Benjamin Goss, The collector of souls

My inspiration for the images im creating now comes from symbols and archetypes in mythology, history, religion, and our sub-concience.

Im facinated by fables, rituals, and everyday practices and customs from cultures past and present. Above all I find rituals to the most fascinating.  Photography for me in a sense is very ritualistic…from image making to darkroom work. I was born and raised in an urban setting in the U.S. both in Texas and NJ.  I worked in New York for a while with film production then moved to Spain for a few years.  In 2002 I moved to Karlstad Sweden, a small rustic town on the big lake and have been here ever since. All of my work including color is processed, developed and printed by myself in the darkroom.  I use a variety of cameras from point and shoot 35mm to 8×10 inch large format cameras. My focus right now is mainly on portaiture even though I come from a subjective documentary backgroud.  I dont define myself as a ”portrait” photographer.  I am more like a collector and sheaperd of souls.  I borrow them to create my own fantasy world.

My three major projects as of now are; Breathe, Intuition, and Värmland.  Breathe is a collection of frontal, exposed, and ”naked” portraits taken with a 8×10 inch camera at long shutter speeds.  Intuition is my personal documentation of the street life in New York over a 10 year period.  Last, Värmland is kind of a voyeuristic/satiristic collection of B&W ”snap shots” from my life here in Sweden.  All of my projects are entirely subjective.  They are not staged, but when edited and put together they become fictitious and sureal. Art imitating life or life imitating art. Right now I am currently working on 8×10 portaits of Swedish musicians that I find a connection with in their music. [Official Website]

My current inspiration and guides right now are Nobuyosi Araki, Peter Beard, and Sally Mann­­.