“The Purity of the Flawed”

An Interview with Tintype Photographer Josh Wool

I first came upon Josh Wool’s work last year while researching a piece on the passing of Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Wool had processed one of the last images captured of Hoffman at Sundance, a grainy black and white tintype of the actor shot by Victoria Will. There was something deeply haunting about the image, a kind of strange foreshadowing of the end of an internal war. As Wool’s recent bio for the Visual Supply Company states plainly, “With an honest approach to documenting his subjects, Josh captures intimate, up-close moments. His portraiture puts the viewer right in the room with his subject and conjures a desire to understand their story.”

I heard from Wool again this past summer. I had recently moved to Lake Hill, a small rural community in the Catskills when Wool contacted me about doing a shoot for a project on artists and writers who had escaped the mélange of the city for the artistic life up north. I was honored to sit for him as one of his subjects. 

The evening of our shoot, a heavy rain descended upon the mountain. Afforded some time indoors, Wool and I took refuge in conversation and a pair of margaritas. Shut away until the sky cleared, we discussed the role of the south in Wool’s work, how he first came to photography after his career as a cook in the kitchen and reclaiming the intricate process of tintype photography—an age old trade. The next day was glorious.  I sat out under the maple tree in a straight backed folding chair, while Wool captured the above image. I’ve always been shy about being photographed, but I think the image speaks to Wool’s talent—his ability to see the deeper flaws in his subjects and reveal them as strength. As we stood together in the August heat, working out of the traveling dark room which Wool creates in the trunk of his car, smelling the strange smell of processing chemicals, I had the pleasure of watching one of Wool’s images come to life. I hardly recognized myself. He had captured my life in a moment of great transition.  

—Ann DeWitt

I. The South & The Purity of The Flawed

THE BELIEVER: Do you feel like the south plays a role in your work?

JOSH WOOL: A little bit. There’s definitely that southern, gothic sort feel to some of it.

BLVR: There’s a real purity in a lot of the people who you choose to photograph. But there are others that are flawed, too. Which is what I respond to in a lot of your portraits. There’s something vulnerable about everybody.

JW:...