Siege. Clayton James Cubitt. Born in Calgary, Alberta, grew up ...
Clayton James Cubitt. Born in Calgary, Alberta, grew up in New Orleans and the trailer parks of the Deep South. Son of two "hippie types," conceived in the back of a VW van at the Dinosaur National Park in Utah. Could only afford a camera 10 years ago; he used it to capture images for his paintings and drawings. Six years ago, photography became his primary art form. Shoots erotica derived from his "open" relationship with his girlfriend and their lovers using the colored lighting and sets of a fashion or commercial editorial. Nerve.com is creating a space for him to do a daily blog, which he will use as a chance to exhibit his creative process and visual studies.
Why do you think your photography speaks to so many people? I think I've found what's missing in a lot of erotica, which is really hard to do properly. Stuff that looks really cool and would be a beautiful photograph regardless of its content, but is done in an honest, sexy way that reveals a bit of actual life. There's nothing sexy about people doing it because they're getting paid to do it. For me, the sexiest shots make me feel like I'm there, seeing what's not supposed to be seen.
What's with the blog? Initially, I was like, "I don't know about this." It kind of freaked me out because I surf a lot of blogs to see what's going on with this photo journal kind of trend, and I'm kind of turned off by a lot of them. I don't think that every piece of crap that I drop in my camera winds up being a nugget that people want to look at. Also, I didn't know what kind of expectations Nerve was going to have, because I know a lot of my exhibits have been really "Pow." You know, action. I hope people don't have the notion that every day I'm going to take pictures of me and like 10 girls having an orgy or something. That happens, but not every day.
Why do you think people are so fascinated with your open relationship? I think people are just naturally interested in how other people live. We're curious monkeys; we want to know what's going on in the other tree.
How long does it take to complete a photo series? The galleries I've done for Nerve were drawn from the course of normal life, like the first set called the "Dreampod Sessions"-that was just taken in my bedroom over the course of a night. Basically, we had friends over and we were all just in our environment and doing what we would do normally. o