Europe. Leading up to that trip, I reinvigorated my love for photography by making new images, mainly around the Oceanside Pier in California.The visual language of street photography was fascinating to me, and it was something tangible that I could commit myself to. When it was time to leave for Europe, I decided to bring a lot of 35mm color film with me to continue exploring this budding practice even more seriously. Being alone in a foreign land so far from home granted me a newfound freedom to create and the space to completely fall into the experience. That trip was monumental in the development of my photographic life.

Musee Magazine: What makes a powerful portrait?

Ian Edward White: What makes a powerful portrait is such a mystery, and I think that’s what keeps me coming back to it time and time again. I could have the most profound interaction with someone where we spend hours looking over a dam from a suspended railroad bridge sharing stories about love, ideology, and family. In the moment, I’ll feel excited and moved, waiting for the right time to lift the camera to my eye, and generally feel like I’ve gotten the image. Then, I’ll get the roll of film back and the work just doesn’t stack up to the lived experience. Maybe it’s not the right light, uneven composition, a shaky exposure, or an infinite number of reasons.

On a different day, I’ll have a fleeting conversation with someone and time to only make a few exposures; maybe I don’t even get their name. That portrait, for whatever reason, ends up being much stronger than the bridge situation, even though I didn’t spend nearly as much time nor connect as deeply as I had hoped to.

Making a powerful portrait is one of the hardest things to do as a photographer. It’s about more than just the subject, setting, lighting, and my approach. It’s about the ethereal, too. That sort of cosmic alignment shows up in any great portrait. Some portraits are meant to echo for eternity, some are only meant to echo in the lived experience.

During my time at RIT, Curran Hatleberg gave an artist talk and said, “Some experiences turn into photographs, but most just become stories.” That’s stuck with me to this day because it reminds me that the power of portraiture is the connections you make along the way. There are so many people I would’ve never met had I not asked to spend time with them as a photographer. It’s incredible how magical or serendipitous some of these meetings are. There is an inherent value to the simple act of being seen and heard, which is enjoyed by myself and the people I’m photographing.

Musee Magazine: What is something that needs to happen for you to feel that you can create a strong series of images?

Ian Edward White: This might sound obvious, but time reveals everything. There are pictures I made when I first moved to Tennessee that I thought would be a part of this current project forever. By now, I’d say all but two of them have been cut from consideration. The longer I can spend time working on a project, the more the deck clears for me. Especially in the way I work, because the way I perceive a place drastically changes over time. When I first moved down to the South, I saw it in a very cliché way, where every gothic church or family gathering on the front porch demanded my attention. After living here for sixteen months, I feel as though I’m starting to understand the rhythm of Middle Tennessee, seeing genuinely compelling subject matter a bit more objectively.

© Ian Edward White, Untitled, Woodbury, TN, 2023

Ian Edward White recently contributed work to the SE Center Open at the South East Center for Photography in Greenville, South Carolina. He also has been a Photolucida Critical Mass Top 200 artist and was chosen for the 2022 LENSCRATCH Student Prize: 25 to Watch List. More recently he has been chosen to be a participant in the 2024 Chico Portfolio Review. Be on the lookout for his ongoing projects entitled By and By, as well as his untitled project exploring his new home of Tennessee.